And Sophie was still very particular about the sort of facilities—or lack thereof—that she would use.
“I could just pull over,” Beth suggested, glancing over her shoulder with a bright smile. “That would be fast. There’s no one around to see.”
It was true. There hadn’t been a mailbox in miles, and they hadn’t met an oncoming car since leaving Lone Wolf. The road was empty save for them and a single car far behind them on the highway.
“I can’t.” Sophie wiggled anxiously in her seat. “I need a real potty. Like at home.”
“There are only two choices. Stop by the side of the road, or hold it until we find a gas station, and that could be another twenty minutes or more.” When Sophie didn’t answer, Beth slowed down and started watching for a turnoff.
They were truly out in the middle of nowhere now. The hills were higher, with sharp outcroppings of rock jutting from the sparse grass, and sagebrush dotted the landscape. Here and there, deep, rocky ravines slashed the terrain.
The car behind them drew closer. But instead of rocketing past, it slowed.
Beth eased up on the accelerator, encouraging the driver to go around. Instead, the car crept closer.
Closer.
She glanced in the side mirrors again, and her heart crawled up into her throat. The driver’s face was shaded with a ball cap and dark sunglasses.
And now he was practically on her bumper, the threat unmistakable…and there hadn’t been a ranch sign for miles.
He edged even closer.
She felt the unmistakable jolt of his car ramming hers.
She stepped on the gas, but he stayed right with her, and hit her bumper again. The SUV fishtailed wildly across both lanes before she could get it back under control and shove down the accelerator.
The car fell behind—then loomed larger and larger in the side mirrors.
“Momma! What’s wrong?” Sophie cried out. “I’m scared!”
Beth steadied the car. Fumbled for her cell phone. Flipping it open, she held her breath for a second, almost afraid to look for reception bars on the screen.
Just one. And with these deep, rock-strewn hills, that one could fade at any moment.
Trying to slow her racing heart, she hit the 911 speed dial button. Through static, she could barely hear the dispatcher’s voice. She quickly gave her location, praying the woman could make out her words—then she punched Joel’s number, and prayed even harder.
He’d been a cop. He’d know how to help her, if he was back from Detroit and could make it out here in time. Please Lord, let him pick up this call.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE VEHICLE BEHIND HER fell back when a sporty little car roared toward them from over the hill ahead. Her hands shaking, she tried flashing her headlights but it flew past in a crimson blur, its driver oblivious to her panic.
Again she hit the speed dial on her phone. Spared a glance at the trip odometer.
And lost the connection when the road dipped.
At the top of the next rise she tried again. No answer. But this time she managed to leave a frantic message.
The car behind her drew steadily closer.
She accelerated. Seventy-five. Eighty.
How far could the next town be? Or some sign of inhabitants—a place where she could turn off that would lead her to people who might provide safety?
Just over the next hill a ranch sign flew past—with too little advance warning to make a turn. Ahead, she could see the road snake through some river-bottom land and thick stands of cypress and cedar, then it rose into even rougher terrain.
In the backseat, Sophie had started to whimper, and now she was crying, her voice laced with terror. “Stop, Momma—please, stop!”
Beth fought to stay calm. “Soon, sweetheart.”
But like a powerful animal overtaking its prey, the car behind them pulled closer. Veered into the oncoming lane. And then began to edge past the Bravada.
She couldn’t outrun it. If it ran them off the road now, they’d be airborne on a trip to certain death.
She let up on the accelerator. Gripped the steering wheel. And began feathering the brakes. Then she hit them harder and felt the vibration of the antilock brakes fighting for purchase on the smooth asphalt. The other car held even with them for a split second, then it shot past, its taillights glowing red and brakes squealing. It swerved wildly, directly in their path. Oh, God…oh, God…
“Momma! It’s him,” Sophie screamed. “It’s him!”
A split second later the Bravada smashed the back end of the car and shot over the shoulder of the highway. Weightless, it hung in the air for one breathless, endless moment, when time stood still.
