Page 2 of A Step You Shouldn't Take

“Did he even ask your address?” Georgette asked. “Did he?”

Did he, did he, did he? Everything before the car was a blur. What was my address? I had a nice house, ranch-style, painted cream on a good-sized lot. No pets unless you counted the orioles that hung out at my bird feeder in spring.

“My name is Georgette Riley, and I was twenty-four years old when I died. Remember that, because you need to solve my murder.”

No. No way. I didn’t do crime solving. I organised weddings and the occasional party. Never for teenagers because those always ended in disaster, but anniversaries, corporate functions, even the occasional bach…bachelette…bachor… Strippers. Those.

“No no no.”

“Honestly,” the man said. “Taking you home is no trouble.”

“Look, Kimberly—that’s your name, isn’t it? You need to kill this asshole to set me free, and right now, the only thing you’re capable of killing is your own liver. So I’m gonna help you escape, and then you’re gonna hunt him down.”

That sounded good. The escape part, not the hunting. And I hated liver.

“Nod once if you can hear me.”

My head didn’t want to cooperate, but I managed to move it a little.

Georgette sounded shrill, her voice a mixture of desperation and excitement, and I knew why. Meeting me was a one in two billion chance, quite literally. Almost eight billion people in the world, but only four Electi, if you could even count me among them seeing as I didn’t carry out any of my duties. My appearance had given her hope.

“Okay, he’s locked the doors, but the button to unlock them is on the centre console. Move your left hand. More. More. Got it.”

My eyes began closing all of their own accord, but I felt the smooth plastic of the button under my fingertips. A lifeline.

“Now, slide your other hand over and get ready to unbuckle the seat belt.”

This plan made no sense. Georgette expected me to jump from a moving vehicle? I’d die anyway. Then the man rubbed my leg with his thumb, and a shiver ran through me. It felt…wrong. So wrong.

“Not long now, darling,” he said.

Darling? Darling? Daddy always called Mom darling, and then he sent her away. For a rest, he said, but she’d never left the Spring Grove Treatment Center in the whole time before she died. And I didn’t want to live inthatplace. It smelled funky, and the nurses always spoke in this weird whisper that sounded like the wind in the trees.

No, I couldn’t stay with this man.

“There’s a traffic light coming up, and it’s just turned red,” Georgette told me. “You’ll have about five seconds to get out. Ready?”

I was anything but ready, but she didn’t seem to care.

“Go!”

Some primal instinct must have taken over, because suddenly I was on the grass verge, looking through the open car door at the man’s angry face. For a second, I thought he might come after me, but then the car behind honked its horn and he reached over, slammed the door shut, and roared off, quickly followed by Mr. Impatient.

Alone at the side of the road, I gave in to temptation and closed my eyes as a light drizzle dampened my face. The ground felt soft. Squishy. Kind of cold, but that was okay.

Finally, I could take a nap.

CHAPTER 2 - KIMBERLY

“MA’AM, ARE YOU awake?”

Define awake.

I could hear a man talking, but I wasn’t entirely sure he was real. Nor did I know where I was, how I’d gotten there, or what the incessant beeping in the background was.

A car. I’d been in a car. With a murdered girl and possibly her killer, and now my head felt as if it’d been run over by a truck and squashed like a cantaloupe. Was I dead?

“Ma’am?”

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