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A flaw, in Renee’s opinion. But then her twin had many.
The needle of her speedometer hit seventy-five, her tires hydroplaning on the slick asphalt before she noticed and slowed again. It was as if she couldn’t get to the damned beach fast enough. She checked her rearview mirror, afraid she might have blown past a cop and sure enough, another car was bearing down on her, one with bright headlights.
Great.
She slowed, not by braking, but by taking her foot off the gas until she was going a lawful fifty-three miles an hour and the car behind her slowed. Probably to run her plates.
This was just getting better and better, as the Camry belonged to Tim. She steeled herself, practiced her smile and “Oh, dear me, Officer” routine, had her excuses all in a row, but no red and blue lights began to streak the night, no siren screamed at her to pull over. If anything, the vehicle behind her just hung back. Maybe he hadn’t clocked her and was waiting for her to speed up.
Screw that!
She pulled into the right-hand lane and sure enough, the guy following her did, too, tucking in behind a compact.
Not a cop, then.
Or at least not a cop interested in her.
No lights. No siren.
Maybe just her imagination, her sense of persecution. She plugged an old Springsteen CD in and watched as the compact swung off the highway at Hillsboro. Another few miles, past North Plains and Laurelton, and the car behind her just kept coming. She sped up, he sped up, she slowed, he slowed.
Goose bumps raised along the back of her arms and she told herself she was being paranoid. No one was following her. No one knew what she was up to. No one could. She hadn’t told a soul.
And yet, she was almost certain she was being followed. She glanced to her purse. Pulled her cell phone out of the zipper pocket. If she was going to call someone, it had to be now, before her service cut out as it did in several spots along this stretch of road.
Call who? Say what? That you suspect someone is following you? Why? Because you’re digging into the Jezebel Brentwood mystery?
She snorted in disgust and tossed her cell into her purse.
The headache was getting to her. The impending divorce was getting to her. All the talk about Jessie was getting to her. And that strange prediction from the old lady at Deception Bay-that was really getting to her. The thought that someone was out to do her harm was her constant and worrisome companion.
“It’s bunk,” she told herself as the CD played and the wipers slapped away the rain. “Bullshit. Nothing more.”
But she knew better.
Her teeth sank into her lip and she swallowed hard.
Payback?
Justice?
For what?
What have I done?
“Mother Mary, help me.” Renee sketched the sign of the cross over her chest, a movement she hadn’t practiced since her senior year at St. Elizabeth’s, but the comfort she once had found in murmuring a quick prayer now eluded her, reminding her only of the bones that had been found at the base of the statue of the Madonna.
She glanced in her mirror again and the trailing vehicle’s headlights seemed brighter than before, more intense.
“It’s no one,” she muttered under her breath as another obscure Springsteen song drifted through the speakers. Renee barely noticed. Her gaze was split between the rain-spattered windshield and the rearview mirror that burned bright headlights back into her eyes. “Bastard,” she muttered.
She’d lose whoever it was in the mountains. Didn’t want anyone knowing where she was going, that she had screwed up her courage and planned to visit the old hag of a fortune teller again. That she intended to learn more about her fate and what the woman knew, if anything, about Jessie.
For the love of God, she was starting to think like Tamara, and that was scary. Damned scary.
She glanced at the headlights in the mirror again and set her jaw. She wasn’t going to spend the next two hours worrying about him. Or her. If they were following her, they were in for a race.
Renee stepped on it.
