Tate stopped at the first convenience store we found, finding a parking spot near the front doors and throwing the car in park.
“I’ll wait out here,” he said, still avoiding eye contact.
I made quick work of getting out of the car, glancing over my shoulder as I walked into the store. The black Lincoln passed us on the access road, continuing on until I could no longer see it. But I wouldn’t sigh with relief just yet. Finding the bathroom, I went inside, standing around just long enough to make Tate think I’d gone in for a reason. Hurrying back to the car, I sat back and buckled up as we pulled out again, quickly finding our way back to the highway. I kept my eyes glued on the mirror, watching for the black car to reappear. For a moment, I got my hopes up. When it didn’t show up right away, I wanted to let myself think that I’d been imagining things.
No such luck.
At the next ramp leading from the access road onto the highway, it appeared, once again falling into the lane behind us.
“Damn it,” I whispered.
“What?” Tate asked, stealing a glance at me from the corner of his eye. “Are you okay? You look sick. Do I need to pull over?”
I shook my head. “No, but we have another situation. Don’t panic, but I’m fairly certain we’re being followed.”
Scowling, Tate glanced through his rearview mirror. “There’s like eight cars behind us, and a semi.”
“Black Lincoln with Georgia plates,” I told him. “They were behind us before we exited, then they backed off when we stopped, but now they’re on us again.”
Taking another look in the mirror, he pursed his lips. “I’ve seen that car somewhere, but I can’t place it. Somewhere in Wellhollow Springs, I think.”
“I’ve seen it, too,” I admitted, cringing as I said the words. Tate was about to be pissed—not that I planned to hold it against him.
“Really?” he asked. “Where?”
“The day we visited Grayson Smith,” I replied. “When I noticed it following me home from your house.”
“Bellamy,” he roared, the vein in his neck starting to swell. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I didn’t want you to worry, and I thought—”
“You thought what?” he snapped. “That the person following you would just give up after one try? Jesus Christ, Bellamy!”
I opened my mouth to retort, but the car lurched and the sound of metal hitting metal struck fear in my gut. Tate fought to regain control of the car as it veered from the impact.
“What the hell?” he murmured, glancing up into the rearview mirror.
Turning to look out the back window, I realized the Lincoln had come directly behind us now. They had given us a little tap, and, at highway speed, we could have lost control of the car completely.
“Oh my God,” I whispered, turning back around and closing my eyes, pressing myself against the back of the seat. “He’s trying to make us crash.”
Another tap, this one a bit harder, and Tate fisted the wheel tight, struggling to keep the car in its lane. Speeding up, he tried to move over, but the Lincoln simply followed. One lane over from us, it sped up some more, their front tires now aligned with our back ones. Glancing over, I noticed that the windows had been tinted so dark I couldn’t see anything more than a shadow inside.
“Tate, watch out,” I screamed as the shadow inside jerked his wheel to the left, attempting to sideswipe us.
Tate hit the gas, speeding up enough that his bumper merely scraped the fender of the other car. The sound was nerve-wracking, driving home just how dangerous this situation had become.
“We have to get off the highway,” Tate said, his voice remaining surprisingly calm. “Hang on, Bell.”
Checking to ensure no other cars were in the way, he veered right sharply, crossing three lanes to the far right. He sped up, attempting to put some distance between the Lincoln and us. The driver of the black car chased us, crossing those same lanes and coming behind us again within seconds. The stretch of highway between the next exit and us was long, with nowhere for us to go but off the road. I didn’t want to think about what might happen to us if we dared to pull over.
