Her First Ride (Innocent Series Book 7)

by Kendall Duke

  Her

  First

  Ride

  Kendall Duke

  Her First Ride by Kendall Duke; Published by Amazon Digital Services, LLC

  www.KendallDukeAuthor.com

  © 2019 Kendall Duke

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

  Covers by designacover on Fiverr.com

  Sierra

  The whole world was bigger out here.

  I remembered reading about that—the way the sky stretched overhead in a massive blue dome, culminating in a seemingly endless horizon. I thought maybe the writers exaggerated the intensity of it, the sheer magnitude of the sky. But nope. It was absolutely true. The drive up from Ohio was just one long trip into the blue edge of the world, watching the rim of the sky recede. It was incredible.

  I loved it immediately.

  Would Idaho be the same? I hoped so; I’d been hired to work in a small regional hospital there, but chose the long drive to make sure my things made it to my new apartment in one piece. I wanted to enjoy my first cross-country trip, not spend the entire time wondering if the car behind me on the eight lane highway was the same one I’d seen two overpasses ago. I didn’t understand how truly different every single state was from the rest—I’d only ever lived in Ohio, taken trips to see family in West Virginia, and once, many, many years ago, went on a group trip to Florida. But now I was twenty-one, ready to start my life, and heading out on my own. Go west, young woman, and all that—or at least, something like that. So I did.

  The smoke trailing from the hood of my Subaru wasn’t really noticeable at first. I was too busy staring all around me at the flat brown fields of Kansas, the oil pumps and flashing lightning storms that you could watch from miles and miles away. I had a cousin from Lawrence, and she loved to say that Kansas was a place you were from, not somewhere you went; I disagreed. I thought it was gorgeous and the people were nice. And the whole trip was the same—everywhere I went, I fell in love. This was the coolest place I’d ever been, every place. So I was a little distracted, I guess, and when the car started to smoke my engine light didn’t even come on. And then I was staring across Montana, completely taken in by this endless sky, when thunk! The smoke got serious enough that I had to stop on the side of the road.

  For one fleeting second, I worried that he was behind me.

  It was possible. The freedom I felt, the amazing sense of adventure… All of it was gone in a flash as the main reason I’d run away from Ohio came back to me in a rush of anxiety. He said he would follow me—he said a lot of things.

  But I’d been on the road for three days with no sign of him. And really, I tried to reassure myself, what were the chances he managed to get a car, sneak after me on these blind roads for miles and miles without being noticed, and was just waiting for me to have a problem like this that made me vulnerable to him?

  Unless… He was the one that sabotaged my car.

  Panic fought to paralyze me, but I didn’t let it. I had one serious advantage, after all, even if I was a pretty bad shot; the tiny pistol locked in my glove compartment was legal in all the states where I was traveling, and wouldn’t need to see the light of day unless I saw his face. I unlocked it, just in case, and got out of my car and walked on the shoulder towards the hood. People drove very fast on these straight, two lane highways, a lot faster than we had back in the crowded suburbs of Dayton. I unlatched the hood and opened it, then coughed and leaned away when the billowing smoke rose into the air in a huge cloud. I had to take a few steps back into the field just to breathe. There wasn’t a fire, thank goodness—that only occurred to me after I walked away—but the car wasn’t going anywhere, that was for sure. I remembered Ripley’s threats and felt the shiver of fear on my skin like the touch of an oily hand, and shook it off. I wasn’t going to be intimidated into thinking about him forever. The truth was just what I told myself during the darkest moments, when he pulled something especially heinous: I was the brave one, the strong one. I will be just fine.

  But I was also stuck on the side of a highway in Montana, and the sun was going to set in less than an hour. That incredible sky was turning a shimmery violet on the other side of the world as the ground tilted beneath me, so slowly, and stars began to wink on the horizon. The sun was blazing bright, wrapped in a bank of clouds so violently colored they looked painted by an artist’s gifted hand. I stared at it, then pulled my cell phone out. As expected, there was no coverage.

