Page 151 of Beyond the Blue Horizon
It was a large, blacked-out SUV.
Alarm tripped my guts into mayhem.
I was almost certain it was the same one I’d seen creeping through the small lot at the motel last weekend.
One that had instantly set my nerves into overdrive.
I warred, wanting to stay right next to Piper, hating the idea of letting her out of my sight for even a second.
But I needed to remember my duty.
My duty to Alicia and Lucy.
Gritting my teeth, I waited for the next car to pass then flipped a U in the middle of the road. A single car separated me and the SUV, its taillights bright in my eyes.
Spikes of agitation impaled my flesh, and I struggled to peer around the car, both attempting to make out if the license plate on the SUV was the same and looking for the chance to get around the middle car, but the traffic was thick.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
Sweat slicked my skin, and aggression pulsed and pounded through my bloodstream, vying for a way out.
I edged closer, getting right up to the bumper of the middle car, ready to make the jump whenever there was a break in traffic coming from the other direction.
Dude was likely cussing me out for the way I was driving, but he had no clue what could be riding on this.
Had no idea that so often people’s lives did hang in the balance.
As we approached the next intersection, the light switched to yellow.
Brake lights flashed on the car in front of me while the SUV went blazing through.
Dread whipped through my insides.
“No, no, no,” I shouted, and I whipped to the left, knowing I had to take action.
A horn blared, and lights glared into my windshield as another car made a right from the intersecting street and came straight at me.
I jerked the steering wheel back to the right, and my tires squealed as I whipped back behind the car just as the one in the other lane sped by, still laying on its horn.
“Shit.” It was a haggard, frustrated breath.
My knee bounced a million miles a minute while I waited for the light to turn green, hands drenched as I gripped the steering wheel like it was the only thing keeping me from ditching my truck and trying to catch up to the fucker on foot.
“Come on, come on, come on.”
What felt like an hour later but was less than two minutes, it finally switched, and I accelerated, though I took it slower that time.
My attention glided from right to left, searching for any sign of the SUV, guessing if they knew I was tailing them, they’d likely have ducked into a dark corner to keep themselves hidden.
My heart battered at my ribs as I searched, peering into the shadows of the narrow roads that cut between buildings and into the parking lots sitting in front of the businesses.
I drove toward the south end of town, passing a ton of shops.
River of Ink, the tattoo shop that River owned, a tea shop, the historic hotel on the corner. I inched by Kane’s, the parking lot just beginning to fill with people coming in to unwind after work.
I made it all the way to where the road narrowed and began to twist up the mountain on the opposite end of town.
Irritation buzzed through my senses.
