by Liz Johnson
Maybe he’d taken on her case to stay close to her, to follow her progression. Maybe he knew she’d seen—and might one day remember—that he’d been in Webster Park that night. Maybe he’d been wielding the wrench or pipe that had left her alone and afraid and looking for someone to trust.
God save her if she’d just made the worst mistake of her life, for there was certainly no one else who would.
Silence hung over them, pregnant with expectation. But he only shoved his hands a little farther into his pockets, before running his hand over his hair, sending the strands shooting in every direction.
As he looked away, her hands began to shake, her heart beating so hard that it rang in her ears. She had to get out of there. She had to go…somewhere else.
Anywhere else.
She never should have agreed to move into Zach’s spare room. And she sure shouldn’t have let herself trust him.
Scampering for the top of the stairs, she grabbed the handrail just as Zach wrapped a hand around her elbow. “Wait. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t think it would help you to know.”
Restrained from dashing for the front door, she glared at him over her shoulder. When she jerked her arm away, he let go without a fight.
She’d expected more from a man who would attack a woman. Maybe…
Maybe she’d jumped to conclusions.
Pain washed over his face, and he scrubbed his palms down his cheeks before forcing them back down to his sides. “I’m sorry.” His eyes focused on her face. “When I got the call, I was only a couple blocks away. So I was the first on the scene. And I thought you were going to be a dead body.”
Her knees gave out, and she sank onto the steps. Everything turned blurry, and she could do nothing but wrap her arms around her knees and bury her face.
Zach dropped down two steps below her, clearly sensing that she needed some space. “I didn’t think it would help your recovery to know that when I first saw you, I thought you were dead.”
It didn’t.
And in a small way it did.
How was that possible? How could she have it both ways? She’d known that her attacker had left her for dead. She just hadn’t realized how close he’d come to getting what he wanted.
But at least it explained why a homicide detective had been the first to find her—why Zach had taken such an interest in her case.
“I think I need to be alone for a bit.”
He patted the toe of her rubber shoe—another hospital donation. “I know this isn’t easy for you, but you’re not alone.”
Zach had promised that they’d work together, that he’d keep her safe.
And he was the only person stepping up to help her. He’d yet to show her any evidence that he couldn’t be trusted. And until he did, did she have another choice?
As he loped down the stairs and disappeared around the corner toward the low hum coming from the kitchen, the swirling concoctions in her mind flittered away. Pressing hands over her face, she sent up a weak, disjointed prayer for some sort of understanding and sense of security. Talking to God felt like something she’d done a million times. It also felt foreign, like she hadn’t prayed in months. Could she have it both ways?
It didn’t matter. Hope that God was listening was all she had to cling to.
God, please let me be safe with him.
*
“Your hair looks great.”
At Samantha’s compliment Julie ran her fingers through her much improved pixie cut. Flipping down the visor as they pulled out of the strip mall’s parking lot, she tugged at the short ends that hugged her face and framed her eyes.
“That cut is much better than the last one.”
Julie managed a smile in response to Samantha’s teasing tone. It sure was. After a professional had trimmed it, smoothing out the imbalanced cropping she’d received at the hospital, she looked almost pretty.
Their stop at the department store’s cosmetics counter had helped, too. Some concealer covered the remnants of her black and bruised eye, and foundation had smoothed away the remaining imperfections from her attack. A touch of pink to her cheeks and a dash of mascara and she felt just about normal.
Whatever that was.
“Thank you. I feel more like myself. I think.” As she flipped the mirror closed, she caught a glimpse of a motorcycle weaving between the cars behind them. Something about the way he maneuvered so recklessly made the snipped hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
Peeking over her shoulder as Samantha stopped the car at a red light, Julie tried to find him again, but all she could see was the driver’s arm three vehicles behind them.
As they idled, Samantha asked, “Something wrong?”
Julie waved her hand. “No. I’m just being silly. It’s nothing.”
“Nothing, like we should hit the next store? Or nothing, like I should call Zach?”
The row of shopping bags filling the backseat rustled as they took off. New jeans and tops, shoes and scarves. Everything she could possibly need to start over.
“Oh, don’t bother your brother. I just saw a motorcycle rider who was kind of aggressive.” She shook off the strange tension in her middle. “I’m sure everything is all right.”
Samantha nodded slowly, her gaze flicking toward her mirror. “I saw him, too.”
Of course she had. Samantha was a police officer, just like her brothers. She’d definitely notice someone out of place or if something should cause concern. But she sat with a relaxed posture, her wrist draped across the steering wheel.
If she wasn’t worried, Julie had no reason to be, either.
Another glance behind her, and the rider on his sporty bike had vanished.
See? Nothing to worry about.
Letting out a slow breath, she turned back to Samantha. “Thank you for spending your day off shopping with me.”
“I’m happy to, but you should thank Zach. He’s the one who sponsored this spree.” A wicked grin made her brown eyes—so much like Zach’s—sparkle. “He just doesn’t know that he bought me a few things while we were at it.”
