Heartbreak Bay (Stillhouse Lake) by Rachel Caine (books to read in your 20s female TXT) 📕

seat. I can’t see clearly . . . and then the passenger door opens, and someone gets out.

Goddamn. It’s Sheryl Lansdowne. And she’s not in distress. She’s not tied up in the back of that SUV—she’s on her own two feet, calm as you please. I see her toss something in the garbage can that sits on the island beside the gas pump, and I hit pause. I don’t know if the FBI can work with this, but it’s possible. Very possible.

I turn to the manager and say, “How often do you empty those garbage cans out on the pumps?”

“Every couple of days.”

“Any chance you haven’t gotten to that one yet?” I point.

He leans over to look and shrugs. “Maybe? Depends how full it is.”

“Then go pull that bag right now, tie it up, and set it aside. Do not let anyone touch it. I’ll have someone from either the TBI or FBI come get it. They’ll want to go through everything. Keep this footage. Mark it and show it to whoever comes.” I turn back to the screen and scrub through. Sheryl finishes her little walk-around and gets back in the car. The man uses a credit card at the pump, so I tell the manager to pull those records and get them ready as well.

I watch the screen. The SUV pulls away, makes a broad circle, and exits the lot. It’s a stretch, but I think I can see it turn the corner on the farm-to-market road and head toward the freeway.

I roll it back to when the SUV comes into view. “Tell them to watch from there,” I say. “Thank you. You’re doing a real good thing, sir. Guard this with your life. It’s important.”

He nods. He seems unsure and pale, but steady enough.

I call the TBI on my way out of the truck stop and tell them what I’ve found. The agent who takes my call sounds impatient at first, then intrigued, then downright eager.

I make sure the manager collects the trash, and then I head over to the car. Boot’s fallen asleep in the back, but he wakes as soon as I open the door. “Hey, boy,” I tell him, and he licks my face. “Stop that. We’re fine. It’s fine.”

I’m putting the car in drive when I see it.

A pristine black SUV. Dirty plates. It’s idling at the edge of the parking lot.

“That’s impossible,” I say. “Can’t be.” I seriously have to think about my sanity for a second, because I have to be seeing things. Or it has to be a completely different vehicle. SUVs out here are a dime a hundred, never mind a dozen. Odds ninety to one that it’s some suburban family headed out on vacation, and not . . . not what I think.

I roll the sedan slowly toward the SUV.

It backs up and speeds away.

“Goddamn.”

I hit the gas, fumbling for my phone as I take the curve and accelerate. He’s already hitting the on-ramp to the freeway. Hell of an engine in that thing, and my detective’s sedan isn’t built for high-speed pursuit. I voice-dial TBI again. I tell the agent I’m in pursuit of a black SUV suspected in the Lansdowne case. I try to catch up to get part of the plate, but he slips away before I can make it out; he’s put some kind of blurring filter over it. Illegal, but few probably even notice under the mud.

There’s enough traffic on the road that I have to concentrate hard on the driving; I flip on the bumper flashers and hit the siren for good measure, and most people give way. A semitruck blocks my view of the SUV for a few critical seconds, and when I blast past it, I see the vehicle just ahead, already on an off-ramp. No way I can slow and make that turn. I yell the exit number into the phone and put my foot to the floor, heading for the next exit a mile away. I make a U-turn, and head back as fast as my car will go.

He’s picked the wrong damn off-ramp, I think. A fierce hunter’s instinct hammers my heart faster. I know this area; nothing out here but roads and fields and trees, and no real turnoffs to speak of for miles. The road goes two ways from the freeway—north and south. I turn north because I see fresh black tire marks that direction; he left rubber. The road takes me into trees fast, and I tell the TBI agent what road I’m on when the sign flashes past, a barely readable blur. I can’t see the SUV. The road’s empty, but it turns sharply just up ahead. I can’t let him slip me.

I’m in the middle of the sharp curve when shit goes wrong. I don’t see the spike strip, but I feel it when I hit it, when the car lurches and the wheel whips hard in my hands, hard enough to burn, and the world spins, glass cracking, metal crunching. Boot yelping.

I manage to keep us from turning over, but the sedan spins off the road and hits a tree in the left quarter panel with the force of a pile driver. Airbags flash, and I snort blood and taste acrid powder.

I’m trying to blink back stars and get it together. Boot is barking, a raw and constant sound of alarm, and I hear his claws tearing at upholstery as he tries to reach me. I drag in a shockingly painful breath—something stabbing deep, probably a rib—and I manage to say, “Hey, boy, hey, it’s okay, I’m okay.” In the next second, I panic. My baby. No no no, not like this, no . . . I’m shaking. Gasping. Horrified and scared to death, not for me but for the child I’ve barely begun to meet. Oh God, God no.

Boot tries to stick his head between the seats—the gap is narrow, the frame’s bent—and frantically licks the only part of me he can reach. My hand. I