DoubleDown V Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the water, quiet and lonely-looking.  She resisted the temptation to reach around and hug him.
    Suddenly, Bobby turned to face her.  “Come with me, sweetie.  You get to pick the next person.”
    “I’m not pulling anybody’s bathing suit down.”
    “No, this would be different.”
    “What are you looking for?”
    “Pick anybody.  There must be a thousand people here, so just pick one for me.”
    For me .  She liked the sound of that.  It wasn’t something he was going to expect her to do.
    She walked slowly, feeling sand mush between her toes.
    There was an ice cream stand about twenty feet from the shore, attached to a pair of washrooms.  She turned to move in that direction, although she wasn’t really sure why.
    Bobby followed her obediently.
    “Tell me about flying,” she said.
    “Knew you’d ask that.”
    “If you want me to pick somebody for you to humiliate, you tell me about flying.”
    He grabbed her by putting both his hands on her shoulders and staring at her.
    “You’re so cute, but sometimes you really are stupid.  You believe that shit?  Like we need some other piece of magic in our lives, like time stopping isn’t enough?  I was shitting you so that you’d want to see me again.”
    “Oh.”
    “You’re old enough to know bullshit when you hear it.”
    “Yeah.  I kind of figured … .”
    “Bullshit.  Pick somebody.  Now!”
    She looked around and saw a woman lying on a large pink blanket.  She was covered with oil and her skin was dark brown, but Karen suspected if Bobby picked off her tiny bikini, she’d see snow-white skin underneath.  A lazy bitch who spent all her time in the sun.
    The woman was about thirty. Karen wondered what kind of secrets she kept that forced her to want to hide alone among a crowd of a thousand people.
    “Her.”
    Karen and Bobby both stared at the woman.  Then Bobby moved to her and squeezed her neck tightly with both hands.
    What the fuck?
    “What are you doing?  Stop that.  You’ll kill her!”
    Bobby just squeezed harder.  “You picked her.  This is your fault.”
    “Stop!”
    Finally he did stop. The woman’s neck showed the indentations of his hands where he had strangled her.
    “Will she be okay?”
    “I doubt it, but I don’t really know,” he said.  “I’ve never been able to hang around after time started.  Called back the same as you.  So I don’t know what happens.  I think she’ll likely live, but she’ll choke and wonder what the hell happened to her.  Probably have a very sore neck for a while.”
    “You’re cruel.”
    He didn’t reply at first, but then he said, “Everybody can be cruel under the right circumstances.  Even you.”
    “No, you’re wrong.”
    “I’m right.”
    “I want to get away.”
    “Away from her or away from me?”
    He was looking at her with wide eyes.  She wanted to leave him, but she’d never found another person that was like herself.
    “Just don’t do anything like that again.”
    “You want an ice cream cone?”
    “Sure!”
    Bobby climbed into the ice cream stand and made two cones, both chocolate.  He handed one to her.
    “What makes you think I like chocolate?”
    She licked the ice cream, and it tasted great.
    “You’re a girl.”
    “Very perceptive of you.”
    Bobby walked into the girls’ bathroom and she followed.
    “I like seeing girls when they don’t think anybody is looking,” he said.  Unfortunately nobody was in the bathroom.
    She didn’t reply.
    “So, it’s time for you to tell me what you do when time stops.  You’ve seen what I do, but what do you do?”
    Karen took another long swipe of her ice cream to buy her some time.
    “I like to look in my neighbors’ homes, to see what secrets they keep from the rest of the world.”
    “Ahh.  You’re a peeping Tom.”
    “At least I don’t hurt anybody.”
    They both stopped and stared at each other, a familiar feeling lurching through Karen’s body.  The calling.
    Bobby recognized