She climbed into her car and turned the ignition key.
There was a click. Nothing more.
Frowning, Cassie tried again.
The same result. The engine wasn’t even catching.
Cassie tried yet again, twisting the key harder as if it might make a difference and give the car impetus to start. The little runabout had never given a moment’s problem so far. She wondered if the storm had caused an electrical short.
Wishing she knew more about cars, Cassie fumbled under the dash and popped the hood, but when she pulled the lever, the hood didn’t release.
With worry surging inside her she scrambled out.
To her consternation, she saw that the hood hadn’t released because it was already open.
She hadn’t locked the car. She hadn’t even thought about it. In this safe, small village she had started being far too casual about security, and now, she had paid the price.
Suddenly this scenic town felt like an unfriendly place.
Who had done this? Had it been a bored kid, or was there a more sinister motive behind it? Looking around at the neat parking lot, Cassie could see no rowdy teens loitering around waiting to vandalize vehicles. The place was busy, but everyone seemed to be hurrying about their own business.
Cassie began to fear that someone might have targeted her.
She opened the hood, and her heart plummeted as she saw the sharp edges of severed wires that led to the battery. Someone had deliberately cut them and that fact made her feel vulnerable and afraid and very alone. She’d thought she was safe here, hidden away and protected in this small community. Now it was clear that nowhere was safe and that this must have been deliberately done.
Had her ex-employer in France managed to locate her? Cassie wondered whether this was the start of a twisted revenge game, or something worse. Disabling her car was a way of ensuring she couldn’t disappear on short notice, which might mean he had other plans in store.
Cassie was suddenly desperate to speak to Ryan, to tell him what had happened and to hear his reassuring voice. She rooted in her purse for a minute before remembering she hadn’t brought her phone with her. The battery had been about to die so she’d left it plugged into her charger, ready for when the power came back.
“Damn it,” she shouted, slamming the hood in frustration. With no way of contacting him to explain her predicament, she was going to have to walk.
She yanked her keys out of the ignition and took her purse, and the hardware store bag, from the seat. Then she locked it, wishing bitterly she’d thought to do that before going into the store.
Cassie stomped out of the parking lot and headed toward the narrow lane which—two long miles later—would lead back to the house.
While walking, she found herself worrying about who could have wanted to sabotage her car this way.
There were only two options she could think of. Either it was random vandalism or else somebody had been following her and waiting for the opportunity.
Cassie hoped it had been random vandalism because the alternative, that she’d been targeted, was terrifying. She didn’t want to think about how or why this might have happened.
She’d thought nobody could find her here. What if somebody had?
Wrapped in her disturbing thoughts, Cassie heard the loud rev of an engine behind her.
Her first thought was that this person could maybe offer her a ride home.
A heartbeat later her instincts started screaming.
Too fast, too close, too loud.
The roar of the engine was directly behind her.
Twisting round, she saw the grille, accelerating fast.
She dove sideways, crushing against the prickly bulk of the hedge.
The car shot past, so close that it brushed the leafy shoots growing from the hedge. So close that when Cassie looked down she saw the muddy tire track was only a few inches from where her foot had been.
One of the branches had scratched her hand and she stared down at the tattered line of blood welling from her skin. The hardware store bag had been torn. Looking down, she saw her jeans were spattered with mud and fragments of grass.
If she hadn’t jumped into the hedge, she would have been hit.
Cassie realized she was shaking.
She stared down at the tire track and looked back. She could see the exact spot where the car had swerved off the tarmac and crushed the muddy grass by the hedge. The tracks followed a perfect curve. Off the tarmac, over the grass, and back to the road again.
She had been at the furthest point of the curve.
“What the hell?” she said aloud.
The letters FRZ, or had it been FZR? In her panic she couldn’t remember their exact order. A white, low-slung car with a registration including the letters F, Z, and R had almost run her down.
If she hadn’t dived out of the way, that car would have hit her. Smashed her legs, ridden over her, who knew?
If this was also deliberate, then she was in serious trouble now. In the space of an hour, someone had disabled her car and then tried to kill her as she walked home. If her ex-employer was behind this, she had no idea what she would do about it, or where she could hide.
Cassie continued walking, but every few steps she glanced behind her, terrified.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
By the time Cassie reached home, stressed and scared and worried that she would make the family late for the play, she was on the point of tears.
As she reached the front door, Ryan opened it. He was wearing a dress shirt and chinos, ready to go, and Cassie realized how disheveled she must look.
“Hello, gorgeous. Glad to see you. I was starting to worry where you were.”
He glanced outside at the empty road. “Where’s your car?”
“It’s at the hardware store. Ryan, it wouldn’t start, and when I opened the hood, I found it was already open and I could see wires had been cut inside.”
“What?” His
