Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99132 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 496(@200wpm)___ 397(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Driving was a mistake. She knew it. Hell, the rational part of her brain screamed it loud and clear, but that voice was buried beneath a raw, primal instinct to flee. But where should she go? There was nowhere to go.
Tears streaked hot down her face, stinging her chapped lips. She swiped them away with the back of her hand and tried to focus. She gulped air like her lungs had forgotten their job. Sobs clawed their way free, scraping her insides bloody, but she choked them down. There wasn’t time for that. Not now.
She’d screwed up. Regret tasted bitter on her tongue, but she didn’t have time to deal with it right now.
She didn’t want to die. God, she didn’t want to die.
Her mind raced, chaotic and jumbled. The car lurched as she threw it into drive, except she hadn’t started the damn engine. A fresh surge of panic strangled her as she yanked the keys again, twisting them hard.
The engine sputtered to life, a harsh, growling sound that barely registered through the thunderous pulse in her ears. She jammed the gearshift into drive again, clutching the steering wheel and hunching over it as if trying to protect her vital organs. Animals did that. So did humans.
Seat belt. There was something she was supposed to do about a seat belt, but the thought slipped through her mind like smoke, impossible to grasp. She had to fucking get it together. She slammed her foot on the gas pedal, and the car launched forward with enough force to snap her head back against the seat.
They wouldn’t want her to be found.
But she’d make damn sure someone found her.
She drove down the mountain, her fingers gripping the wheel, providing more pain for her. Did it center her? Maybe a little. The road wound and twisted, becoming narrow and treacherous beneath the beaming moonlight.
More tears burned their way down her cheeks, but they weren’t the soft, salty warmth of fear or sadness. They scalded. Blood-hot.
Too late. She knew it with the kind of clarity that made her want to laugh, hysteria clawing at her throat. No one survived this. But she couldn’t just lie down and quit. If she could just get to a safe place, she could figure this out. She had to save herself.
She floored the gas pedal, and the engine groaned as the car sped up, blurring the lines on the road into streaks of white and yellow. She swerved onto a busier road, disrupting traffic. Oncoming headlights burned her eyes, and several cars honked. A tire or two might’ve screeched from people hitting their brakes. Angry curses from pissed-off drivers echoed from half-rolled windows, and it should’ve infuriated her. It did, somewhere deep beneath the agony.
But her head hurt too much to express the fury that boiled under her skin. Not only at them. At herself.
What had she done? Why had she done it?
There had been good reasons, honorable ones to start with. But things never ended the way they began, did they?
Her vision swam, lines and colors bleeding together like wet paint dragged through mud. The darkness tunneled, narrowing her field of sight until all she could see was the wavering strip of road in front of her.
Headlights split her vision, blinding and brutal. She jerked the wheel, and her tires squealed when she clipped the edge of the road. Gravel sprayed, and she swerved wildly, nearly correcting before something, someone, flashed in front of her. Maybe just a shadow. Maybe a person. It didn’t matter. She jerked too hard and barely caught sight of the tree before she smashed into it.
The world came apart in a shriek of twisting metal and the brutal shatter of glass. Her head jerked back, pain ripping through her like a live wire—sharp, sudden, and then . . . nothing. The pain was gone.
Finally, silence and . . . peace.
Laurel drove slowly away from the quaint town of Elk Hollow, the misting rain adding a dull sheen to the blacktop. Walter sat beside her, unnaturally silent, his body a tense mass of grief and something more. Guilt, maybe. She kept her hands steady on the wheel, but she routinely checked her mirrors, searching for that black truck or anyone else hunting them down. So far, nothing.
“I truly am sorry about your brother, Walter,” Laurel murmured.
“Thanks, boss.” Walter’s voice came out gruff. “I just wish I’d kept in better touch. We just . . . didn’t.”
“Have you tried contacting Tyler’s father?” Laurel kept her tone casual, probing without pressing. Walter wasn’t the type to open up easily, especially about family, apparently.
He shrugged, the movement sluggish and heavy. “He and my mother divorced forever ago. Haven’t spoken to him in years, so I called an old number and got his secretary. Had to tell her the news. She called back and said that they’d take care of the burial arrangements.” Walter coughed. “But I will find out how he died. It’s the least I can do.”