Page 56 of Is Anyone Listening?
"I don't know, either, but I'm not sure anywhere in town is safe. Like I said last night, Ellen can't afford to have another incident at the inn after what happened to you, so I think I still have a small window of time where that will protect me."
"I hope you're right."
"Me too."
Despite my resolve to keep going, just walking to the car made my nerves prickle, especially since it was six o'clock now and getting darker by the minute. But I didn't run into any problems, and I turned on some music to keep me company on the drive.
I was about ten minutes away from the Stonecross exit when I came across a detour. Several big branches were blocking the road, with a truck and two men working to clear the tree. I wasn't thrilled to leave the highway, but I had no choice.
The detour took me down a winding road that eventually led to the same coastal road that the inn was located on, but about six miles south. I hadn't driven this stretch before and became a little stressed out as I saw the jagged turns and steep drops along the ocean side of the road.
And then headlights came up behind me, blinding me even more. The car was right on my tail, getting closer by the minute. There was nowhere to pull over, and anxiety tightened my muscles as I pressed down on the gas. I told myself it was just a local, someone who knew this road well, who was just in a hurry to get home. But was that really all it was?
Fumbling for my phone, I called Tyler.
"Cassidy? Are you back?"
"I'm about six miles away on the coastal road south of the inn." I paused, hearing a crackle over the phone. "Where are you?"
"Driving home from town. Want to meet?"
"I think so." I glanced in the rearview mirror again. The car was getting closer. "There was a detour on the highway, Tyler. I'm now on a road that's clinging to the coastline, and someone is following me very closely. I don't have a good feeling?—"
My words were cut off as the car behind me hit my bumper, and I bounced forward. Wrestling for control, the phone skidded out of my hand and landed on the passenger seat. I heard Tyler yelling, but I couldn’t answer him because someone was trying to run me off the road.
Chapter Fifteen
I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, my knuckles white, my heart hammering my ribs. The headlights behind me were so bright I couldn't see anything in my rearview mirror except blinding white light.
The car hit me again, harder this time. My head snapped forward, and I felt the back end of the car fishtail on the narrow road. Ocean on one side, rocky hillside on the other, no shoulder, nowhere to go.
I pressed the gas pedal, trying to get distance, but the road curved sharply ahead, and I had to brake or I'd fly right off the cliff. The car behind me didn't slow down. It came at me again, relentless, purposeful.
The next impact sent me careening toward the flimsy wooden barrier, which was the only thing between the road and a steep, rocky drop. I yanked the wheel hard to the left, overcorrected, and felt the tires lose purchase on the asphalt.
Then I was airborne.
For one endless, suspended moment, there was nothing but the sound of Tyler's voice calling my name and the sick certainty that this was how I died—alone on a dark road, pursuing a story no one wanted told, investigating deaths that were supposed to stay buried.
The car slammed into the hillside with a crunch of metal and shattering glass. My head whipped forward into the airbag that exploded from the steering wheel, cushioning the impact but also suffocating me.
The car bounced, rolled, and tumbled down the rocky slope, every impact jarring my bones, rattling my teeth.
And then it stopped.
For a moment, or maybe it was longer, there was nothing but darkness and a ringing in my ears, the smell of something chemical, and a sharp, biting cold…
I blinked my eyes open, trying to understand where I was, what had happened. And that's when I realized I was pinned in my seat by an airbag, and the car was tilted at a steep angle, nose pointing down. Through the cracked windshield, I could see rocks and, beyond that, the dark churning mass of the ocean that didn't feel that far away.
I was close enough to hear the waves crashing, and that was a terrifying thought. When the car shifted slightly, my stomach lurched.
I was still on the hillside, but barely. I needed to get out. Now.
But my hands were shaking too badly to unbuckle the seat belt. My fingers kept slipping off the release button. And every movement I made caused the car to shift a little more, sliding incrementally toward the ocean.
"Hello?" A voice called from somewhere above me. Familiar, but I couldn't place it through the fog of shock. "Is someone down there?"
"Here," I yelled, but I wasn't sure he could hear me above the sound of the waves.