Then the SUV hit the ground with bone-jarring force and rocketed down a rocky, twisted path, careening past boulders and scrub cedars. Ricocheting against the high walls of the ravine.
Near the bottom it arced up a steep incline and paused. Then tumbled sideways in a cloud of dust, rolling twice amidst the nightmarish sounds of popping glass and screeching metal.
And then, silence. Total, eerie silence.
Dazed, Beth stared blankly at the sagebrush plastered against the windshield, then realized the Bravada was upside down and her head was pounding.
Pawing at the deflated air bag, choking on the roiling dust, she tried to clear her scrambled thoughts filled with nightmarish images of their downward plunge.
Flashes of Patrick, screaming as he gripped the wheel.
Sophie shrieking—or was it me?
Sagebrush and sand and scrub cedars, the vision intertwined with a looming bridge abutment. Massive. Gray. Spattered with blood.
OhmyGod…OhmyGod…
Nausea welled up in her throat. But she was caught—suspended in her seat belt, her head against the buckled roof. And Sophie…OhmyGod…
“Sophie? Sophie!”
Eerie, deathlike silence.
Panic shot through her as she struggled to release her seat belt. The side window was gone. She crawled through it to the sharp stones outside, barely aware of the warm, sticky flow of blood running down the side of her face.
Somewhere along the way, the trailer had broken free and was nowhere in sight. The SUV’s rear door was open, twisted at a crazy angle. She crawled in to reach the car seat, her heart racing. “Sophie!”
“M-momma?” Sophie’s eyes were wide and dazed in her pale face.
Relief rushed through Beth like a tidal wave. “Oh, sweetheart. Are you okay? Do you hurt anywhere?”
Sophie’s stunned expression turned to awareness, then terror, her eyes welling with tears. “S-scared.”
“I know you are. I’m getting you out of here. Just hold on.”
Sophie started to whimper. “Are we gonna die, like Daddy?”
“Of course not,” Beth soothed. “I just need to…”
She struggled against gravity and Sophie’s weight, trying to release the shoulder straps, her fingers slippery with her own blood. There…almost…
Then Sophie tumbled out onto Beth’s chest, nearly taking her breath away.
“Okay, now we’re going to just ease out of here. I’m in the way, so I need to back out first. All right?”
“You’re bleeding!”
“It’s just a tiny cut on my head, but those always bleed a lot. No worries.” Sophie came out after her, scrambling frantically to be free of the car. As soon as Beth got to her feet, Sophie launched into her arms and hugged her around the neck. “I was so scared, Momma.”
“I know. Me, too.” Beth ran a hand over the child’s arms and legs, then set her gently back on the ground to get a good look. No blood. Not even a scratch. “I can’t believe it. But now—”
From far up the ravine came the sound of rocks clattering down the rocky bank. Footsteps?
On its wild, tortuous path down through the ravine, the Bravada had torn through heavy sagebrush and scraggly young cedars, and had come to rest behind some heavy undergrowth. It was out of sight from
the road, but it wouldn’t take long for their pursuer to find it—and them—if they didn’t start moving, fast.
Beth took Sophie’s hand and started through the underbrush, then turned back and grabbed her purse out of the Bravada. But the cell phone—she dug frantically through the jumble of clothes and books and toys that had been tossed during the crash. Oh, God—where was the phone?
From the back of the SUV, Darwin grumbled from the depths of his cage and Viper whined, pawing anxiously to get out. But she’d have to come back—there was no way she could lug them, and if Viper ran loose, she might all too easily alert their pursuer to the direction they’d gone.
“There it is, Momma!” Sophie ran forward and grabbed the phone from the ground by the rear bumper. “And my Maisie, too!”
“Super, honey.” Beth pocketed the phone, fixing a smile on her face. She hurried to the other side of the vehicle and wrenched open the glove box to retrieve an old can of pepper spray. She fumbled with it. Dropped it twice before she could steady her shaking hands and stash it in her purse. “Now listen. We have to be quiet. Understand? I don’t think that man is very nice, and we don’t want him following us, okay?”