  There might not be any for miles.

  I checked the map and shivered again, but this time I was just cold. Finding a hoodie in the backseat, I yanked it over my head and found a white pillow case to press into the crease of the window, alerting anyone who came by that the car belonged to someone and shouldn’t be towed away. I hoped no one would rob it. They’d certainly have the means, as there didn’t appear to be anyone or anything around for miles. My downloaded map agreed; I had five miles to walk to the nearest gas station, and I knew there was no guarantee they’d have a phone that worked or even that there was a garage open somewhere willing to help me by the time I called. I was glad I thought ahead to downloading the place-markers I had. Trying to reassure myself, I grabbed my purse, tucked the .22 inside and strapped all my money in a fanny-pack I wore backwards under my hoodie. No one would see it. I hoped nobody messed with my car, but if they did, I guess I had the essentials. There was nothing left to do but walk.

  I was a mile on my way when it started to get really dark. And when I say dark, I mean dark. I could tell that I would need to move over to the shoulder once the twilight was swept away by the growing sheet of navy that covered more and more of the sky, because without a moon out it would be black as pitch. The stars were already beautiful to see, but drivers wouldn’t be looking up. I needed to hurry. It was getting colder and colder, too, and I wasn’t sure my hoodie would be enough to keep me warm if the wind picked up and raced over the endless fields around me.

  I listened for cars and watched for headlights while constantly checking for a signal; I didn’t want to open my phone up too often, though, because it would just waste the battery. What if the gas station was closed? I’d prepared for many possibilities, but having my car suddenly die in rural Montana on the edge of the night was just not something I’d thought very likely. Once again, I wondered if Ripley did this—if he wasn’t following me like he said, he might have found another way to torment me just the same. My car was in perfect working order according to the mechanic who serviced it many times and did a final check just one day before I left, but that gave Ripley roughly eighteen hours to sabotage it. I didn’t think he knew much about cars, but it probably wasn’t hard to break one. Fixing things was always the difficult part.

  Ripley wasn’t going to ruin this for me, I decided. In a month, this was just going to be another adventure I had on the way to my new life. There was no way he was going to bring me down—or worse, bring me back. I’d go to the gas station, and if it was locked up for the night I’d head back to the car and sleep there. I could have some of my snack stash in the morning and walk back. This wasn’t the end of the world. It was chilly and frightening and if Ripley was out there… But he wasn’t, I told myself again. It was just chilly and frightening.

  And then it was a little worse, because there was a car coming down the highway towards me. I moved as far over to the side as I could, standing in the brush, and hoped they stayed on the road; instead, they slowed down and I could tell they saw me. Were they looking for me? I fought the urge to run and clutched my purse, my hand pawing inside until it found
the .22.

  It wasn’t him. No way.

  “Ma’am? What are you doing out here in the dark?” The man’s voice was gravelly; he was probably in his late forties, maybe early fifties. When he turned on the overhead light in his cab, I could see that he was wearing a uniform. Sheriff was written in big letters on the side of his car.

  “My car broke down,” I told him, and he nodded. Someone must have called it in. “I was just walking to the gas station—it’s another four miles. Do you mind… Could you call them and see if they’re open?”

  “And if they’re not?” He had a mildly sardonic tone, but it didn’t bother me; I probably looked a little silly to him, lost and wandering in the wilderness, unprepared for this turn of events. I felt a little silly, anyway, although I’d done everything I could think of to prevent anything like this from happening.

  “I’ll sleep in my car tonight and head back in the morning,” I said, and his eyes narrowed as he looked me over.

  “Gets cold at night,” he said, but I shrugged.

  “I’m from Ohio,” I told him. “It gets cold there too.”

  “Not this time of year,” he said, that tone returning. This time it got under my skin a little bit.

  “Well, do you have another suggestion?”

