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“I have to doeverythingaround here.” She hissed, furious, and flew through the wall before I had a chance to stop her.
Of course, even if I’d had a chance, I wasn’t sure I would have tried. I didn’t like the idea of her loose in Haven Hollow, but I liked the idea of her loose inside the hotel with me even less.
That went well,Cain said finally.
I groaned, clutching one of the wine glasses on the table, and wishing like heck I had something to fill it with.
This day was just the pits.
***
We’re being followed,Cain said once we were in the car and heading back to his house.
I almost swerved off the road.What? Who? Where?
There was a beat of silence, and a flare of cold from the ring on my hand, and Cain appeared in the passenger’s seat.
“I don’t know, but there’s a car that’s been behind us for about five minutes now. They aren’t trying to pass, and that’s odd, given that you’re driving like you’re trying to imitate a ninety-year-old woman.” I gave him a glare, which he didn’t seem to notice. “And they continue to fall back a little every time there isn’t another vehicle between them and us.”
I kept glancing in the rear-view mirror, but all the cars kind of looked the same in the dark. It was nothing but headlights for me. I probably could have craned around, but getting into an accident seemed like a bad idea. I mean, I wasn’t like a cat with nine lives. I had this second life and that was it.
“Why would someone be following us?” My eyes were watering from staring too hard into the reflection of headlights, and I had to blink a few times to clear them.
Cain gave me an impatient look. “I don’t know. I’m operating under the same amount of information you are.”
My hands tightened on the wheel, elbows feeling a little watery. This wasn’t the kind of thing I was used to, and I had to fight to keep my breathing steady. “Well, maybe they’re just going the same way we are.”
Cain grunted. “It’s possible. Not likely, but possible. Turn left here.”
I almost drove straight past the street Cain told me to turn onto, too surprised to hear him properly. “Wait, what? Why?”
“So we can tell if they are actually following us. Now turn right.”
I got what he was laying down. Make a bunch of erratic turns, do things no one who has a clue where they’re going would do, and see if the car stayed on our tail.
I was definitely starting to feel like a real gumshoe. It wasn’t as fun as I’d thought it would be.
After the second time I almost drove into the back of another car, I had to trust Cain to watch out the back window while I focused on the driving. My palms were a little damp, and I had to keep wiping them on my skirt to keep my grip from getting slippery.
With every turn, my stomach got heavier and heavier, because I could tell from Cain’s grim expression that the other car was still behind us. Okay, so almost definitely not innocently going in the same direction as we were.
Applesauce. They wanted to tail Darla Rowe? Well, they could darn well try.
See, when I learned to drive, things like road laws and traffic acts didn’t exist yet. Neither did seatbelts, for that matter. True, it was a bit different since an automobile couldn’t go half as fast as a modern car, and there were also way fewer cars on the roads back then.
Mostly, you just had to not spook the carriage horses, and not run people over in the streets who didn’t know that the chugging, grinding engine noise meant that a car was bearing down on them, and the ones who did, didn’t know why it was their problem.
I’d learned a few tricks since then, and I’d watched just about every episode of the Dukes of Hazard and Knight Rider that I’d managed to rest my peepers on. Throw in the fact that my sweetie Henner was a wiz with all things electronic, and my car could do things that would leave people staring with their jaws on the ground.
“Follow this, you big dumb Palooka,” I muttered, and pushed the gas pedal to the floor.
Cain frowned, turning towards me. “What was–”
That was all he got out before the car leapt forward like a race horse out of the starting gate. Cain had to vanish back into the ring, or risk blowing right out through the trunk and getting left behind as we rocketed forward.
“Wahoo!” I yelled! “That’s what I call ‘turbo’!”
Alright, yes, it was scary that some stranger was following me. But feeling the car shoot forward, with all that power and speed, it had a grin stretching my face until my cheeks hurt. Part of me wished I had a convertible, so I could feel the evening wind in my hair.
