The girl quit leaning against the game and shifted her gaze to Kylie’s hand but didn’t take it. “How come you’re suddenly everywhere?” the girl demanded. Her posse remained on the table in the corner but no longer crawled all over one another. Instead they were still, watching curiously as their spokesperson gathered the info she would no doubtedly return to inquiring minds.
Kylie had endured interrogation from a lot worse than this assertive teenager. “I’m working on my thesis at the University of Kansas,” she offered, ready with her cover she’d prepared for when she became interactive with this community.
“Then why are you here? That university is in Lawrence.”
Kylie shrugged. “There’s more action here,” she said. “I’m studying the interaction and subculture known to the world as that of the American teenager.”
The girl stared at Kylie a moment longer before her eyes widened. Understanding apparently kicked in and her surprise made the gray flecks in her green eyes grow. It was a very pretty eye color.
“That is fucking cool as hell,” she said quietly. “So you’re like trailing us around and watching how we act and shit?”
“Something like that.”
“Dude, that is so cool.” The girl turned around and left Kylie, her long brown hair flowing down her narrow back as she hurried back to her group of friends.
Kylie flipped coins in her hand and searched the arcade game for the slot where the money went. The teenagers were talking in the corner, watching her, and once again crawling over one another. Kylie strained to listen while dropping quarters into the machine, and then proceeded to lose miserably in several games of war against battleships in some remote galaxy. Fortunately, the volume on the game was so low she couldn’t hear anything it said. If she cared about winning, that would probably annoy her. She pushed the buttons, barely paying attention to what happened on the screen, and focused on the teenagers’ continuous chatter. The kids never discussed the Internet or meeting anyone they’d never met before. Instead they talked about her and what they would do when they went to college, or if they were going to college.
Kylie listened, learning more about the group of kids. They were normal, healthy children, all of whom appeared to come from decent homes from what she could tell by their conversations. They were living the life she never had the chance to live. And if she did her job right, all of them would continue growing up normally and healthy and not be robbed of their youth like her sister and Kylie were. She knew better than anyone how an online sexual predator destroyed more than just his prey. But she was here, protecting them. None of them would be deprived of life. She would see to it.
Once it was dark, the movie theater, which was about a mile from Kylie’s rental house, turned into a teenage jungle. She really had submerged into a world that didn’t exist anywhere else. And to these young people there was no world other than their own. It was the same from city to city, a subculture of teenagers, preoccupied with their sexual hormones and unaware of the evil that lurked, watching them prance around, wearing next to nothing. Not that children of her own were in her future, but Kylie would never allow her daughter to leave the house dressed the way some of these girls were dressed.
Kylie stood in a bathroom stall, listening while three girls discussed whether they should stay at the movie theater or head over to the McDonald’s parking lot, apparently another popular location for the in-crowd. There wasn’t any mention of seeing a movie.
Heading across the parking lot to where she’d parked her car, Kylie strolled slowly, aware of the long-haired girl who’d approached her earlier. The teenager sat on the curb, under a streetlight, possibly waiting on a ride. She spoke quickly and quietly on a cell phone. Kylie paused, hovering between two parked cars, out of sight but not out of earshot.
“I told you, dude, that’s just stupid.” There was a bossy, commanding edge to the girl’s voice. Maybe she was the leader of her group of friends, the one who called the shots, told everyone else how to dress and act. Kylie had always envied and been a bit mystified by girls like that when she’d been in school. Karen had been a leader, but Kylie hadn’t even been a follower. She’d never figured out how to be part of any of the in-groups. “Everyone knows you don’t go meet some dude off-line you’ve never met before. And no, I don’t sound like my uncle. I’m just smart. Now if you take me with you, I might be cool with it.”
The girl laughed and jumped up from her perch on the curb, hurrying across the parking lot.
“Shit,” Kylie groaned, turning for her own car. All evening she’d listened to nonsense hoping to hear something to help her move this case forward. Finally a bite, and the girl took off sprinting across the lot. “So head home and surf around online. We’ve got the beginning of a lead on the prey; now we look for the predator.” Kylie rolled her eyes, wondering when she had started talking about herself like she was fucking royalty or something.
“That’s her, Uncle Perry,” a familiar voice said behind Kylie.
“Who?”
“That college girl I told you about. The one studying teenagers.”
Kylie slowed, realizing the teenage girl she had just watched run across the parking lot now walked directly behind her. If she didn’t turn around, she would appear rude. And gaining the trust of some of the teenage girls in town was imperative if she was to solve this case.
“Studying teenagers, huh,” the uncle said, sounding gruff.
Kylie glanced around her as she turned, taking in her surroundings. It was a large, dark parking lot with bright streetlights creating enough light to make it easy to see from one end of the lot to the other. There were kids everywhere, some huddled in small groups while others threw a football over parked cars. It was like walking across a large playground instead of a public parking lot. It amazed her that teenagers did the same thing, no matter which city she was in, when they didn’t have a clue what was going on in the world around them and focused only on their friends.
Turning a half circle, she met the amused look of the long-brown-haired girl, her eyeliner applied even thicker than it was that afternoon. There were two other girls with her, one of them tall and lanky, with curly auburn hair, and the other about the same height as the brunette, with hair almost identical. They could be sisters.
“Learn lots of good stuff to write in your paper?” the teenage girl asked.
“Getting some ideas.” Kylie smiled at her and the other girls but then shifted her attention to the man with them.
It was the man who’d shown up at the parking lot yesterday and tried coming over to her. She didn’t get a good look at him at the time, but now, in the darkness with streetlights accentuating shadows, the tall, dark-haired man staring at her, his expression unreadable, was damn near the best-looking guy she’d ever laid eyes on in her life.
“My uncle is a cop,” the teenage girl said smugly, grinning broadly.
Kylie matched the girl’s smile, unwilling to lose what little trust she’d managed so far. Since she already knew he was part of the local law enforcement, she at least maintained her cool with that piece of knowledge.
“How neat.” Sounding calm when absolutely sinful eyes gazed down at her proved a hell of a lot harder to do than it should have. Her heart pattered too fast in her chest, and her palms grew damp, making her itch to rub them against the sides of her short dress.
Kylie fought not to show any signs of being affected under his incredibly scrutinizing stare. Heat flamed to life inside her, but she held her ground, not doing as much as even shifting her weight from one foot to the next. “I never did get your name,” she said, turning her attention to the girl and meeting those alert gray-green eyes head- on.
“Dani,” she said.
“Let’s go, girls,” their uncle growled, and quickly herded them away from Kylie; then glancing over his shoulder, he pinned her with dark, intense eyes that sent chills over her enflamed body. “I didn’t know college students drove around in rentals.”
“You do now,” she offered, and turned away from him toward her car before she lost her composure. He’d run her tag after seeing her in the mall parking lot. Interesting.
Chapter 3
