“Do you think she did?”
“No!” I spit out on a laugh. “Geez, how conceited can a guy get?”
Chase frowned. “Well, it’s possible she was really hung up on him.”
“You think all girls are just hanging on guys? That guys mean that much to us?”
Chase cocked his head at me. “No. But maybe-”
“I mean, we can get along without you guys, you know? The sun does not rise and set on having a boyfriend. Those of us without boyfriends can get along just fine.”
“Okay. It was just a thought,” he said, taking a step back. “Geez, what’s gotten into you?”
“Nothing has gotten into me. I’m fine. Totally fine.”
“O-kay.”
“Where’s your
“Who?”
“The girl I saw you with earlier.”
“Oh, Carly? She’s inside. She left her jacket in the car.”
I looked down and saw a pink Windbreaker in his hand. Fab.
“Well, you don’t want to keep her waiting,” I said, turning around.
“Hart, are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I shot back, a little louder than I’d meant.
“Hart-”
“I’m fine!” I shouted, then turned to go.
But I took only one step, my eyes inexplicably blinded by blurry, unshed tears, when I felt Chase’s body slam into mine from behind.
“Unh!”
I fell to the ground, the full weight of Chase on top of me as the asphalt scraped my palms, and my forehead connected with the ground, jarring my teeth together with a painful smack.
I was about to ask what the hell he thought he was doing when a pair of headlights whizzed past my head, tires coming within inches of my nose.
Holy fluffin’ fudge. That car had almost hit me!
Chapter Nineteen
“DID YOU SEE THAT CAR?” CHASE GASPED IN MY EAR.
I paused, blinking back a sudden headache. “He tried to hit me. He was going to run me over.”
“I didn’t see the license plate, but I’m pretty sure it was a Toyota,” Chase said, standing up and staring at the taillights as the car rounded the corner onto Main.
“He was going to kill me.” I turned to Chase. “He was trying to kill me.”
Chase reached down, grabbing my hand and pulling me up off the ground. “Did you see the driver?” he asked.
I shook my head. Honestly? I hadn’t seen anything more than a pair of headlights.
“You’re bleeding.”
I looked down. He was right. My palms were scraped raw.
“Get in. I’ll drive you home,” he said, gesturing to the Camaro.
I paused. While one near-death experience was enough for one night, walking four dark blocks home while a guy in a car who wanted me dead was out there riding around didn’t hold a whole lot of appeal. I did a mental eenie-meenie-minie-mo and finally got in.
Chase made the five-minute drive in two flat, pulling up to the curb outside my house and insisting on following me to the front door.
It was unlocked, and I pushed inside, finding Mom on the sofa in the living room, sitting next to the only thing that could possibly make my evening worse.
Raley.
Dude. A second date already? They both had glasses of wine in hand, and Mom’s cheeks were flushed pink as if it wasn’t her first.
Raley looked completely different than I’d ever seen him. Gone was Cop mode, and in its place, a relaxed pose, eyes crinkling, lips tilted upward in a lazy smile. His entire being was different.
Or maybe that was just my bump on the head talking.
“Hartley?” Mom asked, confusion lacing her voice. “I thought you were staying at Sam’s.”
“I fell,” I said feebly.
“Someone almost ran her over,” Chase corrected, coming in behind me.
And just like that Mom went into SMother mode and Raley went into Cop mode, and I was surrounded by overprotective adults playing Twenty Questions.
“Where? What happened? Are you okay?”
They all blurred together through my headache haze. Thankfully, Chase took over, telling them about the car in the parking lot and how we’d had to dive for the pavement to avoid it. By the time he was finished, Mom was hugging me tighter than a boa constrictor, and Raley’s eyebrows were doing that deep frown thing again.
“You need to be more careful,” he said.
“I think this was more than just an accident,” Chase said. “I think someone tried to hit her.”
“Why do you think that?”
“For one? They didn’t even try to brake. They just sailed through. For another, look at the sweater she’s wearing. It’s practically Day-Glo.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and felt myself blush. Hey, not all of us can look so chic in plain gray like Miss Perfect.
“I knew I should never have let you go out alone,” Mom said, crushing me to her.
“Mom. Air.”
She let up a little, but shallow breaths were still all I could manage.
Raley gave me a long stare. I put on my most innocent face, just a shade shy of actually whistling and staring at the ceiling.
Luckily, he let it go.
“Look, I, uh, I have to get back to the school,” Chase said.
Right. To his date.
“You gonna be okay?” he asked.
For some reason the thought of Miss Perfect waiting for him back at the stadium coupled with the concern in his voice sent that headache at my temple into overdrive. I crossed my arms over my chest.
“I’m fine,” I said, hearing an edge I hadn’t meant to share creep into my voice.
Chase paused, looked from Mom to Raley, then back to me. He must have decided that I was in good hands as he nodded. “Right. I’ll call you tomorrow, ’kay?”
But he didn’t give me a chance to answer as he turned and walked out the door.
After Chase went back to his date at the game, Mom and Raley went back to their date on our sofa (I could never sit there again), and I went to my room. Alone.
I flopped down on my bed and contemplated the ceiling, thoughts swirling in my aching head. This case was spiraling out of control faster than I could rein it in. And the ironic part was someone out there thought I knew a hell of a lot more than I did. Really? We had a lot of theories but no actual proof of anything.
Which meant, I realized as I finally drifted off to sleep, there was only one thing to do.
“I’ve decided to bluff.”
Sam and Kyle turned to me as one over their Jamba juice. Singular. With two straws. The cute was oozing from their pores.
“Bluff what?” Chase asked, sipping through his straw and making slurping sounds.
He had, as promised, called me first thing that morning. Only I’d been too afraid of that edge creeping back into
