Beachcomber (24 page)

In the rearview mirror she could still see headlights. She contemplated them for a second before, of necessity, switching her attention back to the road, which as far as she was concerned was no more now than a shiny, wet strip of blacktop that continually stretched out some twenty feet ahead of her. The beams of her headlights shone through silver ribbons of rain, and fat drops of water exploded on the pavement everywhere she looked.

It occurred to Christy that she was utterly alone. Except, she realized with another quick glance in the rearview mirror, for the vehicle attached to the other set of headlights.

Which were getting closer.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose with a little prickle.

Over nothing. A set of headlights in the dark.

What was there in that to make her palms start to sweat and her heart start to pound?

It was the silence, she decided. Along with the sense of isolation that went along with driving all alone through a dark, rainy night, the silence was what was getting to her. She reached down to turn on the radio. Nothing but static. Of course, it was programmed to pick up the stations broadcasting in and around Philly.

Just about the time she found a functioning channel and Elvis started to wail about being a hunk of burning love, the headlights appeared in her rearview mirror without her even having to look for them.

They were closer. A lot closer. In fact, they were right on her bumper. From their height, they belonged to a big vehicle, an SUV or a truck.

Christy frowned. Then she hit a bump and the song cut out. With a quick glance down, she checked the speedometer. She was doing thirty-five, which, given the weather and the road, was about as fast as she could safely go. But the headlights were staying close, too close for comfort. If she had to stop suddenly for any reason, he would bump her.

Through the rearview mirror she tried for a glimpse of the driver. Seeing past the glare of the headlights was impossible, of course. Seeing much of anything beyond the few feet of road in front of her was impossible. It was as if she and her car and the vehicle behind her were alone in an endless, rain-lashed dark tunnel.

Elvis, still burning, came back on without warning.
The sudden burst of sound made Christy jump. With a savage jab, she turned the radio off.

The headlights were blinding her now. He was really following way too close. Gripping the steering wheel so tightly that she could feel the bumps on the hard plastic hoop gouging into her palms, Christy realized that she was breathing hard. That she was scared. That she was probably overreacting, but she was going to call the fire department to report seeing a blaze way out at the end of Cemetery Road. If this guy was tailgating her for a reason, she was going to do what she could to make sure that she never found out what it was. Whoever he was would soon find himself being pilloried by the bright beams of a fire truck. Which, because of the narrowness of the road, they would both have to pull to the side to let pass, and which she then meant to follow as if the hounds of hell were after her.

She was just reaching for her purse when the headlights behind her blinked.
Bright–normal. Bright–normal.
Okay, he wanted to pass. He was probably in a hurry to get to his destination, and she was going too slow to suit him. Typical male.

At the thought, she took a deep breath and tried to relax a little. Almost certainly that was what was happening here: she was being followed by nothing more sinister than a typical tailgating male.

Giving up on her plan to call the fire department for the moment, she wrapped both hands around the wheel and edged over a little to give him room to get by.

He pulled out from behind her and hit the gas. When the vehicle was almost opposite her, she glanced
over and saw that it was a pickup truck. A white pickup truck with what looked like writing on the passenger door. Given the rain, and the darkness, and the split second she was able to actually look, the writing was impossible to read.

Those factors also prevented her from seeing whoever was behind the wheel. The truck apparently hit a puddle in the middle of the road, because suddenly it was kicking up water in great streams. Muddy water pelted the driver’s-side window of her car. Thoughts of hydroplaning made her tense up until she was sitting bolt upright in the seat, and she eased up off the gas in an effort to slow down gradually. He maintained his speed, and in a matter of seconds they were running neck and neck.

The road really was narrow. The truck was too close. She had to concentrate on keeping the wheel steady—

The truck bumped her. Hard.

