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Dani Jones kept her head low as she lifted the nozzle from the fuel tank and set it back on the pump. It was a simple task, but her hands were trembling as she fumbled with the gas cap, trying to screw it on tight. Her eyes flickered toward the tan SUV parked behind her. It was the same vehicle that had been following her since Iowa. Same plates, same driver and passenger, with their ball caps pulled low and their eyes determinedly avoiding contact. She took a deep breath and repeated the familiar words that always steadied her nerves and calmed her racing heart. “I am safe. God is with me. No one is trying to hurt me.”
It had been more than fifteen years since her twin sister Ali’s brutal murder. Fifteen years without a single incident. She hadn’t been mugged, attacked or threatened in any way. But none of that mattered. The anxiety remained.
She inhaled. Exhaled. But she couldn’t relax. The weather had taken a turn for the worse, and the small canopy over the pumps offered little protection from the blowing snow. Squeegee in hand, she set to work swiping through ribbons of sludge on the van’s rear window, until a reflection in the glass caused her breath to hitch. The tan SUV behind her was no longer stationary. It was steamrollering forward on a collision course with the back of the van—and her.
Her knees buckled and panic threaded through her senses.
“Stop!” Her strangled cry had no effect. “Hit the brake!” she screamed as she raced to dodge the speeding vehicle. She stumbled onto the raised curb seconds before the SUV slammed into her bumper with a bone-cracking thump, ramming the van forward into the lot.
Indignation trumped fear as she sprinted toward the vehicle, brandishing the dripping squeegee. “Do you know you almost hit me?” she yelled. Her answer came in a spray of pebbles and slush as the driver spun into Reverse and headed toward the exit.
Seconds later, the kids in her mission group tumbled through the service station door. All seven of them in a gaggle of oblivious teenage excitement, sliding along the snow-covered pavement, their voices loud and high-pitched as they raced through the lot and climbed into the van. Their boisterous enthusiasm distracted her from the feelings of unease swirling in her stomach. Why hadn’t the driver seen her? Had his brakes failed, or was it something more sinister? Surely the accident hadn’t been deliberate. But then, why the rush to flee the scene? She could have been pinned between the vehicles. Crushed. Broken. Dead.
But she couldn’t allow herself to think about that now, with the blizzard increasing in intensity and streams of white powder roiling across the road. There was nothing to do but forge ahead. They were less than fifty miles from the nearest town, and more than an hour from their destination. Slow and steady, that was the trick. She just needed to stay alert until they reached the reservation.
She climbed back into the van and signaled her turn onto the highway, her eyes darting in every direction, searching for signs of the tan SUV. So far so good. She tightened her grip on the wheel and directed her focus to the road ahead. An hour passed, and still there were no other cars behind her. According to the GPS, they were five miles from the town of Dagger Lake. Just in time, too. Visibility had decreased to near zero, and thick flakes were blanketing the windshield as quickly as the wipers worked to clear her view. In the rearview mirror, she could see the faces of the kids in the back seat. Two hours ago, they were laughing and singing Christmas carols, but now seven sets of worried eyes watched her every move.
“We’re almost there.” She tried to sound reassuring, but she was finding it hard to disguise the anxious tremor in her voice. Dread coiled up within her as a set of headlights flashed