Page 39 of No Place Left to Hide

“Fuck!” Jena screams. “Are you behind us?”

“Well, I’m certainly not at Walmart.”

Jena looks about three seconds from climbing through my sunroof and tackling the Bronco with her bare hands. I catch her eye and shake my head. I hope it says,Please don’t make this worse,or better yet,Don’t anger the psychotic driver behind us, because I choose life.

Jena takes a breath. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to Brooke Goodwin.”

“Why, exactly?”

“I think it’s time she paid for what she did. Don’t you?”

Jena mouths,What does that mean?

I shrug and whisper, “I have no idea.”

“Don’t beshy, Brookie,” the voice says. “We’re practically BFFs by now, aren’t we? You’re a terrible friend though—you never call, never write. Look what I had to resort to. Do I finally have your attention?”

There’s a lump in my throat the size of a car tire, but I do my best to speak around it and not sound like my entire body is shaking with fear. It absolutely is, but I don’t wanthimto know that. “What do you want?”

“We’ve been over that already; pay attention. We’re running out of time. When we lose service, I’ll have to resort to plan B.”

I stare at the road ahead and realize we’re about to make the turn that’ll spit us more inland, where we’ll leave the coastal highway and plunge into forty miles of farmland with no cell service.

No.We have to turn around. We have to call my dad or the cops or the goddamned National Guard if this asshole doesn’t back off.

Forty miles without reception is forty miles too long to be at the mercy of a much larger car with no way to stop, no way to call for help, and once we hit the farmland, no place left to hide.

“I’m tired of waiting, Brooke,” the automated voice says. “I’ve been trying to convince you to do the right thing for months, but you’ve ignored all my hints and now I’m done waiting for you to do the right thing.”

“What do you meanhints?” Jena asks.

“Uh oh, someone’s been keeping secrets from the best friend.”

Jena looks sharply at me, and I pretend to focus on the road.

The voice continues, “Honestly, the bumper stickers and the fliers would have been annoying at best, but you didn’t even crack when I slashed your tires. If I wasn’t so disgusted by you, I’d be impressed.” The voice starts laughing and that mechanical sound is too much.

I hit the end call button on the steering wheel. My hand is shaking.

“What the actual fuck?” Jena yells. “This dickheadslashed your tiresand you didn’t tell me? How long has this been going on?”

The phone starts ringing through the Bluetooth again, and I ignore her completely. We only have a few minutes before we lose service, and I don’t want to spend them listening to any more of his garbageorgiving Jena the sordid details of No Caller ID’s harassment. So I avoid both.

I reject the call again.

The Bronco slams into us and this time we almost fishtail off theroad. The console lights with a third call and Jena still has my phone in her hand. She stabs the answer button before I can reject it a third time.

“Stop it!” she screams.

“You’re trying my patience, Brooke,” the voice says, ignoring Jena completely. “But we’re out of time, so I better cut to the chase. The rules of the game are quite simple: you have the rest of this drive to confess to the proper channels—”

“Confess to what?” I yell, some mix of panic and anger tightening the muscles in my chest until it’s hard to breathe. I barely choke out the words. “I have nothing to confess to!”

“Don’t interrupt, Brooke. That’s not very polite.”

I see full red. The combination of today’s events and the cumulative intimidation over the last three months stretches out in front of me like a string and every word out of his mouth pulls it tighter until it’s ready to snap. I have to keep some kind of control, or this is going to go from terrifying to deadlyreal fast.

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