Olivia Dillon gripped the steering wheel of her sedan tighter and pressed the accelerator a little harder. She didn’t want to drive recklessly, but Las Vegas, Nevada, and the threat to her life were only two hundred and fifty miles behind her.
She’d left the busy interstate twenty minutes ago, turning onto a quieter county highway that snaked gradually upward through scrubby Arizona high desert. To her right and left, shadowy rust-colored mesas towered like thunderheads in the distance. Straight ahead, the crumbly strip of asphalt angled sharply upward.
When summoning the courage to leave Vegas, she’d promised herself she would be at her great-aunt’s ranch in Painted Rock, Arizona, before dark. That wasn’t going to happen. Jamming the last few items from the apartment she’d just vacated into her rented storage space had taken longer than expected. Now the sun barely clung above the horizon to the west and she still had several more miles to go.
“It will be okay,” she told herself for probably the hundredth time today. Not that she believed it.
She continued on, covering another twenty miles and gaining close to a thousand feet in elevation. The sun dropped off the edge of the world and the surrounding purple dusk took on a darker tinge.
She arrived at the edge of the tree line marking the start of rich northern Arizona forest, so she must be on the right track. A few more miles and the highway would intersect with the turnoff for Painted Rock, the only town for miles.
A flicker of light in the rearview mirror drew her attention to a set of car headlights in the gray distance behind her. It was the first car she’d seen since leaving the interstate.
She turned her gaze back to the road in front of her.
A few minutes later, a flicker of light in the mirror caught her eye again. She was startled to see the car had covered half the distance between them. That wasn’t possible. Not unless the driver was going over a hundred miles an hour.
Well, she’d just get out of the way. The guy was probably drunk. She scanned the side of the road up ahead, looking for a place to pull over. But she’d just entered the forest and there was nowhere she could go. No breakdown lane. No service roads.
Nervous, fluttery fear shifted anxiously in her chest. What if the driver didn’t see her? What if he glanced at a text message just as he came upon her? Her life could be over in an instant. Here, in the middle of nowhere instead of in Las Vegas. How ironic that would be.
She glanced in the mirror to see how close the car was now.
Bright white high-beam headlights suddenly flashed on just inches behind her rear window. She jumped in surprise. The fluttery fear in her chest was now a frantic, clawing animal.
It had to be a truck or an SUV behind her. The headlights were high enough to bore through her back window and blind her to the road ahead. Terrified she’d careen off the road, she tapped her brakes. The vehicle behind her smacked her bumper hard and her head snapped back against her headrest. Then the vehicle backed off.
Eerie, constantly shifting shadows danced through the inside of her sedan before her car interior suddenly lit up again. Another hard smack to her bumper jolted her. The light suddenly shifted to the side. Now what?
The tormenting vehicle passed her and shot off toward the darkness ahead only to stop suddenly, the taillights glaring at her like a pair of angry red eyes. The truck made a quick U-turn and headed back toward her.
This wasn’t some random jerk who was drunk or high. This was someone deliberately out to hurt her. It had to be Ted Kurtz. The man who had promised to kill her. She let go a sound that was halfway between hysterical laughter and a terrified sob.
Just three weeks ago he’d warned her that her life wasn’t worth much.
“It will be okay,” she whispered, tired of the whole thing, drained by weeks of fear and exhausted by the sheer will it had taken to leave the safety of her apartment and take this trip.
The headlights grew nearer, and then suddenly they were right in front of her, in her lane and bearing down fast. Blinded again by the bright light, she didn’t know what to do.
At the last second before impact, Olivia wrenched her steering wheel hard to the right. For the span of a couple of heartbeats she felt an odd, peaceful silence. Then her car was spinning sideways, careening over thick grass, scraping its undercarriage over chunks of rock, snapping the branches off pine trees and tossing up dirt in an arc all around her.
When she finally came to a stop, she continued to clutch the steering wheel for a long time. She was still alive. Thank You, Lord. Thank You. Thank You. The words tumbled over and over in her mind. Not a prayer, exactly, but the closest she’d come to one in a while.
The dirt she’d stirred up slowly settled. She was facing the direction she’d just come from. Her engine had cut off, but both her headlights were still working.
She sat for a moment in the stillness, frozen in place. Images of what could have happened, what might still happen, flashed through her mind. Jagged, twisted metal. An explosion flaring into a fireball in the night sky. Herself just, well, gone.
The sound of her own shallow, uneven breaths brought her back to the moment. All too familiar with how controlling fear could be, she forced herself to move her arms a little and turn her head. Her muscles felt watery. The heavy, thudding pulse in the pit of her stomach made it hard to take a deep breath. But she forced herself to do it.
Her foot was jammed against the brake pedal. She lifted it and flexed it. Sore, but not sprained.
She looked around, able to see for a few car lengths directly in front of her but for only a foot or two to each side and behind.
Her attacker could still be out there. Ted Kurtz or maybe some crackhead thug he’d hired to kill her. She needed to get out of here before he came back.
With shaking hands she turned the key. The engine groaned but wouldn’t restart.
She checked her phone. No service.
The heavy pulse in the center of her gut thumped harder. And faster.
What options did she have? Get out of her car and hike down the road until she picked up a phone signal? That didn’t sound very appealing.
Or she could stay in her car and wait for help. A sitting duck. An easy target for someone wanting to come back and finish the job.
Hiking down the road was starting to sound like the better option. She could run if she saw someone coming or hide in the woods. Not an ideal situation, but it beat cowering in her car.
She’d been so shocked and terrified on that sidewalk back in Las Vegas, when Kurtz suddenly appeared at her side, smiling snidely while promising to catch her alone and kill her someday. Too stunned to collect herself in time to call out for help from the people passing by. After he walked away she could only take a few fumbling steps around the corner before her knees buckled and she’d slid to the concrete. Helpless. All she’d done was whimper.
Afterward, she’d promised herself she would never let fear do that to her again.
Now she summoned up what little bit of stubborn courage she had left and tucked her phone into her front pocket. She grabbed her wallet from her purse and shoved it in her back pocket. Then she set a couple unopened cans of soda in the center of her jacket and twisted it. Not the best weapon in the world, but better than nothing.
She shoved hard against the dented, protesting door, climbed out and crouched down low, pressing against