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As I wound through the road’s curves and hairpin turns, the vehicle behind me gradually crept closer and closer until it was right on my ass. Other vehicles passed in the opposite direction, semis and cars and even a few motorcycles, and pretty soon, the asshole was crowding me on the tight roadway.
To my left was the other lane of traffic, then a guardrail to keep motorists from plunging off the sheer drop to nowhere. To my right was mountain. Which basically meant I had nowhere to go.
Fuck. Time to engage evasive maneuvers.
We went around another tight curve. By then, I was going faster than I should’ve been, but dammit, I needed to get out of there, and the only way was through. And that’s when the asshole behind me made his move. I was fairly certain it was a “he,” because, c’mon. It had to be Harris, right? He honked his horn, then nudged my back bumper with his front one.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel to stay on the road, and thank God nothing was coming the other direction just then. I managed to keep in my lane and pressed the accelerator to put some distance between us again, heart slamming against my rib cage and lungs tight. Unfortunately, it didn’t help much, since Harris sped up too and rammed me again, this time harder, sending me screeching across the other lane—still amazingly empty—and careening toward the guardrail.
Time seemed to slow, and it all felt like it was happening to someone else. I’d had this happen before, usually on the battlefield, when adrenaline seared through my veins and my vision tunneled to just the here, just the now, just survival. Through sheer force of will I managed to avoid smashing through the guardrail and plummeting to my death. I sucked in a huge gulp of oxygen and dug my heels into the floorboards, my mind racing along with the car’s engine.
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
Memories flashed before my eyes, blending with the scene unfolding before me. This was exactly how my family had died. My dad had lost control during a rainstorm and gone off the road, killing them all. I couldn’t die like that. I’d had nightmares for years that I’d been in the car with them that day, tumbling and tumbling and tumbling as the world shattered and their screams sliced into my brain like a scalpel.
Chest constricted and eyes scratchy, I squinted out the windshield and spotted a hiking trail parking lot up ahead. Thank fuck. Thank fuck it was also empty, meaning I could swerve into it fast. I did, then slammed on the brakes, praying it would be enough to get this asshole off my tail.
It was. Harris didn’t have time to react, and there wasn’t enough room for him to turn around. With a squeal of rubber, he sped onward toward town. I sat there for a while, getting my shit together again and letting the adrenaline burn out of my system so my hands weren’t shaking so badly.
Several minutes and more than a few deep breaths later, I was relatively under control again. I pulled out and continued into town, keeping an eye out for the other vehicle. I figured Harris was smart enough not to try that shit again, but maybe he was cocky. Maybe he thought being law enforcement put him above the law himself. Maybe he’d mess up.
Sure enough, once I’d crossed into the town limits, I spotted his truck parked along a side street. I slowed enough to snap a picture of his license plate with my phone. I didn’t want to confront him, not yet, seeing as how I was unarmed. This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. I circled the block, clearing my head and calming my raging pulse, before looping back to the grocery store, keeping an eye out behind me to make sure he wasn’t about to try it again.
But if Harris was stupid enough to try it again at least this time I’d be mentally prepared for battle.
I walked through the store in a haze, trying to focus on the list when all I wanted to do was go into war mode. I didn’t want Charlotte to see that side of me, at least not yet, so by the time I pulled into the driveway again, I thought I had myself pretty well under control. At least until I walked inside and Charlotte stopped in the middle of the living room, her eyes wide.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, walking over to where I stood at the door, my arms laden down with bags. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
I took the stuff to the kitchen, trying to tell her, but the words wouldn’t come. So, instead, I gestured for her to follow me outside. We walked down to the SUV to grab the last of the bags, and I pointed at the damaged back bumper.
“What the fuck?” she asked, staring down at the caved-in tailgate. “Did someone hit and run you in the parking lot?” Charlotte straightened, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling with anger. “This is exactly why I hate going to that place! People don’t look where they’re going and drive like jackasses in there. I’m going to call them and have them check their security cam—”
“No,” I managed. I needed to keep it together. “It didn’t happen at the store. Someone tried to run me off the road on my way there.”
“What?” Charlotte froze then, all the color draining from her face. “Oh God. Elijah.”
“Yep. Don’t know anyone else who’d do it,” I said, looping the last bag over my arm, then closing the back hatch with a loudthump.
I was used to war zones, sniper fire, night raids where the odds were stacked against us and one wrong move could take out an entire unit. What I wasn’t used to was coming close to dying the same way I’d lost my entire family. There was no way I wanted Savannah to feel that sort of pain. Fucking Elijah Harris. My earlier fear had given way to fury. “I got a picture of his license plate. But he’s not stupid, and I’d bet good money if we ran it, it wouldn’t come back to him.”
Charlotte shook her head, then hugged me, squeezing me tight for a second before letting me go. I savored that warmth, fleeting though it was. “Shit. Shit!” she said. She looked around before following me inside, like she was checking for an interloper. “We need to call the police anyway. Let them know what happened, even if they say it was just a hit-and-run. They can add it to his file.”
“Yep.” I took off my jacket, then kissed Savannah’s head before dialing the chief’s number. I filled him in on what happened, then sent him the photo of the license plate, along with a couple more of the damage to the bumper that I took in the driveway while on the call with him.
We were silent as we put the groceries away, each for our own reasons. I could tell Charlotte was scared and was probably thinking over all the ways Elijah Harris could harm us.
Me? I was mapping out my battle strategy. There was no way he was going to get close to us again.
SIXTEEN
We sat down to our dinner of Bolognese sauce and garlic bread, the air heavy with what was to come. Gabe was more quiet than usual.
“The custody hearing is tomorrow, right?” I asked him even though I knew the answer.
“Yeah,” he said, dishing up a plate of pasta for himself.
He was doing his best to act like nothing was wrong but I could tell that he was still working through the incident on the road. The parallels to what had happened to his family weren’t lost on me. I couldn’t blame him for needing some time to process it.
