Her First Mistake by Carey Baldwin (books for 10th graders txt) 📕

“I want to go straight to the police. Whether you believe it or not, I have to talk to them.”

“We’re going to the hospital.”

“You just said you’d take me wherever I want to go.”

“I lied.” He reached over and pressed a button, and the door locks clicked into place. “You’re going to be a good girl and do what I say.”

“I’m not a child. I don’t want to go to the hospital.” Her queasy stomach sounded a sudden warning. “Pull over! I’m going to be sick.”

He kept his eyes on the road, not letting up on the accelerator.

She pressed the window control, but the window didn’t slide down. “Pull over! Now!”

Baxter straightened his leg, and jammed the gas pedal to the floorboard.

Forty-One

As her brain attempted a reboot, Mia looked up from the pool of blood-tinged vomit in her lap. She no longer felt pain—her tactile receptors had shut off, and yet, her other senses were zooming into overdrive.

The sour smell in the car, the relentless whirr of the tires, the sickening surge of forward velocity all, simultaneously, reached maximum intensity.

Maybe if she stayed perfectly still and closed her eyes this would all disappear.

Don’t you dare be a good girl, little Mia’s voice screamed in her head.

“Where are you taking me?” Amazing. She sounded like she was asking a reasonable person a normal question under ordinary circumstances.

“To the hospital.” Baxter, too, seemed unperturbed.

Had his prior apparent distress been an act, or was he, like her, finally coming to grips with the problem before them?

The feeling returned to her fingertips, and her thoughts began to drop into first one slot and then another, trying to sort themselves into truth.

It’s okay. You don’t have to figure it all out right this minute.

She clasped her hands in front of her, resting them on her knees.

Focus on what you know: Baxter Cooper is not going to take your side over his blood. You’re not safe with him.

“Which hospital?”

“Closest one is Samaritan.”

You can survive—you’ve done it before.

So figure a way to get out of this car.

She had to get her head on straight, now. She would not shut down, fall apart, or back away from the truth. She would be just as calculating as him. She would play whatever part she needed to buy time, and then, she would do whatever it took to make it home to her family—to the imperfect, but always loving, woman who’d raised her.

Aunt Misty.

“I think we’d have better luck on a main road,” she said.

“I’ll do the thinking for both of us. You’re hysterical.”

“Do I sound hysterical?”

“Actions speak volumes. Just look at what you’ve done to yourself.”

“What I’ve done?”

“You look like you’ve been spit out of a meat grinder. And you did it all to yourself, because you’re paranoid.”

Her pulse quickened, and she counteracted it with a slow, deep breath.

Dr. Baquero gave you all the tools you need to cope with anxiety—they should work for terror, too.

She straightened her spine.

“I’m not paranoid. Isaiah’s been watching me.”

“You’re running away from people and things who aren’t even chasing you. Isaiah was upstairs the whole time. He never went after you, did he?”

Thump, thump, thump.

Her heartbeat sounded steady and strong.

She glanced at the dash.

They were doing eighty.

That meant lunging for the wheel was out, and Baxter had control of the door locks.

“I told you, Isaiah grabbed me.”

“Because you were in his room, nosing around. You hit him over the head with his laptop. You attacked him. Not the other way around.”

“He was watching CCTV footage from inside the house.” There was probably a screwdriver or something in the glove compartment she could use to defend herself. She reached for the latch.

Locked.

“Looking for something?” Baxter asked, his tone lilting like one kid taunting another.

“A rag. Anything to clean myself up with. You refused to stop, and I threw up in my lap in case you didn’t notice.”

“Key’s in the center console. Knock yourself out.”

She dug around inside the console until she encountered a small metal object and pulled out a key. Too tiny to be of use except for opening the glove box. She could do more damage to his eye with a finger.

With unsteady hands, she fit the key in the lock and popped open the glove box, then started tossing papers everywhere—as if he would allow her to find a knife or a letter opener.

A cell phone!

She took it out and powered it up.

“I see you found my other cell.” The smile he sent her froze her blood.

No service.

Dammit.

“Think hard, Mia. When you were in Isaiah’s room, and you saw the CCTV on his laptop, did you see footage from your bedroom?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

She hadn’t been able to get a long look. She’d glimpsed video grids, just like when Keisha had turned the computer toward her at the Piano Man. She’d seen footage of the hallway outside her door, but then Isaiah had grabbed her. Was Baxter trying to trick her into doubting her own eyes? “I know what I saw.”

“We have security cameras outside the house. You know that. And we have them in the hallways, where they’re hidden in picture frames so as not to disrupt the décor. They’re aimed at the stairwells, in case of intruders. A common practice.”

“It’s not common practice to hide a camera in a dummy smoke detector in a bedroom. Isaiah was watching me. He’s sick. You need to get him the help he needs.”

“He wasn’t watching you, Mia. He has his laptop set up to view our home security footage. That’s all. Your bedroom is not part of that system.”

Baxter was in denial, and there was no talking him out of it.

Or maybe not—maybe he knew the truth.

What if he’d known all along?

How far would he go to protect his son?

Again, she checked the phone in her hand.

Still no service.

“I tried to warn you,” Baxter said.

It would be so easy to let him convince her she was crazy. Only trouble was,