  He chewed on his mustache for a minute, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Your name Sierra Davenport? From Dayton, Ohio?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to stymie my annoyance. I guess he was just making sure I was telling the truth before he helped me; he must have run the plates on my car.

  “What exactly are you doing out here?”

  “I’m moving to Idaho,” I explained. “I’m an occupational therapist—just graduated two months ago. I’ll be working in a burn unit at a hospital there; my brother survived an IED in Iraq, so I have some experience and I… I needed to get out of Dayton.” True. A little too much truth, actually, but we have a problem in my family: we’re what polite people call ‘too honest.’

  “Well, that gas station closed down a month ago,” he said in his soft, sarcastic voice. “So, Sierra from Ohio, you can hitch a ride with me into Helena and get your car in the morning. No mechanic around here for miles.” He raised an eyebrow. “Not sure how you ended up on this particular stretch of highway.”

  “I thought my car was in great shape,” I told him truthfully, shrugging. “…And I wanted to take the scenic route. Isn’t Helena four hours away?”

  “Yep,” he said, still watching me.

  I put my hand on my hip. “Is there anywhere closer?”

  It took him a long time to answer, and his expression was unfathomable; I could tell he sensed my impatience with his attitude because I think he moved his hand in slow motion when he finally answered by lifting a CB mouth-piece. “Deputy Walsh, you there?”

  “Yessir,” a voice rumbled back from a speaker somewhere in the car.

  “Got a problem out here on Route 32.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Problem is about 5’6, could probably use a hot meal. Might need a bed.”

  “Yessir,” the rumble came again.

  “See you in twenty,” the Sheriff said, his eyes never leaving me. “Well,” he told me, “let’s go.”

  “You never showed me any ID,” I said, my arms still crossed, and instead of irritating him this appeared to make him smile—the very smallest smile, more of a smirk, really, but a smile none-the-less. I came a little closer and used my phone to examine it. It looked legitimate to me, but I took another step back and crossed my arms again. “What’s your jurisdiction, exactly?”

  After a fairly cordial back-and-forth, I felt like I’d been thorough enough to take a ride with him. When we started moving on the highway again I asked if I could roll my window down and he silently agreed, watching me from the corner of his eye. I’d passed whatever tests he thought he needed to give me, because he let me hang my head out of the car like a Labrador after a while, just shaking his head with an amused look. I loved the stars—there were just so many, visible and endless, splattered across the entire sky. And although it was very dark down here on earth, it was actually bright up there, in a way—these were the heavens, I realized, thinking that this must be what centuries of people were able to look up and see, the term suddenly making sense: the stars were definitely heavenly. It was awe-inspiring.

  “They don’t have stars in Ohio?”

  “We have plenty of stars,” I said, shooting him a look of my own, “but no… Not like this. I’m sure lots of visitors have the same reaction?”

  “This stretch of highway isn’t exactly known as a vacation locale,” he said, and at this point I was comfortable enough with him to roll my eyes.

  “That’s not exactly what I mean,” I said, but he just quirked his mustache. I went back to taking in the view outside my window—literally outside, my hair blowing wildly in the wind as my ponytail whipped around my face. We’d taken a turn off of the highway and were cruising down another two-lane road, heading towards a cluster of buildings you could see from a great distance. When we pulled up in front of our destination, I could only shake my head at him. “Really?”

  “Really, Ma’am,” he said, and there was that tone again.

  “You took me to jail?”

  “Correction, Ma’am—I took you to the deputy’s office,” he said, and pointed at the door. It opened while my head was turned, an orange rectangle of blinding light spilling out onto the sidewalk with the silhouette of a tall man sharply cut into it. The shadow moved away the light, and I scowled at the open door; the color was so dull and invasive compared to the stars, and it kind of highlighted my situation perfectly. From freedom to lock-up. “He’ll provide you with a place to stay.”

  “Great,” I said, then took a deep breath. “Well, thanks for the ride, I guess.”

  “You’ll thank me for real in about an hour,” he said, “when the temp drops again.”