The car tried to come alongside us again, and while Tate kept speeding up, the Lincoln kept pace, bringing their front tires parallel to our back ones within seconds. When it veered toward us in another attempted sideswipe, Tate pressed the brake again. But the Lincoln’s driver had anticipated that and braked along with him, while jerking to the right. Tate tried to floor it to get away once he realized what he’d done, but that only gave us more momentum once the cars made impact. We were out of control, spinning at fifty-five miles an hour off the shoulder and into the grass. My heart seized in my chest, and I couldn’t breathe as the line of pine trees off the side of the road loomed in front of us. I threw my arms up just before the car made impact, the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass becoming the totality of my world… until the burn of the airbag scraping my forearms brought me out of it.
I flew forward, my face thrown against the airbag and my arms. The seat belt locked, pulling me back against my seat with a jolt.
For a long while, I couldn’t breathe—couldn’t feel anything past the sting on my forearms from the airbag, and the soreness in my shoulder from the yank of the belt.
“Bell,” Tate called out, his voice pulling me back, grounding me and keeping me from panicking. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” I replied, slowly moving my extremities to make sure nothing was broken. I was going to be sore as hell in the morning, but there weren’t any serious injuries that I could feel.
I turned my head to check him out and winced. There was a cut on his forehead, and blood now trickled down the side of his face. His glasses lay in his lap, knocked loose from the impact of the airbag, one of the lenses cracked.
“You’re bleeding!”
“I’m fine,” he insisted. “It’s just a cut.”
A sudden thought had me reaching for my seat belt. “Tate, we have to get out of the car!”
“Bell, calm down.”
“They just forced us to crash,” I reminded him. Calm had officially gone out the window. “They could come down here to see if we’re dead!”
“Baby, you have got to calm down,” he insisted. “They’re gone. They kept going after they pushed us off the highway. It’s okay.”
Closing my eyes, I forced myself to take some deep breaths. My chest heaved, and I felt as if I might start hyperventilating at any second.
“Are you sure they’re gone?”
Before Tate could respond, the face of a man appeared on my side of the car, peering at us through the closed window.
“Hey,” he called out, his voice coming through clearly due to the broken windshield. “You guys okay in there?”
Reaching out to roll down the window, I went to unbuckle my seat belt. “Yes, we’re fine,” I replied.
“You shouldn’t try to move, Miss,” he insisted, reaching out to gently grab my arm before I could open the door. “You could be hurt and not know it. I called 911, so an ambulance should arrive shortly. Just stay put, okay?”
“Okay,” I replied, despite feeling more restless the longer we sat there.
“Man, that was wild,” the man continued, shaking his head. “I saw the whole thing… that asshole tried to push you guys off the road. But, don’t worry, I got down his license plate number. Not sure how much that’ll help, though… the guy didn’t have any registration tags. Weird. Anyway, I got the description of the vehicle and everything. The cops will catch the jerk-off.”
I nodded, and then turned to exchange glances with Tate. “Did you hear that?”
He huffed a sigh, then leaned back against the headrest of his seat and closed his eyes. “Yeah, I heard him,” he murmured. “I’m going to have to call someone. This car isn’t going anywhere, and we’re stranded.”
Dread filled me at the thought of having t
o call my dad and tell him where I was. He was going to kill me.
“Ezra,” Tate said suddenly.
I nodded. “Good idea.”
Ezra was a good call. Maybe he could get us out of this without having to involve our parents. But, as Tate reached for his phone to dial, the sound of sirens came from the distance and I realized that this had gone too far. There was no way we could avoid involving our parents. At this point, our lives pretty much depended on it.
As it turned out, Ezra was more than willing to come to Fayehill when Tate called him. He did, however, bring my dad with him. I shot to my feet in the hospital waiting room when Ezra drove his chair around the corner, his mouth pinched, Dad not far behind. Dad searched the room with darting eyes for a moment before finding me, rushing forward, and grasping my shoulders.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, looking me over as if to make sure for himself.
I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
Grasping my hand, he turned it over, revealing the white bandage taped to the inside of my forearm. “Then what is this?”
“Just an abrasion from the airbag,” I assured him. “This arm was worse than the other, so they gave me an ointment for it and told me to keep it covered for a few days. Nothing major.”
