Empty—the space behind the container was completely, utterly, depressingly empty.
No one was here.
I sprinted to the opposite end of the container, around the side, and back out into the parking lot beyond, but the shadow had vanished. I whirled around and around, looking in all directions, but I was all alone. If the Dollmaker had been here, he was gone.
“Dammit!” I snarled, stalking back and forth across the parking lot. “Dammit!”
Angry and frustrated, I whipped around and slammed my boot into the side of the closest Dumpster, right where the shadow had been. The wheels screeched in protest, but the container slid back a couple of inches, and a glimmer of gold flashed in the sun.
I blinked, wondering if my eyes were playing tricks on me, but they weren’t.
Something bright and shiny was lying underneath the Dumpster, close to one of the front wheels.
Still holding my knife, I looked around again, just in case this was a ploy to get me to lower my guard so my enemy could get the drop on me. But I was as alone as before, so I sidled forward, crouched down, and reached underneath the Dumpster. Sure enough, my fingers closed over something cold, hard, and metal, and I pulled it out where I could see it.
A small gold tube glinted in the palm of my hand.
And not just any kind of tube—a lipstick case.
I sucked in a breath and got to my feet. I glanced around again, making sure that no one was sneaking up on me, then slid my knife back up my sleeve so that I could examine the tube with both hands.
I’d never seen this particular lipstick before, but the tube was solid gold, with sleek, wavy sides, telling me that it was expensive. I tilted the tube to the side and realized that the words Glo-Glo were stamped into the metal. That must be the brand name. I turned the tube up so that I could see the small print on the bottom that would tell me the exact color: Heartbreaker.
A cold, sick feeling flooded the pit of my stomach, but I uncapped the tube and slowly rolled it up, knowing exactly what I would find. Sure enough, the lipstick inside was blood-red.
The same blood-red that had been used to draw my spider runes on that dead girl’s hands.
17
The sight of the blood-red lipstick—the Heartbreaker -lipstick—punched me in the gut.
It was one thing to have seen my spider runes on the dead girl’s hands. But to be holding the thing that they’d been drawn with, something so benign, so innocent, so ordinary . . . It was a painful reminder of just how sadistic the Dollmaker was—and just how much danger Elissa was in.
But I pushed my feelings aside and forced myself to examine the tube from all angles. And I noticed something odd: the lipstick hadn’t been used. Not at all. If this were the tube that had been used on Lacey Lawrence, the lipstick would have been worn down, but this one was still smooth, sharp, and whole, as though it had just come from the store.
Maybe it had. This tube hadn’t been here last night. Otherwise, Bria and Xavier would have found it. And I hadn’t spotted it during my initial search either. I hadn’t seen anything except that shadow, but I was more convinced than ever that someone had been watching me—and that that person had planted this lipstick for me to find. It was the only thing that made sense.
But who would do that? And why? Was it the Dollmaker, taunting me again? Had he been hiding behind the Dumpster, waiting for me to turn my back so that he could leave his sick little clue? Or was this the work of someone else, someone whose motives I couldn’t even fathom right now?
My hand closed over the tube. As much as I wanted to hurl it to the ground and stomp it to pieces, I forced myself to slide the lipstick into my jeans pocket. I had to get this to Ryan. He could confirm for sure that it was the same lipstick used to draw the runes on Lacey Lawrence. Then maybe we could track down what store the lipstick had come from and exactly who had bought it—
In the distance, a car engine rumbled to life.
My head snapped around, and I thought of that black Mercedes that I’d seen parked on the street. Not left behind by a drunk driver after all.
I palmed my knife again, ran out of the parking lot, and sprinted around the side of the club, heading back toward the front of the building. I thought that the driver gunned the engine, although I couldn’t be sure, given the steady slap-slap-slap-slap of my boots on the pavement and how loudly my heart was pounding in my ears. I broke free of the building and headed to my right toward the street where the Mercedes was.
Someone was sitting inside the vehicle now, although I couldn’t tell exactly who, given the dark tint on the windshield. I did have the impression that it was a man, although I didn’t get a clear look at his features, which were hidden by a hat, his sunglasses, and the thick scarf he had wrapped around the bottom half of his face.
He spotted me too. For a second, I thought that he might gun the engine, jump the curb, and come roaring at me, trying to mow me down with his car. Instead, he threw the vehicle into reverse, wrenched the steering wheel, and whipped a beautiful U-turn right in the middle of the street. Three seconds later, he was speeding away in the opposite direction, and I knew that he would be long gone by the time I reached my own car.
“Dammit!” I snarled. “Dammit!”
For a mad, mad moment, I thought about chucking my knife down the street after the car. Not because I had any chance of hitting the vehicle but just to relieve some of the anger and frustration surging through me. But that would have been petty and pointless, so I forced myself to take deep breaths, slow my racing heart, and think things through.
Whether it was the Dollmaker or someone else, whoever had been watching me had wanted me to find the gold Glo-Glo tube. Someone had wanted me to know about the Heartbreaker color. Someone had deliberately left me a breadcrumb. Well, I was going to oblige the bastard.
Time to follow the lipstick trail.
? ? ?
I slid my knife back up my sleeve, got into my car, and cranked the engine. I also took a moment to pull the lipstick out of my jeans pocket and set it in the cup holder in the center console. The gold tube glinted in the sun, almost like an eye slyly winking at me over and over again, daring me to find out where it had come from. Well, at least I wouldn’t be going back to Jade empty-handed. I had a clue, and I was determined to follow it.
Even if I still didn’t know who had left it for me or why.