Page 5 of Death Rydes Shotgun

I guess old habits die hard.

A man walks beside the guardrail. He’s alone, his back to me, tall and dark against the dusk. With no visible flashlight, he doesn’t even have a high-visibility jacket on. Just a solitary figure moving along the edge of a highway where cars routinely speed past at sixty miles an hour in the dark like a ghost, or an urban legend.

Does he not know what happens on this highway to loners on this particular night?

No. Keep driving, Harmony. You don’t know who that is. It’s Halloween. It’s unsafe.

That’s the smart response. The self-preservation response that every woman learns before she’s old enough to drive.

A lone woman on a deserted highway should never, under any circumstances, pull over for a strange man after dark.

At least my brain still has retained that instinct.

I press harder on the gas, intending to sweep past him, to let him be someone else’s problem.

But as my headlights illuminate him fully, the sight hits me like a head-on collision.

He’s alone. Vulnerable to the dark. Completely unprotected on the exact stretch of road where Noah died.

Fifteen years ago, nobody stopped for Noah. Nobody pulled over to offer him a ride out of the cold after we left him. Nobody saved him.

I can’t leave someone out here tonight. I just can’t. My nature won’t let me.

Before my brain can talk my heart out of it, my foot switches from the accelerator to the brake.

The tires screech softly against the cold asphalt as I slow down, pulling the car onto the gravel shoulder a few yards ahead of him.

Through the side mirror, I watch him stop.

He doesn’t look surprised. He doesn’t rush to the car like a grateful stranded person would. The guy just stands there for a lengthy amount of time, his face hidden in shadows, watching my car like he’s been expecting me.

What are you doing, Harm? Put it in drive and go.

My hands tremble as I shift into park, leaving the engine idling. My heart pounds in my ears, a rapid beat that differs sharply to the quiet all around.

He walks toward the passenger side. His gait is slow, measured, completely devoid of rush. As he passes under the weak red glow of my tail lights, I get a better look at him, and my stomach performs a strange, violent flip.

He looks like a mistake. The exact kind of beautiful, dangerous mistake a sensible woman knows better than to make.

He’s tall—intimidatingly so—with broad shoulders that taper down to a lean, athletic frame. He wears a dark hoodie, his hands shoved deep into his pockets against the autumn chill.

His hair is pitch black, with a tumbled mess of curls over a forehead that runs straight into his striking features.

A short, perfectly lined-up beard that traces a sharp jawline. High cheekbones. It’s a face far too handsome, far too controlled, to belong to a helpless hitchhiker stranded on a backwoods highway.

As he reaches the passenger door, he doesn’t knock. He doesn’t ask permission. He simply pulls the handle and steps inside.

The moment he opens the door, the cold October air rushes into the warm cabin, bringing with it the scent of rain, damp pine, and something sharp and metallic that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

He slides into the leather seat, and the interior of my BMW instantly shrinks around us.

His presence fills the space completely, oppressive and heavy. And there’s a familiar scent, almost coppery in nature that wafts off him.

He pulls the passenger door shut.

The heavy thud of the latch sounds terrifyingly like a trap springing shut.

Silence stretches between us, so thick you could cut it with a knife.