Page 48 of Code Violation

“There’s that.”

“I think town leaders were more concerned about plans for the abandoned mill, the upcoming mayoral race, and the two new shopping malls being developed in Aberdeen than about those girls.” That disgusted Forrest. “The shopping mall scandal was big news, I remember. Grandpa ranted about it constantly. He was so angry about it. He, Rufus, Oliver, and Ned would sit up for hours and rant about the mayor and his cronies.”

A developer had approached Cooper Springs’ city leaders and they’d refused to give the company permits. In hindsight, the decision had kept Cooper Springs from turning into a smaller version of Aberdeen, but at the time, the town had been divided, especially since the residents had been in the final death throes of the timber industry. It had been dark times for the town and a lot of families had moved away to Aberdeen—which had gotten the shopping mall—Port Angeles, Olympia, and even Seattle.

“Your grandfather wanted the shopping mall?”

“Yeah, he knew Cooper Springs was headed for obscurity,” Forrest said, keeping his attention on the road. “He was the last of the timber families, so it hit him hard, I think. By that, I mean, he had memories as a child of a much busier and robust Cooper Springs, but that all changed when he was still small. The rise and fall of the Cooper family fortune, as he liked to say.”

The headline he didn’t want to talk about was the one after Grandpa had returned with Forrest and Lani. He was forever thankful that Ernst had done his best to keep reporters away. But that hadn’t stopped people from accosting Forrest on the street when he was in town or at school. Like he was some kind of freak.

Because Forrest had taught himself to read, Grandpa had enrolled him in school soon after they’d come back to town—probably also to get a surly little boy out of his hair.

School was where Forrest learned to fight.

He shook those memories away. Grandpa had done the best he could with his feral grandchildren. Lani at least had hidden it better than Forrest. Still did. But she was just as wild inside as he was. Just as distrusting.

They were about halfway back to Forrest’s place, just where the highway curved inward before sloping downward along a serpentine hill that followed the hidden curve of the coastline, when Forrest tapped the brakes and nothing happened.

He tapped them again. They squished all the way to the floorboards.

Where there should have been resistance, there was none. They’d been fine in town—he’d slowed at the corners with no problem—but now, nothing.

“Mother fucking fucker,” he growled, gripping the steering wheel. “Hold the fuck on.” Lani always told him he drove too fast and today it was coming back to bite him in the ass.

“What’s wrong?” Nero asked.

He was going to rip Silas Murphy a new one. Forrest had taken his truck in only a few months earlier for a tip-to-tail tune-up, and new brakes had been one of the things he’d paid a lot of money for.

“Brakes,” he said with gritted teeth.

The truck was gathering speed and the forest became a blur on either side. Forrest was afraid to look anywhere but the road ahead of them as long as he could see it. They hadn’t crashed yet. His fingers ached from gripping the steering wheel while he futilely pumped the brakes—as if holding tight would make the inevitable crash less painful.

“I’m sorry, what?” Nero’s voice cracked on the last word.

“Brakes aren’t working,” Forrest ground out.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No, I am not fucking kidding you.”

The Ford was older than Forrest, made from good old American steel, and weighed close to eight thousand pounds. They were picking up speed and when they stopped, it wouldn’t be pretty and it was going to hurt.

“Downshift,” Nero demanded. “Downshift now.”

Why hadn’t he thought of that? Probably because he was too busy trying to keep the wheel straight. And, oh yeah, panicking. Forrest took a deep breath. If he panicked, they were dead. They were lucky there were no cars within sight on the highway. For the moment.

“Hold on.”

Forcing his fingers off the steering wheel, Forrest reached down and grabbed the gearshift. Quickly, he pressed in the clutch with his left foot and pushed against the stick shift, forcing the truck into third gear. The engine whined and the gears ground, protesting the shift of gears happening without a change in speed. Sweat rolled down his forehead, but Forrest couldn’t risk swiping it away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Nero had grabbed the grip above the door.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

They barreled down the hill, Forrest praying to any god who would listen.

Please make it so we don’t end up as unrecognizable bits being swept up off the road by emergency responders.

Lani would kill him. And then she’d revive him and kill him all over again.

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