  “Alright,” I said, and slid out of his car. I managed to keep my panic at bay this whole time, but as I turned towards the jail’s open door it rose up again.

  This will all be funny tomorrow, I told myself, but it was hard to believe it.

  ~~~

  Sebastian

  The first thing I did after I let Sierra Davenport--twenty-one years old from Dayton, Ohio, 5’7, not 5’6, and a very well-proportioned 152 pounds--step into the office, was text Sheriff Redhorse.

  Is this a joke?

  The reply came back almost instantaneously; he was probably laughing his ass off with Gilly, down at the 7-11 on Runtree Road. Nope. Goodnight.

  Great, I thought, rubbing my hand over my face—well, what was left of my face. I shifted my neck to make sure my hair covered the ruined skin. About a quarter of my head was scar tissue now, but I hoped she didn’t notice until she realized I wasn’t going to hurt her.

  Because Sierra Davenport was definitely worried about getting hurt.

  She looked like a whitetail deer. I don’t entirely mean that figuratively, either; her brown eyes were round and almost as big as the moon when she came through the door, shooting furtive glances back outside at the night as if she were being stalked across the prairie. Her legs and arms were strong, the muscles defined enough to be visible beneath her sweats, her full mouth braced and still as if she were holding back a yell. Her hair was almost as long as mine was growing up and tied back in a high pony-tail that snapped through the air when she turned her head.

  And she was pretty. Maybe more than pretty.

  The thought surprised me when it bubbled up to the surface of my brain. I hadn’t thought about a woman in terms relating to more than her status as a potential criminal or victim of a crime in almost two years. Pretty didn’t mean much when it came to solving cases; I didn’t care if you were Lupita Nyongo or Scarlett Johanssen or whoever, if you broke the law in my quadrant you were getting locked up, and if you happened to be on the other side of a bad guy, it didn’t persuade me to help any more than if
you looked like the bottom of my shoe. I did my best to be completely and totally fair, and because I wasn’t really in a personal position to judge I did a good job of being neutral on the subject of beauty.

  But she was… Well, she was very pretty.

  Frightened, but doing a good job of trying to hide it. Confident, but unsure; she was out of her element and making the best of a bad surprise. Sheriff Redhorse had already processed her car. He put in the report that he’d requested Reno to go pick it up and bring it to the garage back in Helena. That was a really long way to walk.

  But she definitely seemed the type to try.

  “So what brings you to Montana?” I put on my Deputy Walsh voice and sat behind the desk, knowing the light would cast my face in shadow. If I turned my profile just the right way, she might never see the scars. I could order her a pizza, point to the grill door on the cell, and we could sit in companionable silence for twelve hours. Sure.

  “I’m driving to Idaho,” she said, crossing her arms over her considerable chest. I caught myself thinking that and immediately dropped my head down to study some non-existent paperwork on my desktop. “Just passing through.” I listened to her footsteps come a little closer and could practically hear her weight shifting to one hip as she grew bolder and—thanks again, Sheriff—more annoyed. Her arms weren’t crossing her chest, now; one of them would be propped on that hip, the curve of her body unable to hide under the bulky sweatshirt. “Am I under arrest or something? Is there a reason I can’t stay in my car tonight and just walk into town tomorrow?”

  “Well, for one, that’s a dangerous choice for both you and the community at large, given that it’s an isolated highway with a narrow shoulder.” I raised my eyes without moving my head, a small gesture that coupled well with my size and was usually enough to encourage whoever was bothering me to move another couple feet back—preferably right to the door, where she’d been standing a second ago. No dice. We locked eyes and I could tell she was a lot braver than her doe eyes let on. She re-crossed her arms but left her hip popped out and raised her eyebrows at me. “You’re not under arrest, though, ma’am,” I said, realizing I was provoking her on purpose. I always had a soft spot for sassy women. Probably my only soft spot, actually. “The Sheriff just requested we create a safe situation for the evening and you can move on whenever you like.”