AERIN DIDN’T WANT to stop kissing Thomas, but she pulled away regardless, remembering the task at hand. She needed to remain vigilant. They might not have spotted Brett yet, but maybe that was because of their location. Moving around might help. “Come on,” she said, taking Thomas’s hand. “Let’s grab some food.”

They walked to the table overstuffed with snacks. Aerin felt a mix of nervous giddiness and wasn’t in the mood to eat, but she grabbed a couple of pretzel rods anyway. She wasn’t sure what made her look over her shoulder, but when she did, she noticed a flutter off to the left. She jolted back, doing a double take. A figure lurked behind one of the large concrete posts across the pool. He wore a black mask that concealed most of his face, but when his head turned just so, she got a look straight into his eyes. They were bright and round; if she’d been closer, she was sure they’d be blue.

They were his eyes. Brett’s.

Aerin dropped Thomas’s hand. “What?” Thomas asked, pulling the mask back over his face. “What’s going on?”

“Quiet,” she hissed, her throat tight. She could feel the heat in her cheeks. Sweat prickled on her brow. Holy shit, yelled one voice in her head. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be him.

You need to play it cool, yelled a second voice. You need to pretend you didn’t see him. But how long had he been standing there? Had he seen her? Had he seen Thomas? Finally, when she thought enough time had passed that it no longer seemed so obvious, she glanced at the concrete post once more. Brett was gone.

She took off across the pool deck. Thomas was on her heels. “Aerin,” he murmured. “Tell me what’s happening!”

“Shhh,” Aerin murmured out of the corner of her mouth. “I think…” Then she froze. The figure in black—Brett—had reappeared by one of the exits.

Thomas seemed to spy him at the same time. He grabbed her wrist. “Is that…?”

Aerin squeezed his hand. “Don’t look directly at him.”

The figure in black was just standing there, blending into the high bushes that acted as a natural barrier around the pool. Every few seconds, his head jerked this way and that—he seemed to be searching the crowd. He didn’t see them.

Aerin folded in her shoulders to make herself smaller. She was desperate to signal Seneca, but she didn’t want to make any sudden movements that gave her position away.

“You don’t know how badly I want to go over there and bash that guy’s head in,” Thomas murmured quietly.

“Please don’t,” Aerin urged. But Thomas had brought up a good point: It was insane that they were just standing here, a few yards from a murderer, but they couldn’t do anything about it. She considered the words in his message again: I’ve got a killer surprise for you. What could it be?

There was a sudden shift out of the corner of her eye, and Aerin stiffened, instantly on alert. The figure in black was now staring at a phone screen, its tiny LED light illuminated against his mask. Aerin’s fingers clamped around her phone—maybe she should snap a photo of him. At the very least, she should text Seneca. But before she could do either, the figure turned sharply and headed toward a small break in the bushes. He moved quickly and with purpose, his head ducked, his shoulders hunched. In mere seconds, the darkness had swallowed him up.

Aerin glanced at Thomas. “Let’s go.”

They elbowed their way toward the exit. Aerin glanced over her shoulder once more for Seneca but couldn’t see her through the crowd. Anxiously, she elbowed around a knot of kids doing group tequila shots and peered into the little corridor. Tiny tea lights lit the path, and the air temperature, free from the crush of bodies, had dropped at least ten degrees. Not a single person was around.

Aerin listened for footsteps, breathing, anything, to indicate Brett was close, and though she heard nothing, she was almost positive someone was close by. What if this was a trap? She glanced at Thomas. What if Brett was watching? What if he was furious Thomas was with her?

“Hello?” she whispered. A wave crashed in the distance. Someone splashed loudly into the pool.

“Up there?” Thomas pointed to concrete steps to their right that led to the condo’s lobby through a set of double doors. Aerin nodded, and they took the stairs two at a time. At the top of the stairs, she looked around. The lobby was empty. Two elevator doors stood open. Even the front desk was eerily unoccupied.

Frowning, she stepped out of the lobby and walked down the stairs. To her left, perpendicular to the stairs and opposite the pool, was a chain-link fence. Beyond it was a vacant grassy stretch of sand that sat directly under the building’s expansive terrace. Aerin squinted into the dark lot. Maybe that was where Brett had gone? All she could see were some weeds, some trash, and a Dumpster. She looked up. The terrace loomed above, awfully high. It seemed empty.

It might be a perfect place to hide.

“Come on.” She grabbed Thomas’s hand and pulled him through a gap in the fence and into the lot under the terrace. She bumped her bare ankles against spare boards strewn about. The area was dark, and there was a strange chemical smell emanating from the earth. Every time Aerin took a step, she kicked against more trash and debris.

She heard a whimper and turned her head. It was just the wind, swishing the grass back and forth—right? But suddenly, as she stepped around a Dumpster, something new rose up in front of her, a dark, uncertain shape on the ground that turned her limbs to stone. Her breath froze in her throat. The moment seemed to stretch out for years, but finally Aerin dared to peek more closely at what it was: a crumpled, lifeless male body, half-hidden among the trash and the reeds.

She started to scream.