Her doll clutched tightly to her chest, Sophie nodded, her eyes somber and her lower lip trembling. “He killed my daddy.”
“No, sweetie. It was a car accident.”
“He was there. He made it happen.”
Beth blinked and struggled to arrange the fractured images that were spinning through her brain. There had been another car the night Patrick was killed. Hadn’t there?
But none of it made sense, and she didn’t have time to sort it out. “We’ve got to hurry. Let’s go.” Beth took her hand and started off into the brush, trying to stay on the rocks instead of the sandy soil and heading parallel to the highway.
Sophie cried out as she slipped on the loose gravel and nearly fell.
Beth picked her up and brushed a kiss against her tearstained cheek, but kept moving. Moving. Forcing her way through thick, pungent sagebrush. Dodging wicked bushes with long thorns whose name she couldn’t recall.
The sun broke free of the clouds overhead, washing out the arid landscape in harsh, bright light. Sweat trickled down her back as she struggled to keep going. Then she stopped, held a finger to her lips and listened.
She could hear him crashing through the brush. Silence…then the squeal of metal. A thudding sound. Glass breaking. He was searching the car?
Black spots danced in front of her eyes as a wave of dizziness washed through her. She reached up and felt her hair, sticky and matted.
What if she passed out? Only a fool would leave witnesses, and if he thought either of them had seen his face…then Sophie…
Gritting her teeth she straightened and shifted Sophie’s weight to her back. “Hold tight—around my neck,” she whispered, capturing the child’s legs in the crook of her elbows.
She forced herself to jog at a steady pace, dodging between stands of scrub cedars for cover, weaving through sagebrush and some sort of low-lying cactus. Sweat dripped down her face and between her breasts.
“Momma, I still gotta go potty,” Sophie whispered brokenly against Beth’s ear.
A thicker stand of cedar lay ahead, maybe the distance of a city block. And if she angled up the rocky slope to the right, the highway should be up there somewhere.
Or…was it? How far had they gone down into the ravine—and had their direction changed? And what if she’d started out on foot in the wrong direction? Even a few degrees could mean the difference in finding that endless ribbon of asphalt and the possibility of a passing rancher.
Or miles of vast, deserted Texas landscape.
“Just up there, Sophie…” Heat rose in shimmering waves from the hard, sandy earth, making it difficult to breathe. Sophie grew heavier with each step. “And…then…we’ll stop for a second.”
She struggled on, nearly collapsing when they reached the cover of the trees, but for once, Sophie didn’t argue about the lack of facilities.
As soon as she was finished, Beth moved deeper into the trees. “Quiet,” she whispered. She put two fingers to her lips. “Stay right here and don’t move.”
“Momma!” Sophie launched into her arms, wrapping herself around Beth’s waist. “Don’t go!”
“It’s okay, I’m just going to look behind us.” Beth gently extricated herself from Sophie’s grasp and checked her cell phone. No reception. “Now, don’t make a sound, okay? And stay still. Let’s see how well you can play ‘statue.’”
Beth wound back through the tangle of cedar branches and studied the terrain. The rocky slope was empty. Silent.
And then she heard a man’s distant, harsh curse…the voice oddly familiar.
He rounded a rocky outcropping, his eyes on the ground, a ball cap and sunglasses obscuring his face. He was traveling faster than she could ever travel with Sophie.
She sank back behind the branches, her heart racing. He looked up and seemed to stare straight at her. Then stopped and looked down the hill, as if debating which way she’d gone.
Beth whirled around and hurried to Sophie. “We have to go—now. Don’t make a single sound. Okay?”
Taking her hand, she hurried through the trees…and stopped in her tracks.
There’d been cover behind them. Boulders and scrub vegetation. A twisting path up out of the ravine. Ahead lay a gentle, grassy slope and beyond that, what appeared to be miles of open pastureland marked only with a scattering of low sagebrush and an occasional cedar. There was no place to hide.
To the right, a rugged, rocky wall rose steeply above them. Even if they could make it, it would take more time than they had—but there was no other choice.
