Page 37 of No Place Left to Hide

“It means, I’m taking a page out of the Goodwin playbook. You want something? Take it. Someone’s in your way? Tear them down. Need more evidence? Make some.”

A dark, spiky sensation wraps around my insides. “What are you going to do, Claire?”

She steps closer. “Come on now. If you frown like that, you’ll get wrinkles. Screw that Goodwin smile on a little tighter. You’ll need it when I’m done with you.”

Twelve

Now

The entire car shakes with the impact of the Bronco.

My seatbelt tugs tight across my chest, snapping me back against the seat, and I lose my grip on the steering wheel. The Subaru slides over the white line and I scramble to correct the steering, slamming my foot down on the gas as we straighten out.

The speedometer climbs to seventy.

Eighty-two.

Ninety miles an hour.

The Bronco stays right on my tail.

Jena lets loose a string of swears, yanking on her seatbelt until it loosens. She turns in her seat to flip them off through the back window. “Road-raging son of a bitch!”

But I don’t think that’s what this is. I didn’t cut him off. I didn’t slow him down. I didn’t take his parking spot. We had no interaction on the road whatsoever before he pulled up behind us, and he went out of his way to get behind me again after I took the turn to Devil’s Lake.

Garnering the attention of both a phone stalker and a road rage enthusiast seems unlikely. No Caller ID must be in that Bronco. I just don’t know who they are or why they’re doing this.

“I should have stayed home,” I mumble, glancing again at my speed.

Ninety-one miles an hour.

We’re going too fast. Every groove in the pavement, every bend or incline feels twice as sharp at this speed. If we hit a pothole, I might lose total control, but I have no choice.

I check the mirror, to clock the distance between their bumper and mine one more time. They can’t be more than a few feet behind me. I can feel my blood pressure rising.

“I don’t know what to do,” I say.

“What? We call for help, that’s what we do,” she says, reaching for my phone.

A surge of panic goes through my entire body. “Let me—” I say, trying to grab it first.

She snatches it off the magnetic holder. “No way. You’re going like a hundred miles an hour. You drive. I’ll call.”

“Really, Jena. Wait a minute. Maybe I can lose them,” I say, but she’s already staring at the screen with a confused furrow between her eyes.

“Why the hell is your phone on airplane mode?” she asks, flashing the screen at me.

I don’t know what to say. Every possible response flees my brain. “I um… It’s…”

She narrows her eyes at me and swipes through my passcode.

No.“Jena, don’t.”

The second my phone regains its bars, it starts ringing. The call goes through the Bluetooth, and the dash screen lights up with what I’ve been hiding for the last three months.

INCOMING CALL FROM NO CALLER ID

Jena looks at the screen, then back at me. “I’m going to ask you one last time: What the hell is going on?”

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