Julie laughed aloud, running her hands down her pant leg. “I don’t understand why he’s been so generous.”
“Even when we were kids, he’d bring home lost and sick animals. Gizmo is just the most recent in a string of pets needing a home.”
“Are those the cats and dogs in the pictures?”
Samantha nodded. “Zach’s a good guy, and he can’t turn his back on a stray in need.”
Her words—though not intentionally cruel—punched Julie in the gut.
A stray in need.
Could there be a more apt description? He saw her as just another stray needing a temporary home.
Why did that realization make her lungs have to fight for air when just the night before she’d fallen asleep in his guest bed wondering if she could truly trust him? Maybe her amnesia was making her crazy.
Tires behind them squealed, and both women jumped, instantly alert. Twisting in her seat, Julie tried to find the source of the commotion, but the cars behind their two-door coupe were pulling into a line at another light.
All except for the motorcycle.
The driver in all black, his face obscured by a full helmet, revved his engine, shooting down the double yellow line toward them.
“What is he doing?”
“I don’t know, but let’s get out of here.” Samantha cranked the wheel and slammed her foot against the pedal, steering through a fishtail and down a small side road.
Julie couldn’t tell if the sound of her heartbeat was louder than the car’s engine, but all she could hear was the progressive thumping. Faster and faster as they picked up speed and as the motorcycle gained on them.
“Call Zach. Tell him what’s going on, and that we need him to get over here.” Samantha had morphed from easygoing shopping companion to cop in two beats.
With shaking fingers, Julie stabbed at the numbers on her phone bu
t turned back to Samantha before completing the call. “Where are we? Where do I tell him to find us?”
“We’re headed on County Road 33 toward the Winchester Bridge.”
Julie nodded just as Zach answered, but the roaring in her ears rose above his voice and the growling engine. Without waiting for him to ask why she had called, she plunged in. “I’m with Samantha. We’re being followed by a guy on a motorcycle, and he’s trying to run us off the road.”
For a split second she thought that her heartbeats had rendered her temporarily deaf. And then his eerily calm voice split the silence. “Where are you?” She relayed the directions Samantha had given her. “I’m not far away. I can be there in ten minutes. And I’ll call in for backup. Hang on until someone gets there. This is going to be okay.”
Oh, how she wanted to believe him. “We’ll try.”
The car veered sharply, and her shoulder slammed against the window, the phone flying from her hand as they sailed past towering pine trees. The motorcycle drew even with their back bumper. Samantha swerved again, but the cycle matched her movements, dodging a connection that would have sent him into the ditch. He skidded around a blue sign announcing the upcoming lake but was immediately on their tail again.
And in her side mirror, Julie couldn’t miss the handgun the rider brandished.
Too afraid that she’d distract Samantha, Julie didn’t say a word. She clenched her door, offering up soundless prayers for protection over and over again. All the time unable to rip her eyes from the gun in the hands of their pursuer.
When the barrel leveled, she tried to alert Samantha, who continued to push the little car to its limits, but her warning vanished beneath the crack of a gunshot as her window shattered.
SEVEN
Julie screamed in time with the second gunshot, which blew out the tire beneath her feet.
The car swerved across the center line of the two-lane highway, but Samantha managed to keep it out of the ditch with a white-knuckled grip.
Refusing to turn around enough to see if the motorcyclist was still on their tail, Julie clamped her mouth closed and stared at the ceiling. God had to save them, for no one else could at this point.
“Hang on!” Samantha’s cry seemed to light the tension in the car until it sparked and crackled, burning away all the oxygen in the vicinity.
A horn blew long and low from down the road, and two dark headlights on either side of an eighteen wheeler’s grill bore down on them. The driver behind the wheel flashed his lights, but the car’s response was sluggish at best.
God have mercy.
Please have mercy.
She could do little more than repeat the mantra in her head and fight for every tiny breath against the fear that squeezed her chest and threatened to steal her sanity.
Someone had already filched her mind, and now he was about to take the rest of her, too. And all she could see was the trucker’s face—his eyes wide and mouth nearly unhinged. The wispy blond beard was straight out of the eighties, as it hung over his plaid shirt. Terror filled every crevice of his craggy face not covered by his beard, and he rocked like he was pumping the brakes as hard as he could.
It wasn’t going to work. And even from fifty feet away, she could see that he knew it, too. She’d remember that face for the rest of her life. However long that was.
And then the little coupe, which had been in place to be T-boned on the passenger side, shook. The engine screeched, protesting the hand brake that Samantha yanked.
“Hang—”
That was all that Samantha could get out before the car lurched, suddenly flying. And spinning off the road.
Julie’s seat belt jerked across her chest, rubbing her neck raw.
Dizzy from tumbling down the embankment, she prayed that the car would stop rolling, and it did. With a sickening splash.
Immediately her stomach followed the sinking motion of the coupe as water covered the floorboards. The recently frozen lake water made her feet tingle, already dragging down the hem of her jeans.
They had to get out of the car or be trapped in the frigid water.
But Samantha wasn’t moving.
