Mountain Secrets by Elizabeth Goddard (good books to read for teens txt) 📕

rib cage. Definitely, she was alive, but for how much longer? She felt the ache across her chest from the seat belt for what would surely become another bruise.

She released a half sigh, half cry, then looked at Officer Roberts. “Are you okay? We have to get out of here.”

But he didn’t respond.

Oh, no. God, please, no. They’d hit a tree, which could have been deadly. She thought of the boy he had been. The parents who had raised him.

Bracing herself, Jewel released her seat belt and grabbed his arm. He didn’t appear to be injured, but it could have been internal. He could simply be unconscious and would wake up with nothing more than a concussion. Jewel wished, hoped and prayed it so.

Pebbles and dirt trickled down from above. The telltale sounds of someone coming, scrambling down, echoed.

Oh, no!

She shook the police officer. “He’s coming,” she whispered. “We have to get out of here.”

But it was no use. Officer Roberts didn’t wake up.

She searched for her purse, where she’d stuck the Glock, but it was out of sight and reach, crushed somewhere in the twisted vehicle. Officer Roberts was dressed in regular clothes. She hadn’t seen where he kept his weapon. Didn’t see it now, or any communication device. She’d search him if she had to, but she’d prefer if he woke up.

She and Officer Roberts both had been fortunate to survive the initial impact and subsequent rolls, but how could they stay that way? If they couldn’t get out of this vehicle and away from the man who’d run them off the road, they both would die.

Then he stirred.

“We have to get out of here,” she whispered. “He’s coming.”

Officer Roberts groaned. “Who? Who’s coming?”

The man who pushed me into the falls. The man who attacked me in the attic. The man who killed Jed.

“The man driving the Suburban just now. Don’t you remember? He pushed us over the edge. He’s coming to finish the job! Please, Officer Roberts... Matt...we have to get out.”

Finally, he opened his eyes, though he squinted in pain and looked at her. Fear ripped across his features, then he stiffened, coming to himself, projecting himself as an officer of the law. He moved in the seat or tried to. Then his head fell back and he shut his eyes.

“What’s wrong? Where are you hurt?”

He glanced down and tried to pull his legs up. “My leg is... I think it’s broken...” His words trailed off as pain contorted his voice.

Then he opened his eyes again and peered at her. “Go.”

“No. I won’t leave you.”

He pushed her. “You have to get out of here. I’m not going anywhere. But I can call for help. I have a weapon, so I can protect myself, but I can’t protect you. You’re in the line of fire, and you need to hide.”

“Give me your gun and I’ll be the one to protect us both.”

He shook his head, his face scrunching with the effort. “No. This could be your only chance to get away. You have to climb out and hide in the woods until help comes. Do as I say before it’s too late.”

Jewel pressed her foot against the console for leverage and scrambled over the wheel. She tried to shove open the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “How do I get out of here? I can’t open the door.”

“Climb out the dash window.” He barely lifted his leg—the good one—and kicked the cracked window out. “Here, you take the Taser. This is a new toy for the department, and I don’t much like it anyway.”

Jewel wrapped her hands around it. Uncertainty about leaving him behind slowed her exit.

He nodded. “I’ll be okay. I’ll call for help while you hide. Do not let yourself be caught, and only use the Taser as a last resort. Now go.”

Tears pooled in Jewel’s eyes. She hesitated.

“We’ll both die for nothing if you don’t get out of here,” he said.

What did he mean? He wasn’t expecting to die, was he? Looking at his face, she realized that that was exactly what he expected. And then Jewel knew she had to draw whoever was coming away from Officer Roberts. She didn’t want to leave him, but, if anything, she could save him by drawing the attacker away from him.

Jewel climbed out, careful to avoid glass from the windshield. Clinging to the twisted hood of the now- destroyed Durango that she’d had for years, she listened. Nothing. She heard nothing. But she sensed someone watching. Goose bumps rose on her skin.

Was she in his rifle’s sights? Is that how he would kill her now?

Her only chance was to climb down from where the vehicle rested against the tree, practically hanging there as the ground dropped away. She studied the terrain. The road above her twisted and curved around a towering mountain that swept into a thick, old-growth forest with eight-hundred-year-old trees. Just beyond, only a few yards from her vehicle, was a granite cliff that dropped into a misty fjord.

If not for the tree, Jewel and Officer Roberts would have gone over. Is that what the killer had intended? Jewel had to hurry. But she worried if she jumped from the Durango she’d slide the rest of the way over the cliff.

Sensing that she had run out of time, Jewel sent up a quick prayer and leaped for her life.

EIGHT

Heart pounding, Jewel hit the ground. Her feet dug into the mossy earth, but they slid out from under her as her momentum pushed her toward the cliff’s edge. Dropping the Taser, she grabbed the thick ferns, fingers stripping away fronds. Still she slid. She sank her fingers into the ground, nails gouging the earthy loam.

“Come on!”

She rolled to her back to see her doom. Pebbles and rock and sticks dug into her back as she watched the approaching cliff. She was slowing down, but not enough to save her.

A huge cedar grew off to the side of her path. It could stop her momentum.