Dustin laughed. It was a wild, manic sound. “Yeah, well.” He opened the motel room door and held it wide. “Wouldn’t you just love that.”
Greg clutched the clipboard to his chest. “If you go to Boulder and she's supposed to die?—”
“Then I'll stop it.”
“You might not be able to. You don't know what's going to happen when you mess with events. You might misinterpret things. You might get yourself hurt. You might catch the attention of really unpleasant people.”
“Maybe.” Dustin's smile was sharp and reckless and nothing like the easy charm Greg had seen in his videos. “But you won't know until I try.”
He gestured at the open door.
Greg walked through it. He knew when a battle was lost.
Behind him, he heard Dustin's voice one more time:
“See you in Boulder, Grigoreth.”
CHAPTER 12
Dustin drove to Boulder with his phone propped against the steering wheel, searching “Sarah Meadows Colorado” while trying not to die in a car crash.
The irony wasn't lost on him.
Another thing that was rapidly becoming clear to him was how impossible the task he’d set himself was.
There were forty-seven Sarah Meadows on Facebook alone. Three on LinkedIn. One who'd won a high school swim meet in 2019. One who ran an Etsy shop selling ceramic frogs. One who'd been arrested for public intoxication in Fort Collins, which honestly seemed like the most promising lead, but the article didn't include a photo.
None of this was helpful.
Including her middle name didn't help any, either.
He wasn't getting anywhere. He didn't know what Sarah looked like, what she'd be doing at Riverside Park, or how the universe planned to kill her.
It could be a maintenance truck or a falling branch. Hell, it could be an allergic reaction to a bee sting. For allDustin knew, the poor girl was going to choke on a hot dog.
And all Dustin could do was to wander around the park like a creep, staring at every woman who looked vaguely twenty-three, waiting for one of them to start dying.
Great plan. Excellent plan. No flaws whatsoever.
The drive took three hours. Dustin stopped once for gas and an energy drink that tasted like gummy bears. The can had Xtreme Doug on it, frozen mid-thumbs-up, and Dustin turned it around so he didn't have to look at it.
He thought about checking his social media accounts.
He didn't.
Dustin pulled into the Riverside Park parking lot just after 2 PM.
He was almost two hours early, which gave him plenty of time to scout the area, identify potential hazards and possibly figure out which of the dozens of women in this park was scheduled to die at 3:47.
Unfortunately, the park was bigger than he'd expected. Walking paths wound through clusters of trees and open meadows. A playground sat near the entrance, crawling with kids. Joggers passed in both directions. Near the east side, a maintenance crew was doing something with trucks and equipment—leaf blowers and a wood chipper.
Thatwasn’t ominous at all.
Dustin tore his gaze away from the workers and started walking.
By 2:30, he'd done two full loops of the park. He'd counted fourteen women who looked vaguely twenty-three. Sadly none of them had worn a neon sign saying “KILL ME, I’M SARAH!”
By 3:00, he'd narrowed it down to seven possibilities based on nothing but gut instinct and the fact that they seemed to be staying in the park rather than passing through.