*
Zach threw his car into Park at the top of the hill, hanging up with the emergency dispatcher and racing down the uneven tracks left by Samantha’s car, which he’d seen careen off the road, thankfully unscathed by the tractor trailer. Throwing off his jacket and tie at the water’s edge, he tossed them in a pile with his phone and badge before jumping into the churning mess.
The coupe was still halfway above water, resting on the lake’s bottom before what was certainly a steep drop-off. But he couldn’t see through the shattered passenger window to his sister. To Julie.
Running through water in his jeans was a practice in frustration, the sodden material leaving him sluggish and breathless. Or maybe that was the freezing water, sucking the life out of him.
But at least he was still moving. Julie and Samantha weren’t making any visible progress out of the car. Pressing hard, he paddled with his hands through the brown murkiness. It seemed to take three years with lungs burning to cross the ten yards. Finally the icy door handle was in his grip, just below the surface of the water.
He yanked on it. It didn’t budge.
He twisted over the hood of the car and leaned in close to the windshield. The sun’s reflection caught his eye, and he winced away before cupping his hands around his face and peering into the darkness.
Then he saw her. Julie writhed and clawed at Samantha’s belt buckle, which was nearly submerged by the water inside. His sister’s head lolled to the side, a dark streak running from the edge of her hairline across her forehead.
He had to get in there. He had to get them to safety.
When he pounded on the windshield, Julie jumped, her eyes wild when she saw him. Then she mouthed his name. Or maybe she screamed it, but the only sound in his ears was like rushing water.
“Open the door.” He pointed at it, but she shook her head, her lips forming another word.
Stuck.
The water pressure held it firmly in place, but he had to get them out before the water rose any higher.
Shooting a glance up at the lonely stretch of highway, he wished his sister’s favorite hair person lived closer to the center of the city instead of on the outskirts. But she didn’t, and they’d ended up at the base of this nearly abandoned bridge.
Then again, at least he’d been nearby when Julie had called. That seemed to be a trend with her.
Help was still a long way out, and he had to do something now.
Giving the door handle another vain attempt, he slogged around to the rear of the hatchback, which wasn’t submerged.
Relief made his hands and feet tingle.
Back at the windshield, he slapped the glass in rapid succession until Julie looked back at him. With stilted movements, he pointed at the rear door, then mimed crawling over the seat and unlatching it.
She shook her head and pointed at Samantha.
He’d take care of his sister. He would. But first, he had to get into the car.
“Trust me.” He poked himself in the chest and repeated the inaudible words.
Squinting at him, she tugged on her lower lip. Her hesitation was colder than the lake. Did she not trust him?
Finally she nodded, squirming toward the rear. He raced to meet her at the back, and when the latch clicked, he threw it open, grabbing her hands and pulling her into the waist-deep water.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.” She shook her head hard and then flung her hands toward his sister. “Samantha won’t wake up. I think she hit her head on the steering wheel. And I couldn’t get her unbuckled.”
As he pulled a knife from his pocket, he said, “Can you make it to shore? Wait for me there.”
Again, she paused. Again, the truth of her suspicion needled in the depth of his stomach.
“All right.” She plashed away.
&nb
sp; He watched her struggle up the moderate incline for a split second before sliding into the back of the car. Squashing shopping bags as he went, he used his elbows to pull himself toward the steering wheel. He reached over the black leather seat and, as his hand wrapped around the seat belt buckle, another hand pushed his away.
His gaze flew up to meet his sister’s.
“I’ve got it.” Her chest rose and fell with loud, labored breaths, but she freed herself and followed him out of the car, grabbing the shopping bags as they fell back into the water.
He pulled the bags out of her hands and wrapped an arm around her waist, nearly carrying her to the shore. He wasn’t fast enough for Julie, who ran to meet them in the knee-deep water.
She hugged Samantha’s other side, bearing much of the weight of the larger, stumbling woman. “I am so sorry.” The words nearly vanished, carried away by a brisk wind.
Before he could ask what she meant, the sirens arrived and with them help in every form. Blue uniforms swarmed the scene, settling Samantha onto a stretcher and asking a hundred questions a minute.
Zach had never been on this side of the inquisition, and he found that all he really wanted to do was make sure that Samantha was okay, that his case hadn’t cost him more than he could bear to lose. And then he wanted to hold Julie close and whisper assurances that this wasn’t her fault. That she was safe.
That he’d find the man responsible for threatening her and see justice done.
A medic wrapped a blanket around Julie’s shoulders, but she continued to shiver as she answered every question thrown at her. Zach pulled off the wrap he’d been given and layered it on her back. She looked his way, and he offered a silent nod of encouragement.
She was doing great. An old pro at responding to all of the questions.
He just hated that she had to be.
“There was a man on a motorcycle. He was following us, and Samantha tried to lose him.” She glanced toward the once empty pavement, which was now dotted with two ambulances, three squad cars and his unmarked sedan. “But he was on one of those really fast racing bikes, and he caught up to us in no time at all.”
