Page 9 of Enter if you Dare: Part One

Cipher nods and looks at the bag clutched in my hands.

“I’m taking it to Cave. It belongs to the girl.”

Cipher’s eyes meet mine, and I smirk. He and Cave are chummy; I’ve seen Cave dragging him into the cornfield and can only imagine what goes on between them. I’m no peeping tom, but I would love to watch. Something tells me Cave is a freak in the sheets . . . or hay.

Cipher makes a noise of agreement, maybe—I’m not always great at reading social cues. “I’ll get it done. The girl lives in West Thornfield if you want to return the bag yourself.”

He rattles off an address, and I leave him to deal with the car as I take the long way round to the cornfield. It passes a water tower, and I love the view when I need to think. I climb halfway up the ladder, then turn and look over the rooftops.

In the bag, the phone won’t stop buzzing. I consider answering it but decide not to, as it’s better if no one knows she was here. Climbing back down, I head to the field and find Cave where he normally is waiting, though it’s freaky how he knows who is coming just from sound alone. When I first ventured in here, wanting to be his friend, he chased me out while rattling off riddles, but once I’d guessed one correctly, he stopped. Or maybe he gave up when he realized I would keep coming back.

“Morning,” I sing. “Beautiful morning, and great weather for standing around in a cornfield all day.”

He smirks at me, or at least his version of it.

“So, we had a small problem. That man had a car—I found it over the bridge, but don’t worry, Cipher is making it go away. Oh, and I also found this.”

His eyes move from my face to the bag.

“Her stuff,” I explain. “Phone, keys, the whole lot.”

Cave takes a few long strides, then grabs for the bag, and I let him have it. There must be something about her that drew him to help her. Cave doesn’t help strangers; he barely helps those he knows.

“The phone keeps ringing, but I didn’t answer it. Figured we don’t want anyone knowing she was here.”

He opens the bag and looks inside. Then closes it and holds it at his side.

“I know where she lives if you want to return it to her,” I tell him.

He doesn’t say he wants to go, but I know he does.

“You want to come?” I ask.

He looks at me and pulls the bag to his chest.

“That’s a yes,” I say, pulling my keys from my pocket. “I’m driving.”

He doesn’t argue, but that’s just because he has never been in my car before. He doesn’t know the experience he’s signing up for.

I collect the hearse—it’s beaten up, but it’s all mine—and clear the passenger seat of old paperwork and a sleeping bag, so there is space for his large body. Though I have a room here on the island, sometimes I like to pull my car up in the cemetery and sleep in the back.

I stop near the cornfield and pick up Cave, and he doesn’t hesitate to climb in. Normally people get weird about riding in a hearse, but not him. He slides in like it’s a regular car, then glances over at me with impatience.

It’s a forty-minute drive, and Cave remains silent the entire way, so I entertain myself with a Greatest Hits From the 80s tape stuck in the cassette player. Cave clutches the bag on his lap like it’s his most prized possession, and I don’t comment because I’m not suicidal.

The address Cipher rattled off is on a narrow street lined with houses. It would look ideal for families with its rows of white picket fences, except most have now fallen down or rotted due to age, making it no longer the American dream. The trees on the street are even the annoying kind that drop leaves all year round.

Cave makes no move to get out when we pull up out front, so I take the initiative and open my door. The noise startles him into movement, and he follows me to the door, walking one step behind me, almost bumping into my back when I reach up to knock.

We wait, but no one answers. So I knock again, this time louder. “Hello? Anyone home?”

Looking over my shoulder, I see Cave is still super close. “She isn’t home,” I say, trying the handle. “We can come back, or . . .” I nod toward a slightly open window. “I can get us in that way.”

I move around Cave and down to the window. It takes about thirty seconds to undo the inside latch and push the window up enough that I can pull my body through. I hear the front door open when I’m halfway through the window and find Cave standing in the front room holding the keys.

He looks at me and shakes his head.

“Keys, right, I knew that. I was testing her home security to make sure she is safe, and guess what? She isn’t.”