LITMIR.BIZ

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standing behind Jessie with a knife. He was going to stab her and then he looked at me. Hudson, he knows I’m pregnant!”

      “Was he at Siren Song?” he asked carefully. He didn’t know how far he believed in her ability to see the man who intended her harm, but her fear had infected him. She believed it, and that’s what counted right now.

      “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought so. Before we went. But then we saw the girl…”

      “Woman.”

      “Yes, woman.” She drew a hard breath. “Jessie was adopted. Are these people…did she come from this cult? If that woman wasn’t her, is she Jessie’s sister?”

      “Some kind of relative, maybe.” Hudson didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but Lord, there had been a resemblance.

      He shot a glance Becca’s way. In profile, she possessed a striking similarity as well. It had always been there, to some degree, but until he’d seen the Jessie lookalike, he’d never really taken it seriously.

      “Jessie came to find them, but then she encountered him,” Becca murmured, watching the rivulets of rain run down her side window.

      “Who is he?”

      “One of them? I don’t know. But he hates me. I can feel it, and it’s real.”

      “We’ll go home,” Hudson said grimly. “Make sure you and the baby are safe.”

      Something in his tone cued Becca to his unspoken thoughts. “You’re going to come back here without me!”

      “Not tonight. I want to get home. Safe. Have a late dinner. And think about this.”

      “I don’t want you to come back here.”

      “I need to know what Renee learned.”

      “It’s not safe.”

      “I don’t believe we’re marked for death,” Hudson told her. “Mad Maddie’s a demented old woman who believes in a psychic ability she doesn’t possess.”

      “I know. I know.” But she didn’t sound like she believed it.

      “I’ll feel better knowing you’re back in Portland, safe and sound, away from whoever killed my sister.”

      Becca didn’t respond. She wanted to get back home and she wanted Hudson and Ringo with her.

      They made the turnoff to Highway 26 in relative silence, each absorbed in their own thoughts. As they started into the Coast Range, the light drizzle turned into mixed rain and snow.

      “Maybe we should call McNally.” Becca broke into the silence, watching the hypnotizing slap-slap-slap of the wipers. “Send him to Siren Song. Let him take it from here.” Without waiting for a response she dug in her purse for her phone and made a sound of annoyance. “I switched it off last night and never switched it back on.”

      “You’re not going to get much reception now,” Hudson observed, but Becca pressed the green On button and hoped for the best. The cell phone went through its waking-up routine, but the words “no service” filled the screen.

      “When we get over the mountains,” she said and settled in to wait, her cell phone in her hand.

      Snow fell in earnest as they reached the summit and started down the other side, causing Hudson to take the Jetta down to a slow creep. Almost immediately over the pass, however, the snow turned to a mix, then the ever-present drizzle. It was dark as pitch out. No illumination other than their own headlights.

      Becca realized they were only a few miles from where she’d had her accident, and her right hand squeezed her cell phone hard. Hudson was concentrating on the road. Visibility was less than perfect.

      As they hit a longer, straight stretch, the forest dropping off on either side of the blacktop, headlights came up behind them, bright around a last curve. Their illumination scoured the inside of the Jetta, throwing Hudson’s profile into sharp relief.

      Becca half glanced around in fear. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t. It was just her irrational terror. “He’s awful close.”

      “For these road conditions, he sure is.”

      The vehicle pulled closer. A truck.

      “Jesus,” Hudson muttered. There was no shoulder. They were driving on a ridge where the asphalt ended abruptly and the land dropped away. Becca knew this section of the highway well, and her heart began a deep, slow tattoo. “Pass, you idiot!”

      The truck rumbled loudly, shattering the night. Hudson yanked the wheel, trying to pull over, but there was nowhere to go. Becca’s phone flew from her hand. She scrambled for a hold.

      Ram!

      The truck hit them from behind, throwing Becca forward. “Shit!” Hudson yelled. The seat belt jerked Becca back. Ringo yelped and his toes scrabbled for purchase as he slammed into the back of the front seats.

      “Christ!” Hudson muttered. He twirled the wheel the other way, turning into the spin, keeping the car on the road with everything he had.

      “It’s him,” Becca moaned. “It’s him.”

      She turned to gaze back, her face caught in the glare of his headlights. She saw the grill on the front of the vehicle. A truck.

      Hudson hit the accelerator and the Jetta spurted forward, shimmying across the road, righting itself for a moment in the oncoming lane.

      Ram!

      The truck caught the Jetta on the driver’s side, spinning it back. Hudson didn’t wait. There was no more trying to stop. No searching for a place to land. He was going to have to outrun the bastard.

      He punched the accelerator. The Jetta’s wheels grabbed the pavement and lurched ahead of the truck with a jump. The truck’s driver threw it into reverse, then ground the gears, readying for another assault. Hudson pressed the accelerator further and the Jetta charged forward, shaking like a rattletrap.

      “The axle,” Hudson muttered. “Shit.”

      “Hudson, he’s coming!”

      “Bastard.”

      He punched the Jetta. Shivering madly, the compact car ran forward like a runner fighting a limp.

      The headlights pinned them. The truck’s horn bellowed a cry of war, then slammed them with enough force to slide the Jetta over the edge. One moment they were following the center line of the highway, the next they were plunging over an embankment into black nothingness.

      Becca screamed. In her mind’s eye she saw Hudson cold and bleeding. Eyes closed in death.

      Blam! The Jetta hit the ground with force enough to break the axle entirely. Becca’s teeth slammed together. The car surged through underbrush. Ringo yipped. Hudson swore and then suddenly the bole of the tree raced toward them.

      The driver’s side hit the tree dead on. Becca jerked into her seat belt again. The windshield shattered. Cold air and glass rained.

      “Hudson! Hudson!”

      Becca didn’t immediately realize she was calling his name. She surfaced as if from a dream and saw something stuck into the arm of her jacket. A sharp chunk of wood. She reached for it and pulled it out, felt searing pain. It had been jabbed into her bicep. She yanked it out before any of that penetrated her brain and she felt the ooze of blood on her skin.

      Hurry, she told herself. Hurry!

      Her gaze shot to Hudson. He was slumped over the wheel. The area above his right ear was dark with blood. The steering wheel had pinned him to his seat. “Hudson,” she said brokenly.

      Steam sizzled into the cold night. Rain poured in through the half-missing windshield.

      “Hudson,” she whispered again. She tried to move forward but the seat belt held her fast. The dog whimpered

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