Dex glanced at the flat tire, then at the locked gate. “The road gave you several warnings.”
Being right was bad enough. His voice was worse. Low, steady, and rough around the edges, like gravel under tires. The kind of voice that should’ve belonged to someone ordering whiskey in a bad decision bar, not explaining my ruined exit strategy.
He opened his jacket enough to show me the ID clipped inside, then let the fabric fall back. North Fork Bail Bonds. His photo. His name.
Dex wasn’t a deputy, sheriff, or marshal. He was just the man Crystal had begged me to avoid.
“Open the door from the outside handle,” he said. “Move slowly.”
I weighed my choices.
I could stay in the car until he reached in and took me out, which would end with me cuffed and embarrassed. I could get out and wait for a better opening. I could make my own opening and hope he needed half a second longer than I did.
The tree line sat twenty feet past his left shoulder. Thick undergrowth, a narrow animal trail, rocks, shade. My car wasdead, but my legs weren’t. Dex was big, and big men sometimes took one extra second to pivot.
I opened the door slowly.
He stepped back.
I swung my boots into the dust, stood, and let one hand brace on the roof as if the heat had made me dizzy. My pale hair stuck to the side of my neck. Sweat ran between my shoulder blades. The strap of my tank had slipped just enough for the upper curve of the anchor-and-compass piece on my right shoulder to show.
Dex saw that too.
I saw the recognition move across his face without changing it much.
The file had the left leg and right shoulder, a blonde woman, and a blue-eyed face if he had a photo. It had Crystal’s name in his packet.
The paperwork wasn’t the lie.
I was.
“Turn around and put your hands on the roof,” he said.
“I’m not really a hands-on-the-roof kind of girl.”
“That changes today.”
“You say that like you know me.”
“I know enough.”
“No,” I said, and smiled because letting him see fear would’ve cost too much. “You really don’t.”
Then I threw the door wider and ran.
I made it eight steps.
Eight respectable steps, honestly. Nine if anyone generous counted the stumble over the first rock.
The underbrush rushed toward me. Branches scratched my shin. My left boot hit loose gravel, slid, and caught. I heard Dex move behind me, not cursing, not shouting, just moving.
A hand closed around my upper arm.
I twisted hard, dropped my weight, and drove my elbow back. He shifted before it landed clean. My elbow caught his ribs, but not hard enough. His breath left him in a short burst, and then his other arm came around my waist.
The world turned.
My back hit the side of his pickup, hard enough to stop me but not hard enough to knock the air from my lungs. Dust puffed from the black paint. Dex pinned me there with his body angled against mine and one forearm braced beside my shoulder, giving me just enough space to breathe and not enough to pretend I was free.
