CHAPTER 1
Cold sliced her skin like a thousand tiny blades, and pain beat its thunderous drum in her right temple. Her feet were damp, her toes frigid. She opened her eyes to pitch black and had the sensation that her body, pain and cold and the distant heartbeat, hovered in midair. Something slid down her neck with the thick, heavy texture of turkey gravy rewarmed the day after Thanksgiving.
In the darkness, her memory conjured a pool of scarlet blood, thickening on the floor. In the blood lay a man with a pale, round face and a patchy beard. The air smelled of yeast, vinegar, and pennies.
She recalled an older girl who had held her protectively. “It’s over,” she’d whispered through tears.
She blinked, a red light behind her eyelids, and searched for more memories—of the girl and the dead man—but none came. Who were they? Where were they?
And more importantly, where was she?
As her fingers explored the dark, fabric rustled. Not the familiar cotton of bedsheets but the whispered hush of a windbreaker or a parachute, as though she were buried in it. She pushed the fabric aside and touched her face, palpating until she reached the epicenter of the pain above her right ear. There was no bump. A bruise, maybe. She reached out and touched a hard, cold wall. Too close.
Adrenaline flooded her limbs. She was in some sort of box. Trapped.
As she shifted, a hideous noise erupted beneath her, the wailing of some massive cat. But the sound was too loud and mechanical to be an animal.
Panic reared her upright, but she rose only inches before something halted her. She blinked furiously, willing her eyes to adjust. A moment later, the piercing stutter of metal on metal filled the space.
She touched the bar against her chest, fingered the hard fabric edge across her shoulder. Not a bar—a seat belt. As realization struck, she clasped the fabric. It was not a parachute but an airbag. She was in a car. She felt a moment of pure relief. She was the passenger in a car. She thought of the pale man in the pool of blood. Was that man the driver?
After a moment of fumbling around on the ceiling, her fingers found the reading light. She blinked against its brightness and studied the driver. Eyes closed, hands limp in his lap, chin dropped to his chest. He wore a heavy down coat, and on his right wrist was a bulky gold watch, like for scuba diving. He was attractive but not at all familiar. And he wasn’t moving.
She closed her eyes. Mine eyes are ever toward the Lord; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net. Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted. Psalm 25. The words felt natural in her mind, offering a brief calm.
Reaching for the sleeve of his coat, she followed the arm to a hand and broad fingers. She gripped his wrist. Palmaris longus. Flexor carpi radialis. Then the radial artery, where she felt the steady thump thump of his pulse.
“You’re alive.” Her own voice was unfamiliar, loud in the tight car.
He did not respond.
She shook his arm. “Wake up.”
Nothing. She squinted through the windshield but saw only blackness. Inside, everything was foreign to her. The seats were leather, the dash inlaid with wood. Expensive. A man’s billfold sat in the console between them. She palmed the pebbled texture and fingered the LV embossed across the brown leather. Louis Vuitton.
She opened it and read the driver’s license. Brent Alexander Nolan from Fargo, North Dakota. She surveyed his unconscious form, then the wallet, her pulse a steady thrumming in her neck. The pain subsided slightly as a nervous throb rose below her ribs. A voice, male and angry, spoke in her head. “Always take what’s easy. Quick. Then get back. Nothing bad happens when we’re all here, together.”
A warm rush of adrenaline spiked in her chest as she ran her fingers along the line of credit cards. Several Visas, two AmEx. Take what’s easy. A stack of bills—crisp bills, meaning high denominations. How did she know? She slid the bills from his wallet and folded them, their hard edges sharp against her fist. A few hundred dollars, maybe more. She imagined a bottle of whiskey, something sweet. She was filled with pride. She’d done well.
“Now, get back. Don’t leave me here with him.” She imagined green eyes behind too-long bangs, felt the warmth of recognition. A name flashed in her head. Abby. Where was Abby?
The car lurched and pitched her forward, and the seat belt cut across her sternum. She froze, panting tiny breaths to avoid big motions. Through the windshield, she made out the twisted guardrail beside the car, the dark void beyond it.
The car rocked forward, and she held her breath. They had crashed on an overpass. The front of the car jutted over the edge. It would be—what—thirty or forty feet to the ground below? Or more? They would not survive the fall.
Her breath came in ragged chunks like violent hiccups that she tried to hold in. Stay calm. No big motions.
She leaned back against the seat, using her body weight to keep the car from tipping.
She had to get out. But Brent . . .
“Don’t help nobody. Don’t stop for nothing.” The voice again, angry and male.
She shook her head. No. She had to wake him up. Get him out. “Brent,” she said, her voice rusty in her throat. She gripped his forearm with all her strength, afraid shaking him would tip the car over the edge. “Come on.”
Nothing.
Fingers trembling, she pressed the button to unfasten her seat belt. The belt didn’t release. She jabbed harder, using only two fingers, keeping the motions controlled and small. Still, it stuck.
Terror clamped her throat and squeezed. Trapped. “No!” The word was sharp in her ears as she wrapped the belt around her hand for purchase. Clenching her jaw, she jammed three fingers into the release and jerked hard on the belt. It sprang free. The car tipped several inches, then slowly righted again.
She slapped Brent’s cheek, then pinched. “Come on. Come on. We’ve got to get out!”
He didn’t respond.
Get out; then go around and get him.
She edged toward the door, gripped the handle, and said a prayer that it would open. When the door cracked, she cried out in relief. The door swung open, and the car’s underside let out another howl as it slid forward an inch or two, then stopped, swaying gently. She froze until the car steadied.
“Brent!”
Setting her right foot on the icy pavement, she shifted her weight off the seat. Her foot was wet inside the boot, and the chill in the outside air cut straight to her toes. She was almost out of the car when her boot slid on the ice. She landed hard, slamming her head on the asphalt. The car tipped forward, and the door swung closed on her left foot. The nose of the car teetered over the edge.
Grunting, she kicked to free her leg, but the door was heavy, the boot caught. The ground was too slick; she couldn’t get traction to hold on. The car slipped forward, dragging her across the road. Panic scalded her lungs as she twisted, clawing at the ice. The cawing sound of the car sliding over the guardrail escalated into a scream.
“No!” she cried, fighting to cling to the passing ground as the car tipped, every second gaining momentum. She cried out and bucked upright. Her fingers caught the edge of the door. She wrenched it open. Her foot came free.
The door fell closed, and the car wrested through the guardrail with a deafening screech. She scrambled backward as the car tipped into the night.
A beat of silence passed, and a sound exploded from the blackness, the rippling crunch of the car landing below.