Read Dead Ringers 1: Illusion for Free Online

the wet, earthy smell that filled my nostrils when the hood slipped off comes back to me. The smell could have been drifting from a swamp, like the ones that populate Wilder Woods.
    “Why would she go there?” I ask. “It’s in the middle of nowhere.”
    “I don’t know why Adair does what Adair does.”
    “Did you check to make sure she was there?”
    “Nope. I’m not going to, either.”
    “But...” I stop myself before I ask what if someone besides Adair sent the text. “What if she’s not at the cabin?”
    “Then she’s not at the cabin.”
    The entire scenario doesn’t sit right. When I was gone for those forty-eight hours, my friends and family weren’t out looking for me either because of texts I hadn’t sent.
    “Adair’s not missing, Jade.” Hunter’s voice cuts into my thoughts. His eyes bore into mine. “You understand that, right?”
    If I argue, he’ll join the legions of other people in town who think I’m crazy. That is, if he doesn’t think so already.
    “Of course I do.” I hope my smile hides what I’m really thinking. “It’s just Adair being Adair.”
    “Exactly.” The tension seems to drain out of him.
    That’s because he doesn’t know I’m heading to Wilder Woods as soon as we’re through talking. I owe it to myself to find out if the clown has struck again.

CHAPT ER SIX
     
    Guilt has something to do with Becky surrendering the keys to her Honda Fit without a fight. She’s working the carnival tonight so I make the argument that she doesn’t need it. The real clincher is that her parents presented her with the cute, pint-sized car for high school graduation while I got only enough money to buy bicycle brake pads.
    I feel guilty, too. To convince Becky to let me borrow the Fit, I told her a movie theater thirty miles away is hosting a Horror Spectacular. That’s actually true. I’m just not going.
    The road narrows to two lanes when I get to the Midway Beach suburbs. A car that looks suspiciously like my mother’s blue Chevy pops up in my rearview mirror.
    “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I say aloud.
    Mom could be headed to a real estate listing, but I don’t buy that for a second. I thought I’d seen her lurking around the carnival shortly before we closed. Now I’m sure of it.
    I press my foot down on the accelerator, jerk the Fit over the double yellow line and pass two cars. One of the drivers shoots me the bird. The other lays on his horn. When I’ve covered enough distance that I’m fairly certain I’m out of mom’s sight line, I pull into a gas station and circle around back of the building that houses a convenience store.
    Minutes later, the car that looked familiar whizzes by. My mother isn’t driving.
    “Oh, great.” I shut my eyes tight and knead my forehead. “Now I’m the one imagining people are following me.”
    I gather myself, pull out of the gas station parking lot and put on my favorite indie rock radio station to soothe myself. A half-hour later I’m at the edge of the coastal forest. Wilder Woods consists of more than one hundred acres of spindly pine trees, saltwater estuaries and raised swamps. My memory’s fuzzy on the exact location of the cabin so I drive blind, taking a few wrong turns before spotting a dirt service road that looks familiar.
    A sign reads: No Trespassing. Private Hunting Land.
    I take the turnoff, and the tires of the Fit start a bumpy ride over a pitted dirt road flanked by thick vegetation. Dusk has fallen, covering everything in gloom. Even if it hadn’t been for the overhanging branches, it’s overcast and there’s no natural light from the stars or the moon. The car’s headlights are the only thing preventing total darkness.
    I remember Adair saying her father used the cabin almost every weekend during hunting season, which I’m pretty sure is in the fall and the spring depending on what game you’re hunting. In the summer and winter, there isn’t much reason to come to Wilder Woods,