I didn’t want to mention the purple bruise on my shoulder caused by the seat belt. He was upset enough as it was.
Sighing in relief, he nodded. “Okay, good.”
“Tate?” Ezra asked, his brow knit in concern.
“He’s okay, too,” I replied. “Because of his disorder, they wanted him to have an exam to make sure he didn’t sustain any serious injury to his face.”
Tate hadn’t wanted to suffer through their poking and prodding, but the doctor had insisted. I felt fairly certain he’d only agreed to get away from me. Since I wasn’t family, they wouldn’t allow me in the room during the exams. Not that I wanted to be in there. Tate had barely spoken to me since the accident, still fuming over my omission about the black Lincoln stalker. I couldn’t blame him, but, at the same time, I wished he would stop acting like a child. He couldn’t give me the silent treatment forever.
The doctor came back out, finding me standing with Dad and Ezra. “Are you all with Tate Baldwin?”
Ezra moved his chair forward a bit. “Yes. Is there an update?”
The doctor nodded, removing a pair of round glasses and hooking them in the pocket of his lab coat. “He’s going to be just fine. There might be a bit of bruising that pops up in the next day or so on his face. With the fatty tissue on the right side of his face degenerated to almost nothing, the skin is more fragile. Fortunately, he only needed a few stitches to close the cut on his forehead. He can go home, but I don’t recommend that he drive—a seizure might be induced by the head trauma he sustained. I suggest he follow up with his doctor in a few days to ensure that more problems don’t arise later.”
Ezra nodded. “Thank you, Doctor. Can he have visitors?”
“Certainly,” the doctor replied. “Room 425, just down that hall.”
“Can I come?” I asked, wanting to see for myself that Tate was all right. Guilt assailed me at the thought of him possibly suffering more because of the car accident.
“Of course,” Ezra replied, leading the way toward the room.
Dad’s hand came down on my shoulder, his voice strained and clipped when he spoke. “Just long enough to say good-bye, then we’re going home.”
I nodded in response, preparing myself mentally for what was about to happen. He was calm now, and relieved that I hadn’t been hurt. Once we left the hospital and began the long drive home, I was in for it.
We found Tate sitting upright in bed, staring glumly at a tray of gross-looking hospital food. He pushed it away when we entered, panic showing on his face the second he saw my dad looming in the doorway behind me.
“Hey, Ezra… Mr. McGuire.”
“I got here as fast as I could,” Ezra said, stopping his chair at Tate’s bedside. “Are you in any pain?”
He shrugged. “A little, but I’ve been through worse. They had to tow the car.”
Ezra nodded. “We’ll take care of that later. For now, we need to get you home and make an appointment with your doctor.”
“Do Mom and Dad know yet?” he asked, glancing down at his hands.
It was hard not to pity him in a moment like this, when my dad stood at my back, but Tate’s was nowhere in sight.
“Yes, and your mother is worried sick,” Ezra answered. “The sooner we get you home, the easier she’ll rest. She wanted to come with me, but Max and Emma were upset to think you might be hurt, so I urged her to stay home with them.”
No mention of Mr. Baldwin. That didn’t surprise me, but it didn’t stop me from being angry with the man. If his wife had stayed behind, the least he could do was make the drive to check on his own son.
“Mr. McGuire, I’m so sorry,” Tate said, glancing warily at my dad, as if afraid the man would cross the room and strangle him. “The accident was entirely my fault, and I never meant to put Bellamy in danger.”
I had a hard time smothering my shocked reaction. He was giving me the chance to tell Dad the truth on my own, instead of busting me out. I gave him a small smile of thanks, but he barely looked at me long enough for me to know if he’d noticed. I hated that he wouldn’t look at me.
“The important thing is that no one was seriously hurt,” Dad replied.
