Page 23 of A Perfect Target

“Now that sounds like a plan,” she replied with a grin.

They continued to talk about Thanksgiving meals for the next several minutes, and by then her coffee was gone and it was time for her to leave.

She said goodbye to Sammy, and then Seth walked her out to her car. “I hope we get the opportunity to visit often, despite you not coming here anymore for the tutoring,” he said.

“We’ll have to see how things go,” she replied. “But in the meantime, I’ll be here for Sammy’s birthday party.”

“I’m glad,” he replied.

His warm gaze held hers and created a wealth of heat inside her. In response to that heat, she quickly slid into her car so the impending kiss she saw shining in his eyes couldn’t happen.

“I’ll see you next Saturday for the big day,” she said. “Good night, Seth.” With that, she closed her car door, started the engine and then pulled away.

Oh, she’d wanted the kiss she had known he was about to offer to her. She’d desperately wanted him to pull her into his big, strong arms and kiss her until they were both breathless and mindless. But as she’d told him before, they shouldn’t kiss anymore. However, knowing that didn’t stop the desire that had momentarily swept through her.

Instead, she filled her head with memories of Davy. They had enjoyed a healthy sex life. He had been incredibly romantic, often buying her flowers or cards for no reason. Her heart warmed as she remembered the man she had loved so much. This was enough for her…the memories of Davy were all she needed to keep her through the coming years. She’d have his memories and her students, and that was enough for her.

All thoughts of men and love fled her mind as she approached a long stretch of narrow road. The two-lane road had ravines and ditches on either side. It was dark with no streetlights to illuminate it. She always hated to drive this route, but it was the only way for her to get to Seth’s place from her house.

She slowed down some and turned on her brights. There was also the danger of deer suddenly appearing in the roadway or jumping out from the brush on the sides of the road. More than one driver had been surprised by the graceful animals suddenly appearing in the roadway or slamming into their cars.

She looked in her rearview mirror and saw a car some distance behind her. There was a strange comfort in knowing she wasn’t all alone on the road in the dark.

That comfort was short-lived when the car came up quickly behind her and the bright lights of the vehicle half blinded her. She moved over to the right side as far as she could on the narrow road, giving the other car plenty of room to pass her.

Instead of going around her, the car came closer and closer behind her car. “Go around already,” Suzanna murmured. The car was so close to her, she now couldn’t even see their headlights.

She screamed as the car bumped hers hard enough to momentarily jerk the steering wheel out of her grasp. She quickly grabbed the wheel tightly and stepped on the gas.

However, the car quickly caught up with her and bumped her again. What was wrong with the driver behind her? Was he or she drunk? High? Medically impaired? Once again, Suzanna sped up in an effort to put some distance between them.

But the car behind her was quickly back on her tail. This time the car slammed into her so hard the wheel flew from her grasp and her car began to spin wildly out of control on the blacktop road.

Fear gripped Suzanna as she struggled to regain control. The car continued to spin, and Suzanna saw the ravine she was headed toward. She had one thought before her car left the road: Who in the hell was in the car behind her?

Then she hit the ravine.

The car turned over and over, tossing Suzanna like a rag doll inside as her seat belt tightened and threatened to squeeze the very life out of her. Surprisingly, her airbags didn’t deploy.

The car finally came to rest right side up, and Suzanna released a deep, shuddery gasp, grateful that she hadn’t been badly hurt or killed. Despite the tightness of the seat belt, thank goodness she had had it around her.

Still, she was shaken to her core, and her body hurt from being tossed around in the crash. There was no doubt in her mind that the car had intentionally slammed into hers. It was nothing short of attempted murder. She took several moments, assessing her possible injuries, but thankfully she found nothing serious.

She started to open her car door and get out, but one look back at the road stopped her. The vehicle that had struck her was stopped there. In the darkness of the night, it was impossible for her to tell the color, but it was a four-door sedan, and it appeared predatory and threatening as it remained there with the engine revving up.

Was the driver waiting to see if she got out okay? And if she did get out then what might happen next? Would somebody jump out of that car and attack her?

The only sound in the night was the hiss of her busted radiator and the revving of the car’s engine up on the blacktop. Terror kept her rooted in her seat as she worked feverishly to find her cell phone.

In the crash, her purse had turned upside down and the contents were now scattered all over the seats and floors. As she struggled to find the phone, she kept gazing back at the car on the road.

If the crash had been an accident, then why didn’t somebody get out of the car to offer aid? Why was the car just sitting there? Maybe they were waiting for the officials to arrive so a report could be taken?

She gasped in relief as her fingers closed around her cell phone. It was only when the 911 operator answered that she began to cry. She managed to tell the person that she’d been in a car wreck and approximately where she was on the road.

It was only a few minutes after she finished the call that the car on the road sped off into the darkness of the night. Fairly certain that it was gone, she managed to get her car door open and crawled out of the vehicle. She sat in the cold grass for several long moments, too shaken by the events to get to her feet.

When the sound of approaching sirens filled the air, she finally stood up. Her body ached, but as she saw the wrecked condition of her car, she was just grateful to be alive.