You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,177

upward.

The flashes of light came and went, disappearing for a few minutes only to flash again.

Was she being followed?

What were the chances of someone else driving through these forested hills in the middle of the night?

Kids!

It could be kids.

Teenagers out of school, looking for somewhere private to party or make out or whatever.

But she’d had the feeling she was being tailed—well, of course, there had been the idiot truck that had nearly blinded her before passing, but she’d sensed another car as well. Lagging back. Acting sketchy. She’d told herself she was being paranoid, that no one knew about the tiny house, that no one suspected she wasn’t Sophia.

But she couldn’t be certain.

And there it was again, the faintest light flashing against the falling snow.

She wouldn’t panic, not yet, but she’d keep her eye on whoever it was and, of course, if worse came to worst . . . she glanced at the passenger seat and spied her gun, winking in the barest of light from the dash.

Another glimmer in her rearview, and Julia set her jaw. Then she saw the turnoff, where she’d have to stop the car and open the gate. She wondered what the car behind her would do.

Didn’t matter.

As long as Julia knew what was happening, she had the upper hand.

* * *

James’s heart dropped as he followed the indicator on the map. Julia was driving into the mountains, specifically Johnson Road in the Regret Mountain area. He owned property up there, had received it in exchange for five tiny homes just last year; the final home had been delivered two months earlier.

Only a handful of people even knew where the acres of forest on Regret Mountain were or that they belonged to him.

But Sophia did.

She’d seen the transaction on one of the days she’d worked in the office, had even asked him about it.

His pulse pounded in his brain.

There was nothing up here; the land was completely undeveloped, no structure, not even a shed, just acres of trees.

But there was a reason she was heading there, and his heart thudded painfully in his chest as he turned off the county road and spied the taillights of her car winking ahead. He lagged back, not willing to give himself away, seeing a car drive straight through the open gate.

But there was something off about the scene.

Yes, the snow shrouded it, and he couldn’t be certain, but the back end of the car, reflecting in the snow, didn’t have the same shape as Sophia’s little hatchback, yet his tracker was attached to the underside of her car’s carriage.

Unless she’d discovered the tracker and had transferred it to another vehicle.

But no . . . No one else would come up here. Not on his property.

He glanced down at the GPS monitor. She was here. But . . . she wasn’t moving. The indicator was pulsing, but staying at one point, and the car in front of him was definitely wending through the trees, moving . . .

Then it hit him.

Someone else was here. Had followed her.

Someone she planned to meet far from the prying eyes of anyone she knew?

As the car disappeared into the trees, he drove through the open gate, following the fresh ruts, his hands in a death grip over the steering wheel. Who was in front of him, and what were they doing?

For the first time since having it stolen, James wished to high heaven he had his Glock.

CHAPTER 51

The car ahead of her stopped, brake lights flashing.

Immediately, Rebecca cut her lights and shut down her engine.

She was still tucked into the trees, hidden, she hoped, by the forest, but ahead of her, the lane opened to a clearing on a rise, where, through the falling snow, she saw that the other car had stopped in front of a frickin’ tiny house.

Here?

In the middle of nowhere?

One of James’s?

She licked her lips. Considered getting out of the Ford. But the car ahead was still idling, the headlights still casting twin beams across the side of the house.

Rebecca could barely breathe. She couldn’t see through the windows of the hatchback, but she thought the driver was still inside. And in the dark little house?

Megan?

Oh. God.

Is this where she’d been taken?

If only! Please let her be alive!

She reached for her phone—

Her driver’s door opened suddenly, a gust of cold wind rushing into the interior, the dome light blinking on.

She gasped. What the—?

“Get out!” a woman’s voice snarled.

Rebecca’s stomach dropped.

She looked up to see Sophia standing in the opening,