She didn’t have time to think about it. Just tried like hell to right the car, turning the wheel gently, her heart pounding wildly, her mind swirling.
She bit her lip.
The front wheels found traction, and she touched the gas, propelling the car forward, away from the canyon.
And straight at the wall of ice and stone.
She stood on the brakes.
Wheels locked, the car skated faster.
Megan braced herself.
Bam!
The Toyota collided with the mountain.
Her seat belt jerked tight.
Her eyes squeezed shut.
The car’s front bumper crumpled, the hood damaged in a horrific groan of twisting metal and shattered plastic. The windshield cracked.
Something flew forward, launched straight into the mirror, shattering the reflective glass.
She expected the impact from the airbag as it burst out of the steering wheel.
Steeled herself.
Her car jolted to a stop.
No sudden burst of pressure or mass of air shot at her; no balloon trapped her against her seat.
Instead, there was silence.
Sudden and deafening.
And she was alive.
Miraculously unhurt.
Disbelieving, she stared at her gloved fingers, clenched in a death grip over the wheel. She slowly released them as she let out her breath. Her hands were trembling, her entire body quivering.
Get hold of yourself. You’re okay.
Glancing through the cracked window, she tried to calm her wildly racing heartbeat, to focus.
The car. Can you drive it?
Could she get that lucky?
What were the chances?
She twisted the key, heard the starter grind. “Come on. Come on.” If she could just get the car going, she would back up so that it wasn’t crosswise in the road. She could put the car in NEUTRAL, if she had to, and aim downhill, riding the brakes, right? Until she was in civilization. . . or until she could call . . .
Her thoughts were interrupted. Her phone? Where the hell was her phone? She searched the interior quickly, then remembered something flying into the rearview mirror. Was that her cell? Desperately, she patted the seat next to her, wet from her spilled coffee and loaded with books and her backpack, anything she could just toss into the car.
Nothing.
Quickly, she scoured the floor of the passenger area, but it had a trash basket and two pairs of shoes and . . .
Oh, screw it!
It doesn’t matter! Just get the car out of the road so you don’t get T-boned.
She twisted on the ignition. The starter scraped, but nothing happened.
“Oh, come on!”
Another try, and the engine turned over, but . . . a movement caught her attention. Something dark in the shards of glass in the rearview.
From the corner of her eye, she saw something move, a dark and skittering image in the spiderweb of the rearview mirror.
The back of her throat went bone dry.
Oh, God. The person she’d seen moments before.
The cause of the accident.
She glared into the mirror, tried to make out the idiot who had caused this wreck. The damned moron was behind her car, barely visible, but definitely there. And now moving to the center of the road.
As if to block her path again.
Still risking both their lives.
Megan’s temper spiked. What kind of a cretin would—
She threw open the door just as a cautionary Be careful cut through her mind. “Are you out of your mind?” she screamed, craning her neck for a better view. “Get out of the way! What the hell’s wrong with you?”
No movement.
Nothing but bitter cold air.
And the silent whiteout.
No person.
Just the eerie quiet, broken only by the rasp of the Corolla’s engine.
The warning hairs on the back of her neck raised.
Had it all been her imagination?
No, of course not.
She pulled the door shut and was about to back up when she saw the figure again. Right in the middle of the road . . . again. Almost taunting her.
What the hell was this?
It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s weird as hell. Not good. Get out. Get out now!
She swallowed back her rising fear.
What if the person needs a ride? What if they’re stranded?
“Who cares?” she muttered. It wasn’t as if the jerk-wad was waving her down, trying to get help. No, this was something else.
Something very wrong.
Something evil.
She touched her toe to the gas again.
Her damaged car struggled, wheels spinning.
“Don’t do this,” she whispered, her panic rising. She had to get out of here now. Her phone, where the hell was her phone? No time to search for it. “Let’s go,” she said to the car as the engine ground, the wheels spun, and she went nowhere. “Let’s go, let’s—”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement in the side-view mirror.
The person in black was approaching!
Now she trod on the accelerator. “Come on!”
Closer. Through the curtain of snow, a figure dressed in ski gear from head to toe—mask and hat to boots—made his or her way along the side of the whining car.
Megan let up on the gas, then hit it hard. The back end of the car shifted a bit, but the tires found no traction.
The person was right outside the door, and Megan was ready to yell at the cretin, to read the brain-dead idiot the riot act, when she noticed the gun, a black pistol in one gloved hand.
Oh. God.
She began shaking her head, still trying to drive off until the barrel of the gun was level with her head.
Megan’s heart dropped.
Fear curdled through her blood.
Panic jettisoned through her, and she started to turn. To run.
Leave here. Now!
“Get out!” the attacker growled.
Megan froze.
That voice!
Did she know this person? This nutcase?
She couldn’t tell. All she could focus on was the barrel of the gun.
Black.
Deadly.
Aimed straight at her heart.
CHAPTER 3
Valley General Hospital
Riggs Crossing, Washington
December 4
“I have to leave.” James Cahill gazed hard at the nurse adjusting his IV. Lying in bed, doing nothing, was getting to him. The hospital walls were closing in on him. And the not remembering? That was killing him.
“In due time,” she said pleasantly, offering him a sympathetic smile. Sonja Rictor, RN, according to the name tag that swung from a lanyard at her neck. In her forties, a