“No!” she yelled aloud, casting a single angry, terrified glance out the driver’s-side window as her car bounced almost off the road. The right front wheel dipped onto the shoulder; the steering wheel jerked sharply under her hands. She could hear gravel flying up as she fought to get back on the pavement. Her heart leaped into her throat; her breathing suspended. When she felt a solid surface under all four wheels again, she wanted to weep with relief. As wet as it was, stomping the brakes would send her fishtailing into the trees, she feared. So she tried to gently, steadily, bear down on the brakes, knowing that she needed to slow down and calm down, thinking that the truck would shoot on past.

No such luck. Even as she got her car under control
again, the white blur that was the truck veered close, and then
boom!
The sound of metal smashing into metal was as loud and terrifying as a gunshot.

“Stop it!” she screamed as her stomach knotted and her pulse pounded louder even than the rain in her ears. It was useless, she knew. The other driver could not hear her and would not stop if he could.
This is deliberate,
was the terrible thought that ran through her mind as the blow sent both of her right tires bumping onto the shoulder. Fighting not to crash, to return the car to the road once more, to get through this in one piece, she appealed for heavenly help in panicked bursts:
Please, God, please, God, please …

Gravel hit the hood and side of her car with the quick, staccato rhythm of machine-gun fire. Stomach lurching, Christy hung on to the wheel and steered for all she was worth. With a combination of luck and divine intervention, she managed to get back up on the road a second time. The terrifying gravel spray stopped.

A lightning glance showed her that the truck was still there, running a little ahead of her now but keeping pace. She slowed the car so she could stop and put it in reverse.

Boom!

The truck smashed into her again. Despite all her efforts, she was off the road, churning through gravel and then slithering over grass. Her headlights picked up a stand of thick-trunked live oaks. She was heading straight toward them. Screaming, she stood on the brake.

And went into a spin.

There was nothing she could do. The sound of
screeching brakes and squealing tires filled the air. The wreck seemed to be happening in slow motion. For one blank, horrible moment Christy watched as flashes of white truck, shaggy green branches and gray tree trunks, muddy grass, and sparkling curtains of rain revolved in front of her windshield like a carousel of disaster, each caught as in a freeze-frame by the headlights. The car was completely off the road now, she realized dimly, pirouetting like an ice-skater in a death spiral.

It crashed with an ear-shattering
bang!

Christy was thrown violently forward. At almost the same instant an explosion of white hit her in the face. For a moment she didn’t comprehend what had happened; it felt like she’d been punched in the nose. She saw stars, felt a burst of pressure rather than pain and then a tingling.

She didn’t realize she’d been screaming until she stopped.

The sudden dead silence was more terrifying than almost anything else.

Oh my God.
She was in a car wreck.

How long it took her to register that she didn’t know. It could not have been much more than a matter of seconds, because her air bag was still in the process of deflating when realization hit her. The windshield was cracked; beyond it rain, captured by the headlights, spilled across the hood in undulating sheets. Tiny purple spots floated across her field of vision. There was a terrible ringing sound in her ears. Her face felt tingly—weird.

Was she hurt? She was breathing. She was able to
move her legs, her arms. She was just lifting a hand to her face to check for blood when she remembered the white truck.

Terror hit her like a fist to the stomach. She’d been run off the road. On purpose.

Whoever had done it was almost certainly still nearby. Probably already running through the rain toward her car. When he reached her—

Christy had a vivid mental image of the obsidian eyes that had gleamed at her through the gap in her bathroom door; she remembered the high-pitched, almost gleeful voice, and the sickening feeling of the hatchet chopping into her flesh.

Who else could it be?

“I’ve got to get out of here!”

Panting with fear, she fumbled with her seat belt, managed to depress the button, opened her door, and rolled out into the rain. Torrents of water immediately pelted her, soaking through the shorts and T-shirt she was wearing, wetting her to the skin. The onslaught had the welcome effect of helping to clear her mind. Her legs were shaky; they felt about as sturdy as limp spaghetti, but terror kept her upright, propelled her away from the car. She couldn’t run, her legs were too unsteady for that, but she could lurch, and lurch she did, her sandal-clad feet squelching through slippery mud.