Beth kneeled down and took Sophie’s shoulders. “We’ve got to go up those rocks. It’s going to be hard, honey. But you have to be very, very quiet—even if you get an owie.”
Sophie appeared numb and frightened, but she nodded.
“And you keep going, no matter what. There’s probably a road up there. If the sheriff or Joel got my message, they might drive by sometime soon. If you see their cars, it’s okay—you can wave them down. Understand?”
A tear fell down Sophie’s dusty face. “But what about you?”
If she had to, she’d veer off in a different direction to draw the man’s attention away from Sophie, but that was a plan better left unsaid. “I’ll be coming right along, so don’t worry—if I fall behind, just keep going.”
Beth picked up Sophie and ran to the right, picking her way through fallen boulders. Boosting Sophie ahead of her when the terrain rose steeply. The sharp rocks tore at her jeans and her palms as she climbed, lifting Sophie to the next shelf when the rise was too steep.
The sun blazed overhead, hot and relentless. Sweat trickled down Beth’s back and face, stinging her abrasions. Sophie cried out and turned partway, showing Beth her bloodied palm. “It’ll be okay, sweetheart, we’re halfway there.”
But still, they were exposed to the view from below. And at any minute…
What if the guy was armed?
The next ledge was about as long as a sofa. Sophie sank down on it. “I’m too tired, Momma.”
“But we’ve got…”
At the sound of a branch breaking, she glanced down. They’d made it a couple hundred feet…but now, the man was just stepping beyond the cedars. Fear shot down Beth’s spine. If he happened to look up…
“Back! Get back!” Beth said. Sophie shrank against the wall of rock behind her and Beth did, too.
Were they out of sight?
At her feet lay a good-sized rock—maybe the size of a softball. Beth leaned forward and hefted its weight. Peered over the edge of the shelf.
He was still standing there, clearly trying to catch his breath, bent over with his hands on his thighs. But any minute…
She eased into a crouch. Lifted the rock, then sent it arcing out into the cedars with every ounce of her strength.
; The man didn’t turn around. More desperate now, she grabbed another rock and sent it flying, as far as she could back into the trees.
This time, he straightened abruptly, spun around and stared, then hurried back the way he’d come.
“Now, honey—let’s move—fast! He thinks we’re still down there.”
Sophie scrambled up ahead of her, with Beth’s hand at her waist. Just fifty feet from the top. Forty. Thirty—
“Momma!” Sophie screamed. She awkwardly turned and fell, her weight knocking Beth off her feet. They slid on the loose rock, the rough edges tearing at Beth’s T-shirt and biting into her back. Pain ripped through her and it was all she could do to hold back a sudden cry.
A volley of rocks tumbled down the cliff face, bouncing and clattering, the noise loud as cannon shot as it echoed across the land below.
Beth closed her eyes and said a swift, silent prayer. Sophie hovered over her, her eyes huge. She pointed uphill. “Snake, Momma. Big.”
Beth gingerly rolled to her knees. Eyed the cliff. The best place to go up was straight ahead—where there was quite possibly a rattler sleeping in the sun. To the right, the cliff jutted far out into space…but to the left, there was a narrow edge of rock that led upwards. Just a foot wide, narrowing to maybe half that for a good ten feet.
But the options…
She looked down. She fought to control her panic.
Sophie had been right. There was a rattler on that ledge. Huge and loosely coiled, its dusty gray diamond pattern blended perfectly with the gravel.
Below, at the bottom of the ravine, the guy had come back out of the trees. He was looking straight at her. And he very definitely had a gun.
“We’ve got to go, sweetheart!” Beth grabbed her hand and sidestepped along the rock, trying to calm her racing heart.
Praying that, above them, there’d be a highway. Passing traffic. And someone with the decency to stop.
Her foot slipped on loose gravel, and she teetered for a split second. Sophie screamed and tried to grab for her, nearly sending them both over the edge before Beth found her footing once more.
An eternity later they reached the top, and Beth collapsed stomach first on the wiry grass, exhausted, with Sophie at her side.
Lone Star Legacy Page 17