LITMIR.BIZ

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Jessie’s at the beach and she’s trying to warn me about something—or someone—who wants to do me harm. She keeps saying something, then putting her finger over her lips. And in this last vision, there was a being behind her. In a hood. Dark. Angry. I could feel how much he hates me and my baby!” she added, her voice quivering a bit. “It’s—real. I believe it’s real. And Renee ran into him and it’s what got her killed.”

      Hudson let that sink in for several miles. “You’re sure it’s a he?”

      “Positive.”

      He sighed. “Maybe you do see things. Like Jessie, I guess,” he said. “Everyone says she was precognitive.”

      “She knew something was after her,” Becca said, with another glance in the rearview. “And I know something’s after me.”

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Becca was letting her nerves get the better of her as she made the long drive through the canyons and ridges of the mountains. Tall evergreens, like an army of sentinels, rose into the thick dark sky. Sleet and misting clouds caused the winding, slick road to seem even more isolated and sinister than ever.

      Whatever was after her felt very close.

      But she was safe.

      Hudson was at her side.

      Ringo was in the damned car. Sleeping in the backseat.

      Nonetheless, despite her internal pep talk, Becca felt the gloom of the night-dark forest closing in on her. And as she drove, listening to some obscure country song riddled with static, she thought of Jessie, who had traveled on this very same road so many times.

      It seemed as if Jessie’s spirit had infiltrated this stretch of road.

      She told herself she was imagining things, that she couldn’t “feel” Jessie or “sense” her ghost wandering through the rain, mossy, old-growth timber, and sharp canyons. Her mind was playing tricks on her.

      She glanced at Hudson, whose eyes were trained on the road. His jaw was set, his expression harsh in the dim glare from the dash lights. He, too, was lost somewhere in his thoughts.

      She drove across an icy bridge spanning a deep chasm and her heart seized when she recognized the area. Hadn’t she herself been run off the road here on her way from Seaside sixteen years before?

      The last time you were pregnant.

      She slid another glance at Hudson, then stared through the windshield where condensation was fogging the glass. She felt as cold as death as she passed the mile post marker where her car had been forced off the road.

      Nervously, she checked her rearview mirror, but the car that had been behind them for a while had lagged back, no headlights visible. Nothing but the frigid black night. Her teeth chattered and no amount of adjusting the temperature of the Jetta’s heater could warm her.

      “Cold?” Hudson asked, rousing from his thoughts.

      She offered a weak smile as her fingers clenched the wheel. “It’s supposed to be eighty in here.”

      “It is. At least.”

      Really? God, she was chilled to the marrow of her bones. “I guess it’s just me.”

      “We could turn back,” he said reluctantly.

      She shook her head. He wanted to see this through as much as she did.

      Should she admit why this stretch of 26 gave her the willies? Point out the place where she, like his sister, had been forced off the road? Admit that she’d been pregnant with his child and hadn’t had the guts to tell him about it?

      Now her hands were sweating. Though she felt chilled to her soul, her palms were damp. You’re a basket case. Just tell him. Let the chips fall where they may.

      A flash caught her attention and there in the rearview, she glimpsed twin headlights cutting through the night. Either the car that had been following at a distance had caught up, or someone else had passed the first vehicle and was bearing down on them.

      Hudson’s attention was on the radio. “I think we should be able to pick up a decent station from Astoria or Seaside,” he said.

      Becca kept her eye on the rearview. Why here? Why after all this time alone on the highway would a vehicle appear at this winding spot in the road, so close to where—

      “Is he nuts?” she said as the beams bore down on her.

      Just around the next bend, the highway widened, a passing lane over the summit, but the vehicle behind—a truck—didn’t wait. In a rush, it swept by, sliding a little as it flew into the oncoming lane and roared past, no one visible through its foggy windows.

      Hudson looked up sharply. “Damn idiot.”

      Becca hit the brakes, making room.

      The big truck rocked, sliding into the right lane before thundering ahead, rushing into the night, taillights disappearing into the mist.

      Becca’s heart was pounding, her lungs tight, her nerves about to shatter.

      Hudson glared through the glass. “That son of a bitch could have killed us. You know, it’s one thing if he wants to play Russian roulette with his own damned life, but it’s another thing to screw with my family.”

      His family.

      From the backseat Ringo gave out a disgruntled woof, then stood on his back legs, nose to the glass of a rear window.

      “You tell ’em,” Becca encouraged him, finally relaxing a bit.

      Swearing under his breath about brainless jerks with driver’s licenses, Hudson continued his search for a radio station. The choice was a late-night sermon or songs from the “AWESOME sixties, seventies, and eighties.” Hudson chose the music and Gloria Gaynor, in the middle of “I Will Survive,” blasted through the speakers. He turned the volume down, though their conversation disintegrated to a few observations about the condition of the road or the distance left.

      Becca hit ice a couple of times at the summit, but the Jetta’s tires grabbed on. Still, as the car wound down the westerly slopes, she couldn’t let go of the tightness in her chest, the eerie and growing sensation of doom chasing after her.

      Whoever he was, he was sure working on her fears.

      And it didn’t ease up when they turned south on Highway 101, following the snakelike coastal highway. Through small towns, over deep chasms, and hugging the cliffs that rose from the ocean, Becca drove on, battling the wind and rain that slanted in from the Pacific.

      A few miles north of Deception Bay, Hudson craned to look out the window. It was the cliff edge where Renee’s car went over. “You want to stop?” she asked carefully.

      “No. I’ve seen it.”

      They drove the remaining miles to Deception Bay in silence. It was dark and a sharp wind blew patchily as they entered the small coastal village that curved along a crescent-shaped shoreline. The town itself was wedged between the ocean and mountains with the highway separating the two. To the south was the bay, a freshwater body of water allowing fishing boats a gateway to the open sea.

      Becca’s heart began to race and she felt strange. She knew she’d never set foot in the town before and yet, as she turned one corner after the next, buildings illuminated by the watery glow of a few street lamps, she felt as if she’d walked these narrow streets. An eerie sense of déjà vu so real it chilled her to the bone enveloped her and she had to fight to keep her teeth from chattering. Even with the mist rising, the weathered storefronts and the fishing boats moored in the bay seemed like pictures from her childhood, though, of course, they couldn’t be.

      Not your childhood. Jessie’s.

      A chill whispered up her spine and she swallowed back her fear.

      It’s all in your mind. You’ve never been

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