It was time to ensure that all knew Miss Rutledge had a stalker. One willing to kill her to achieve whatever ideal she represented.
The vehicle accelerated further, moving steadily closer to the small car ahead and the future Sheila Rutledge might well pay the ultimate price for.
TWELVE
Sheila watched in her rearview mirror as the headlights behind her accelerated at an unusual speed. They were moving faster, coming up on her at a speed that was rarely used on the back road that led to the exclusive estates outside Simsburg.
The mostly retired residents didn’t drive like bats out of hell. Like the vehicle behind her and the one that had ridden her ass for the past several trips to the bar. For some reason, she never failed to miss the driver who came up on her like an Indy Car driver and, after a few seconds, zipped around her as though she weren’t even there.
Tonight, though, it wasn’t zipping around her.
This time, it wasn’t a car but a monster four-by-four. The powerful sedan that had come up and gone around her at such high speed was absent. The chrome grill of the pickup filled her rearview mirror, the lights almost blinding as they speared into the back window.
And it wasn’t trying to pull around her.
Sheila slowed down, and the truck slowed.
She sped up, and the truck sped up.
She didn’t take any more chances.
With her heart in her throat, she hit the call button on the steering wheel.
“Casey.” She had to fight to steady her tone for the voice-recognition software that powered the automatic calling feature of the Bluetooth connection.
The sound of the phone’s ring was overly loud in the car as the truck’s motor revved behind her. And it came closer. Impossibly closer.
A second ring as her gaze jerked back to the rearview mirror.
“Sheila, you okay?” Casey’s voice came across the line, concern filling it.
Yeah, that was right, she never called anyone as she drove home. It was an agreement made when she first began carrying the flash drives from the bar to her father.
“I have a tail.” Her voice was trembling now. “A close one, Casey.”
The sound of the truck’s powerful motor giving a hard, dark growl behind her sent fear pumping through her system.
“Stay on the line,” he ordered. “Turk, Jake, Iron, and I are on our way. How far away are you, baby?”
She swallowed tightly at the threatening rumble of the vehicle behind her as it advanced, slowed, then advanced on her once more.
“I’m about fifteen minutes from home, Casey. I’m passing through Gator Bay now.”
Gator Bay was the locals’ nickname for the road she was on because of the increasing number of alligators seen on the road and along the edges of the swampy marsh further out.
“We’re coming after you, sweetheart—”
At that second, the sound of the engine behind her revving and the harsh, shocking impact of the truck’s grille on her bumper caused a shocked scream to escape her lips.
Her foot hit the gas harder as she fought to control the little car and edge away from the truck as it nearly rammed her again.
Casey barked out her name, the sound of loud voices and harsh orders being called out on his side of the connection echoing around her.
“Oh my God, Casey, he just hit me,” she cried out as she clenched the steering wheel and fought to get more speed out of the car. “I can’t outrun him, Casey. Oh God, I can’t outrun him.”
She was trying, but the car wasn’t built for speed. They were doing seventy down the little country road and Sheila could feel the tires’ grip on the road lessening with each curve she took at that speed. They threatened to skid, to throw her sideways; at one point, the back end almost fishtailed as she hit a particularly tight curve.
A curse exploded from her lips as the headlights behind her gained on her once again. A second later the impact of the truck’s grille on her already abused bumper had her cheek hitting the steering wheel as she nearly lost control once again.
Sheila screamed as the car was thrown forward, the tires screaming as she fought to control the vehicle, to employ the driving lessons Casey had given her when she had first taken the job as courier from the bar to her father’s office.
“Casey!” she cried out as the truck suddenly rammed the back of the car again. “Casey, I can’t stay ahead of him!” she screamed.
“By God you will!” he screamed back at her. “I didn’t spend those months teaching you to drive to let some asshole defeat you.”
Fear was a cold, hard lump in her throat as she pressed her foot harder to the gas, barely managing to keep from being rammed again as both car and truck tires squealed going around another curve.
The car was jerked sideways as the tires lost precious traction. Fighting the steering wheel, Sheila finally managed to straighten the vehicle when another hard nudge from the back nearly had her crashing into the guardrail protecting motorists from the deep, still waters that ran alongside the road in that area.
She could feel the terror lashing at her. There were alligators in that water. They’d been driven into the area after the last tropical storms had swept through. As though they were tired of playing in the Everglades and decided to come to Texas and play there instead.
And Sheila was terrified of them.
“Casey!” she gasped as she finally sped past that danger, only to have the next heavy nudge throw the car onto the wide graveled shoulder of the road before she managed to fight the car back onto