Tate nodded, his gaze back on his hands again. I could tell having my dad in the room right now was stressing him out. Taking a step toward the bed, I placed a hand over his. I wanted to sit on the edge of the mattress and put my arms around his neck. I wanted to kiss him. But with Dad and Ezra in the room, it felt so awkward.
“Dad’s taking me home,” I murmured. “So, I guess I’ll see you later?”
He nodded, sparing me a glance. “Yeah, sure. I’ll call you.”
That he was still mad at me stung, but I supposed he just needed space to get over it.
“Okay, bye.”
I paused in the doorway, glancing over at the cardboard box from Rosita’s house, resting on a chair in the corner of the room. Everything inside it had remained intact, including Camila’s cell phone—which I had lifted from the box before it was taken from the car. In the event that the box and its contents got lost, I wanted to at least have the phone. Luckily, the towing company had allowed Tate to remove everything from the car before they’d taken it. The rest of his stuff rested in a plastic bag next to the box. Camila’s cell phone lay safely in my purse.
As Dad and I left, I wondered what information might be on it, and whether it would be worth pursuing. The crash had rattled me more than I wanted to admit, but I still felt strongly about making sure justice was served. There remained not a doubt in my mind that both the Vasquez sisters had been murdered.
Dad was silent for the first thirty minutes of the ride home, his big hands clutching the steering wheel so hard the skin over his knuckles lightened. He was furious, but my dad was always a man who dealt with things calmly and objectively. He wouldn’t yell or scream, but he would be stern with me.
“I’ve been a teenager before,” he began, finally, his voice low and gruff. “So I know what it’s like to think you’re in love and want to defy the rules to be with that person. Understanding that doesn’t make me less angry about the fact that you lied to me to sneak off with your boyfriend, to a place five hours away from home, overnight.”
My face got hot at the mention of ‘overnight’. Obviously, I couldn’t lie and say that nothing had happened, when he had to know we’d spent the night together.
“Dad, I’m sorry for lying,” I began. “But, us sneaking off wasn’t for… that. It’s not what you think.”
He frowned. “I might be old, but it hasn’t been that long since I was your age. You don’t have to lie about what might have happened last night.”
I wasn’t going to lie about it… but I also wasn’t going to admit to
anything or tell him about it. That time with Tate felt too personal, and talking about it wouldn’t change anything. Telling him about it would feel too much like confessing something bad, and I wouldn’t think of what we’d shared that way, when it had truly been one of the best moments of my life.
“Dad, if I wanted to sneak around with Tate to fool around, I wouldn’t drive five hours outside of town to do it,” I reasoned. “There are plenty of other places between home and here we could have gone if that’s what we were trying to do. There was something in Fayehill… it was important.”
“Fair enough,” he murmured. “Tell me what was so important that you would lie to me, go behind my back, and leave town without telling anyone where you were. If something had happened to you—something worse than that accident—no one would have known where to find you.”
Awesome. I was already feeling guilty enough over Tate, now I carried the weight of realizing that I could have died today, and my father could have found out where I’d been by a cop walking up to our front door.
“Lying to me isn’t something you do often,” he continued when I didn’t answer. “So, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt here. Whatever it is, I’m sure you felt it was important, or you have a reason for hiding it from me. But that’s over. I want to know what’s going on, and I want to know right now.”
Nodding, I swallowed past the lump in my throat and forced myself to speak. “Baldwin House is haunted, Dad. Two female ghosts, and Tate and I are the only ones who can see them.”
His jaw clenched, one of his hands tightening even more on the wheel. “Bellamy, this isn’t funny—”
“I’m serious,” I interjected. “They’re white as a sheet, and when they move, their bones and joints make these weird popping and snapping sounds… like they’re falling apart from the inside. And they move their lips like they want to talk, but no sound comes out… except this… this sound, like…”
“Like an exhale,” he whispered. “It sends a shiver down your spine every time, no matter how many times you’ve heard it.”
Bellamy and the Brute Page 24
