You Betrayed Me (The Cahills #3) - Lisa Jackson Page 0,3
in a death grip. Around one corner. Faster and faster.
Slow it down!
But the car raced forward, gravity pulling her downward, the foggy windshield nearly opaque.
She tapped the brakes a little harder, the back end of the car sliding around a corner, her breath tight in her lungs. She swallowed as she guided the car down the narrowing road, snow piled high on either side.
Just a few miles and—Oh, shit, what’s that? Something in the middle of the road? At the next turn? No!
Her heart a jackhammer, she squinted through a thin patch of clear glass.
On the road ahead something moved.
Something tall and dark against the white.
A deer? Elk? Some other creature?
The steady snow masked its shape as it darted to the side.
Two legs?
“Fuck!”
A man? Woman? Goddamned Sasquatch?
The shadowy image stepped into the middle of the damned road.
A person. Definitely a person.
What the hell?
“Hey!” she yelled, slamming on the brakes. “You idiot!”
The car shuddered.
No!
It began to rotate.
Faster and faster.
She rammed the gearshift into LOW.
But it was too late. The Toyota slipped sideways, spinning out of control. Through the windshield, she caught glimpses of the sheer cliff face on one side of the road and the steep canyon on the other. In the middle of it all, a person. A brainless, idiotic freak. “Shit, shit, shit!” She tried to steer, failed, the Toyota careening wildly to the mountainous side of the road, her bumper shearing ice off the cliff, only to send the little car back across the lanes, rushing toward the ravine, the scenery a snowy blur.
It was all over.
She knew it.
Through the foggy glass, she caught a glimpse of the snowy treetops in the thin beams of the headlights and, beyond the treeline, the vast darkness of the canyon.
This was how she would die, her car hurtling over the edge, crashing through the trees in the yawning darkness, plummeting hundreds of feet to the nearly frozen, snaking river far below.
God, no!
She stood on the brakes.
The crevasse beyond the treetops loomed.
One wheel found pavement.
Caught.
The back end of the Toyota shimmied.
Heart hammering, adrenaline firing her blood, she ignored everything she’d ever heard and cranked hard on the steering wheel, away from the ravine.
The car twisted. The Corolla’s hood pointed directly at the massive wall of stone.
No person on the road between.
What had happened to that shadowy image?
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 . . .