CHAPTER 2
She swiped at her tears and listened for sounds from below—Brent calling out or the whisper of fire from the car. There was only the hush of wind blowing ice across the asphalt like the scurrying of so many mice. Above her, stars dotted a moonless black surface like reverse freckles. Around her lay road and darkness. There was no sign of a house or building. Where were they? She patted her pants pockets for her phone, but they were empty. The wind cut through her blouse, and she shivered. Where was her jacket? She couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. Or why she’d been with Brent. Why she had stolen from him.
It was more than that, she realized now. She couldn’t remember anything.
Scrambling onto her hands and knees, she crawled to the broken guardrail. Below, the car lay upside down, its cabin crunched to half its normal height. The front bumper hung from one side, flung out like a limp arm, and the rear right tire spun slowly, as though trying to find purchase in the air. “Brent!”
No answer.
He couldn’t have survived that fall.
He had to have survived.
“You get back home. You don’t come back, you know what happens.” Pain sliced her shoulder—the sharp edge of a blade. She spun around, but there was no one there. Nothing touched her back. And yet there was something there, some lingering pain. Her fingers dug beneath her shirt, finding the hard edge of her scapula and, below it, a series of narrow ridges, like thin worms beneath the skin. She scratched them, though they didn’t itch.
The wind howled, and she shivered against the cold and pressed her palm to her chest, struggling to draw a full breath. The cuffs of her jeans were damp against her legs, her shoes wet, as though she’d walked through water somewhere. But there was no standing water in sight. She had to get moving. On her feet, she took a step. Her left ankle throbbed, the pain a metal taste in her mouth. She stepped forward, slipped and fell, then rose again, sliding her boots slowly across the ice.
When she reached the place where the overpass met the sloped ground, she studied the icy hillside. She wouldn’t make it down without falling. Sitting on the frozen ground, she inched down: butt, then feet, using the heels of her boots and her fingers to keep from sliding. Come on, Brent. Be okay. Please. She needed him—to tell her who she was. Where she was.
Her fingers burned with cold. She stopped partway down the hill and blew onto them, rubbing them roughly as though to beat the warmth back in. Her own hands were unfamiliar, the red polish uneven on her thumbs and forefingers. A messy job, done in haste. She pressed them into the denim fabric of her pants, willing the heat to return.
When she made it to the car, she went straight to the driver’s side and dropped to her knees at the blown-out window. Brent hung upside down from the seat belt. Small abrasions covered his face, but she couldn’t see any external trauma. It would be internal. The internal damage was what would kill him.
She located his pulse—palpable, consistent. He was not dead. “Oh, thank God,” she said, pressing her forehead to the cold car door. Get him out. She flattened herself to the ground and stared up into the car. The window opening was crushed. Would he even fit through?
You have to try.
With her head inside the car window, the top of the frame cut painfully into her spine. She stretched for the seat belt, then hesitated. If he fell wrong, he could break his neck, or his weight might pin her, and they’d both be stuck. And what about his back? If he was injured, the drop could paralyze him. She drew a breath, trying to decide. Beneath them, the ground vibrated. She backed out of the car and saw the black lines that ran under them.
The car was on a railroad track.
There was no decision to make. Moving might paralyze him, but a train would kill him.
The vibrations dulled, and she wondered how long they had before the train arrived. Was there a train actually coming? It was suddenly quiet. Get him out. She slid back into the car, headfirst. The rearview mirror against her tailbone, she jabbed the seat belt’s release button. The strap loosened, and Brent dropped. Arms extended, she guided him down so that he landed shoulders first.
Brent’s knees caught under the steering wheel, and she struggled to move him, her back aching with the effort. But the steady beat of his carotid reassured her—he was alive. She managed to maneuver him so his head was closest to the window.
Hard ice and gravel dug into her knees as she muscled her hands beneath his back. She gripped under his arms, then tugged him through the window. He was heavy, the space narrow. Every inch of progress was slow.
Halfway out, he caught on something. Tugging, she struggled to free him but couldn’t. Not strong enough to lift him, she set his torso down and moved to one side. There—his belt was hooked on the plastic window seal. She tried and failed to free it. Beneath her knees, the earth vibrated again. She froze and listened. A train? Why couldn’t she hear it? Move him. She lifted his jacket and unbuckled the belt. With the belt loosened from his pants, she tossed it aside. A long final yank freed him from the car.
She dragged him down a small hill to softer ground, safe from the tracks. Sweat slid between her shoulder blades, collected at the waist of her jeans.
“Brent,” she whispered, crying. A tear fell from her chin and landed on the side of his face.
As she reached to wipe it off, a man’s voice sounded from the car. “OnStar has recorded your accident, Mr. Nolan.”
She leaped backward, striking her elbow on a rock. Yelped.
“Mr. Nolan? Can you hear me? We are contacting the authorities.”
She clamped a hand to her mouth. Why didn’t she answer? What was wrong with her?
“You don’t talk to anyone. Ever.”
She waited a moment, silent.
What she needed was her phone. She crawled back to the car and scanned the backseat, spotting a canvas purse on the ceiling, almost in the rear window. The passenger-window glass was shattered but still in its frame. Using her uninjured foot, she kicked the toe of her boot at the glass, flinching as it collapsed into the car.
“Mr. Nolan, can you hear me?”
She said nothing. Her belly on the cold earth, she crawled over cubes of tempered glass and retrieved the purse, returning to Brent.
“We have police and emergency vehicles en route, Mr. Nolan.”
The word police took her breath.
“A response team is seven minutes out.”
“Never talk to the police. No matter what. You know what he’ll do.”
“No!” she cried out and clasped her hands against her ears, willing the voice away. They’d had an accident. They needed the police. An ambulance, too.
But every fiber inside her screamed one thing—run.
She turned to the bag but felt a rush of dread. Why? What would she find in her own purse? She drew even breaths. A minute passed. The voice from the car spoke again, muffled by the roaring in her ears. The ambulance was coming. The police.
She would go to the hospital. With Brent.
Beside her, Brent’s expression was still, lifeless. His pulse was still palpable. She drew his eyelids open, one at a time. The darkness made it impossible to see whether his pupils were uneven. Surely he had suffered a concussion. But that fall—there would be other damage as well. Gently, she lifted the hood of Brent’s coat to cushion his head from the hard ground. She zipped it up to his chin and pulled the sleeves over his hands to keep him warm. Rubbed his shoulders through the heavy down.