Read The Dangerous Game for Free Online

eat almost anything, and she never gains even an ounce. No wonder she makes people mad.’
    She gave Jenny a big smile and then raised her glass in a toast. The Amarone tasted fabulous, and they all drank several glasses of the red wine. Jenny started feeling the effects, which made her giggly and lightheaded.
    Several times during the meal she had discreetly checked her mobile. The others were sure that Markus would turn up at any moment, if for no other reason than he must be hungry. There was no food in the cabin where he was staying.
    Jenny went outside to smoke a cigarette and give him a call, but she couldn’t get through. When she asked the desk clerk about this, she was told that the mobile coverage at the cabins wasn’t good. The guests could seldom be reached by phone, and that was the reason why most of them wanted to stay there. To get away from the outside world.
    When it was close to eleven, the party broke up.
    ‘He probably fell asleep,’ said Hugo. ‘See you tomorrow.’
    Jenny’s pulse quickened as she thought about Markus. It seemed so unlikely that he would simply have fallen asleep out there. He must be longing for her as much as she yearned for him. Earlier in the day he had whispered to her that he could hardly wait to be alone with her. What if he’d decided to skip dinner and had been waiting for her all this time? He’d told her that he had brought along a bottle of champagne, which he’d stowed in an insulated bag in the car. She felt weak-kneed at the thought of how considerate he was. He cared too much about her to have simply written her off this evening.
    Jenny hurried to her room to touch up her lipstick and spray on more perfume. She slipped her toothbrush into her handbag and put on a warm jacket. It wasn’t really cold – the temperature was several degrees above freezing – but she could hear the wind blowing outside the window.
    When she stepped outside, she saw that it was pitch dark beyond the dimly lit forecourt. The old stone crusher up on the hill looked ghostly and frightening in the darkness. She couldn’t make out much of the sea, catching only a glimpse of the black expanse as she listened to the roar of the waves. The remaining massive piles of crushed limestone loomed against the sky.
    She found a women’s bicycle among the row of ungainly military bikes lined up along the wall of the hotel. Several of them had toppled over in the wind.
    The gravel appeared white in the dark; the feeble glow from the bicycle lamp wasn’t much help in finding her way. Far off on the horizon she saw a few faint red dots of light.
    She tried not to think too much about her surroundings, focusing instead on her riding. Markus had said that it wasn’t far to the cabin.
    She soon found herself approaching the wind turbine on the hill. Its powerful white tower disappeared into the dark sky. She could hear the huge blades spinning; the sound of their rotation penetrated through the rush of the wind and the roar from the sea down below. The closer she got, the louder the sound. She heard a steady swishing, a rhythmic whooshing. As she passed directly underneath, the three arms turned overhead like knife blades slicing through the night air. The base of the tower stood right next to the road, and she could have almost touched it if she’d reached out her hand. It felt as if the wind turbine was a great roaring beast, very much alive. But she had to ride past; there was no way to avoid it.
    She pedalled as hard as she could and felt a certain relief once the wind turbine was behind her. Now she entered the woods. The road levelled out, and the wind wasn’t as strong among the trees. Tightly packed on both sides of the road were spruce trees, pines, shrubbery and dense thickets. She happened to cast a glance into the woods and noticed a menacing dark strip of sky with patches of grey. The faint moonlight that managed to filter through the trees created sinister shadows. ‘Don’t look,’