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He groaned and gave a soft laugh. “You first, tell me what you remember about this place.”
Even though it was dark, she looked from side to side. “I know that they had to restore this to its former glory. It had been used as a water fowl and aquatic bird park as part of the zoo, and lots of the original plants had overgrown or disappeared. It was restored about twenty years ago.”
“Now, those are nice memories. I like those, and they fit with the calm nature of the place.” He stood up for a second and pulled out his camera. “Turn around and we’ll take a pic with the pond in the background, and then another on the bench.”
Piper leaned in with a smile as Dawson took a selfie of them both, then sat down next to him on the bench while he took another.
In the quiet, she could hear the creaking of the snow-laden branches, the noise of the water, and the sound of tiny creatures. Listening to nature had always been one of her favorite pastimes. There was a low-grade hum in the background, traffic on the parkway on the other side of the lily pond, but for the most part it was quiet.
“Do you think it was them—the attorneys?” she asked as she touched one of the white lights wound around the circular bench they were sitting on.
“It had to be.” Dawson gave her a warm glance. “We get the clue. We come to the right place, and the seasonal garden just happens to be open when it’s supposed to be closed, with a set of lights in place.”
“But, that’s crazy,” said Piper. “Anyone could have walked in here. They couldn’t know that we would guess correctly. We’d already said we’d come back tomorrow, or the day after. How could they take this chance?”
“But is it a chance? Most people will know this place is closed. It would only be an accidental tourist that stumbled across it. And what would they do? Probably what we’ve done. Come in, sit down in the quiet for a few moments, and then leave. They’d just think the place had been left open by mistake.”
Piper gave a thoughtful nod. “Maybe,” she said carefully.
“Or, there is the alternative,” said Dawson cheerfully.
“What’s the alternative?”
“Oh, come on. You were a teenager like I was.” He waved his arm at the darkness around them. “We’ve already broken all the rules of every teenage horror flick I ever watched.”
Piper stiffened and sat up straight. She stared at him in shock. “Well, that was truly the last thing I expected you to say.”
He had a gleam in his eye. “Come on. You’ve been to the movies. The couple reach the place that’s supposed to be closed, but the entranceway is open—though, to be fair, it really should be a creepy rundown carnival that we walked into—not a lily pond.”
“I don’t like where this is going.”
His grin broadened. “Then you already know we shouldn’t have walked through the gate. We’ve also sat on the bench with the lights, which means that a; we’re going to get electrocuted, b; a mad axeman is going to jump out of the trees behind us, or c; a secret sniper is in the dark lake and already has us in their sites.”
If Piper had scared easily, she might have been uncomfortable. But Piper had never scared easy. “Actually, Dawson, in the movies I watched, it was the always the guys that got picked off, and the plucky heroine always made it to the end and killed whoever the bad guy was.”
Now he was looking at her, the gleam of amusement was still there, but he was also curious.
“I also watchedwaaaybetter movies than that. The movies I liked best were the ones with laughter, the flirting, and the joking. The hero and heroine got caught in an elevator together. Or stranded in a small town. Or were bitter rivals who were forced to work together. And the close proximity seemed to do strange things.” Piper knew that, right now, she had a gleam in her eye, too.
Dawson shuffled on the bench, moving a bit closer. “I might have seen some of those movies.”
“Oh, you did, did you?”
“Some things are sounding familiar. Isn’t there one where two people get trapped in the snow?”
Piper looked around at the snow on the leaves. “We’re not quite snowed in.”
“Maybe not, but we could get there.” His voice was deep and serious.
This was her. She’d done this. They’d been casually flirting for days. She could sense the tension and electricity between them, and if she’d ever wondered if she was just imagining things, she knew for definite, her imagination was playing no part in this.
This was real. From the tips of her toes to her currently cold forehead. She still couldn’t get why there was such a strong pull for her.
“I wonder how many more clues there are?” she whispered; her warm breath visible in the cold air.
That wasn’t really what she was thinking. Her mind was hung up on how much time they would actually have together. It currently felt like a countdown, and… to what?
“I have no idea,” Dawson said simply. He broke their gaze and stared down at the one hand on his lap. “I’ll send the photos tonight. It might be another few days until we get another clue.”