A quick, hunted glance around revealed very little. It was too dark, and the rain obscured everything, even sound. All she could see were the twin paths of light that her still-functioning headlights cut through the darkness. They revealed that the car had fetched up
against a tree in the stand of live oaks she had spotted before she’d hit the brakes. Fortunately, the car had hit on the passenger side.

There was no sign of the truck. No other lights. Could the driver simply have kept on going, content to have run her off the road?

You wish.

Her headlights pointed back the way she had come. She headed in the opposite direction, moving as quickly as she could, trying to remember how far it was to help, to the Inn, to the nearest house or campsite or service station …

Suddenly the darkness was so complete that it was impossible to see so much as her own feet as they stumbled over the ground. It took Christy a second for realization to strike. When it did, horror slid like a cold finger down her spine. Casting a terrified glance over her shoulder, she realized that her car’s headlights had gone out.

Had been turned out.

He was here. He had parked his truck, turned out its lights, and come through the driving rain with one purpose: to find her.

To kill her, if she wasn’t already dead in the wreck.

Christy faced that hideous near-certainty, faced the probability that it was her attacker back there by her car, looking for her, hunting her, meaning to finish what he had begun that night in her cabin, and her blood turned to ice. Her breath came in short, desperate pants. She bent almost double, moving as fast as she could away from the car, away from the road where he
would surely look for her first. The mud grew deeper, sucking at her sandals, making each step an effort. The rain was a dull roar in her ears. It beat down on her head, her curved back, pounded the ground. It poured into her eyes and mouth. She could taste its earthiness, smell its scent, which made her think of fish.

Vainly she remembered her purse with its mini arsenal. In the shock of the wreck she’d forgotten all about it. It was still somewhere in the car. Should she try to circle back, try to get in the car and grab her gun, her phone?

Shielding her eyes from the downpour with an upraised hand, she glanced back. What she saw made her heart lurch. A narrow beam of light pierced the darkness, sweeping from side to side like a terrible eye. He had a flashlight; he was looking for her.

A scream bubbled up into her throat. She forced it back. Who was close enough to hear? No one, as far as she knew. Except him. A scream would only help him to find her. Her rubbery legs threatened to give way at any moment, but she forced herself onward, stumbling over the ground, knowing that she was fleeing for her life.

Headlights appeared out of the night, moving fast, heading in the opposite direction. From the fast but steady pace of the vehicle, she surmised that it was on the road. Its route was almost parallel to hers—until it rounded a curve and caught her full in its beams.

Stop! Please stop! Please!

She didn’t dare yell the words aloud, but she stumbled toward the car as fast as her unsteady legs would take her, waving frantically with both arms over her
head in the universal signal of distress. The beams rushed on without checking; the driver either hadn’t seen her or had elected not to stop. Neck swiveling, numb with disappointment, she tracked it with her gaze: in seconds the taillights were no brighter than fireflies in the distance. Then they were gone, swallowed up by darkness and rain.

But there was still a light. A small round beam, like that of a laser pointer except white, was focused on her arm. As she stared down at it with first puzzlement and then disbelief, it swept over her from head to foot.

Christy realized what it was with a flash of horror.

The beam from her pursuer’s flashlight. He’d spotted her.

Now that the need for concealment was past, she screamed, a shattering shriek that was lost in the roaring rain, and started to run. Slipping and sliding in the mud, screaming with every bit of lung power she possessed, she stumbled toward where she now knew the road was, hoping for another car, hoping for someone, anyone other than the monster who was chasing her through the dark, to appear.

The rain fell with a dull roar that brought its own kind of sensory deprivation with it. It seemed to wrap itself around everything, absorbing sounds, blocking her vision. Glancing desperately around, she wouldn’t have known where he was had it not been for the bobbing beam of that tiny flashlight.