Page 79 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

She wiggled her toes and moved her feet in circles. Then she tested her hands, her arms. She touched her torso and felt no pain. No blood. The whole thing had happened so quickly. She’d be bruised tomorrow, but otherwise, she didn’t think she was hurt.

Thank God she’d been going so slowly.

If she clicked off the seatbelt, what would happen? It felt like…like the car was angled downward and wanted to keep going. Something must’ve stopped it from rolling onto its back. She peered out the window and saw dark tree trunks against darkness beyond. Lots of darkness. Not more trees. It was open. Like…

Like she was at the top of a cliff.

Which, considering where she’d been, made perfect sense. She’d caught sight of the lake in the valley below when she’d driven this with Garrett. Of all the places to go off the road…

She angled forward to try to see how far she was from the cliff, but the car swayed, and she froze.

It was leaning on something. It had to be a tree.

Maybe a thick tree that could hold the weight no matter what she did.

Maybe a thin trunk that would bend over at any second, sending her and her small SUV hurling downward.

She had to get out.

She found the door latch and pushed, shocked when it opened easily. Rather than fight gravity by holding it open, she let it close again very gently to keep it from latching. She inched her feet beneath her, tucking the toes of her tennis shoes into the space between the center console and her seat. When she was sure she wouldn’t fall, she unfastened the seatbelt and moved it out of her way, balancing on the console. Then she pushed the door open again.

The car swayed.

“Lord, just hold it steady, please.”

She couldn’t prop the door up while she climbed, so she wriggled into the gap between the door and the car. Its weight rested against her back and scraped as she pushed through. She ignored the pain.

The car shifted, eager to get past whatever held it in place.

She pretended it didn’t matter. Pretended all was well. Managed to get her hips over the edge. She was just about to fall when she saw a flashlight beam in the woods. Somebody was coming.

Silently. And slowly.

She held onto the edge of the car and twisted out, flipping her feet toward the ground. She hung on by her fingertips, ignoring the pain of the car door resting against them. She dropped into the snow.

The car groaned and twisted.

Aspen crab-walked backward as it shifted.

Something snapped, and the car fell onto its roof and slid out of sight.

A moment later, she heard a crash.

And stared into the darkness at the empty spot where her vehicle had been moments before.

The person with the flashlight said nothing.

A rescuer would be calling for survivors. A rescuer would be running, frantic.

Whoever held that flashlight was no rescuer.

It was the person who’d run her off the road, coming to finish the job.

Aspen flipped to her hands and knees and crawled, staying low, moving toward the road above. Praying whoever was looking for her thought she had gone over with the car.

Except the trail she was leaving in the snow would prove otherwise.

It was just a matter of time before whoever that was caught up with her.

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