As always.
The truck comes out of nowhere. My headlights cut across the dark front cab when it turns in front of me, emerging from one of the narrow farm lanes that divide the crops. There are no lights, no warnings. Instinct takes over, and I scream and yank the wheel hard to the left. Tires screech their outrage, spinning out over the dirt, the spray of dust and pebbles pelting my face through the open window. The car careens across the road and rattles over a shallow irrigation ditch before stopping short of a row of what might be corn. Right now it’s just husks, brittle arms scratching against the doors in greeting.
I clutch my chest and gulp in too much air, reaching out with shaking fingers to twist the key from the ignition. I wince and close my eyes when the idiot truck driver decides to turn on his high beams, illuminating the back of my car and nearly blinding me.
“Fucking fuckhead fucker,” I mutter, undoing my seatbelt and shoving open the door. Maybe it’s the cool air or the terror still pumping through my veins, but my exposed skin pebbles with goose bumps and I wish I hadn’t thrown my tights and jacket in the back. I round the car but I’m still half-blind; the truck is right where he stopped, emerging from the invisible lane and pointed straight at me, the glaring light making it impossible to see. The silhouette of a figure starts to approach. It’s like a scene from every alien abduction movie, and I’m the newest test subject.
“What the fuck?” I demand, shouting into the night. I use a shaky hand to shield my eyes, but it makes no difference. As the figure nears, I realize it’s a man, tall and broad. My already pounding heart picks up the pace. I keep my keys clenched in my palm, as though they’ll make an effective weapon, should he decide to attack. Should I decide to fight back.
“You know how fast you were going?” he counters, stopping at the edge of the road, maybe ten feet away. I can’t make out more than his outline, and I shift to the side to take away some of the burn of his headlights.
“I had my lights on,” I snap, gesturing around us. “How the fuck did you not see?”
He ignores that. “Are you hurt?”
The flash flood of adrenaline is easing, making my limbs weak, and I want to slump down into the grass, another unsatisfactory ending to another unsatisfactory day. All the build-up and none of the payoff. I should have gone to that hotel room. I should have let whatever was going to happen, happen.
“I’m not hurt,” I mutter finally. “Turn off your lights. They’re blinding me.”
“I thought you wanted them on.”
“That’s the law, genius.”
I run a hand through my hair and turn back to my car so I can leave this miserable field.
“Do I know you?”
I stop mid-stride. I’m only halfway turned around, that precipitous moment where I can climb into my car and drive away, or turn back and have this conversation. Yes, I’m Reese Carlisle. Yes, I was at the prison visiting my criminal father. No, I don’t know where the money is. No, I didn’t kill my brother.
“Who do you think I am?”
He takes a few steps toward me and my muscles tense, preparing to run. Right. Like I’m going to lead him on a chase through a corn field. I stopped running years ago.
“Denise,” he says.
Everything freezes.
Only Doug knows Denise. And I can’t think of a single sane reason Doug would be parked along a dark country road on a Saturday night, accidentally scaring the crap out of me.
Except... he doesn’t sound like Doug.
He comes closer and I shift away, moving the glare of the headlights from my front and his back to right in between, and I see who it is.
The stranger.
There’s no jacket, no Rolex. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt under an open flannel shirt, and combined with the rattrap old pickup that nearly killed me, he looks like he belongs here. Here. Not at Verre Plein. Not in that hotel room.
“You never came,” he says. There’s no inflection in his voice. He’s not angry or annoyed or disappointed. It’s just a statement.
“Well, I’m not a fucking psychopath,” I reply. Even though thoughts about what might have happened had I gone that night—and not been murdered—have kept me up.
“Me neither.” The combination of dark and light make it hard