Don’t Trust Me
Jessica Lynch
Copyright © 2017 by Jessica Lynch
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover by Jessica Lynch
For Suzanne.
You always said I could, so I did.
Miss you.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Author
A Note From Jessica
Also by Jessica Lynch
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1
The cars ahead skated on a skim of water. The vivid red of countless tail lights, brake lights bobbed in the endless black of night, the only sign that they weren’t alone in this storm. Sheets of rain fell sideways as it hammered down on the roof, a persistent drumbeat that even the radio couldn’t quite drown out.
Despite the late hour, despite the treacherous conditions, going somewhere special made it worth the risk of travel. For Tessa Sullivan, it was an upscale spa and resort two states over from the simple suburban center she called home. She’d been looking forward to this trip for ages. A splash of rain wasn’t going to stop her now.
It just made her a little worried.
Okay. Maybe more than a little.
As she prayed she would survive her husband’s driving, she was reminded again that there was one thing she couldn’t control: everybody else. It was a hard-earned lesson, going back fifteen years to when she was ten and her father was sideswiped in a storm just like this. Even if he'd been wearing a seatbelt, it wouldn't have saved him.
The SUV to their right suddenly cut over into their lane, spitting water up at the windshield, blinding her. Tess gulped, fervently wishing she hadn't let that last thought cross her mind.
She fidgeted restlessly in her seat, tugging on the strap by her neck as she checked its fit one more time. They had already been driving for close to seven hours without anything more than an early supper and a bathroom break. Jack wasn’t showing any signs of tiring, and his lead foot, heavy against the gas pedal, did nothing to help her nerves.
Not that he noticed. Or that she bothered to complain.
With the exception of the radio, he preferred silence when he drove if they were going somewhere new. She learned about that quirk on their honeymoon last year, where she struggled to keep quiet. It was a sad state of their marriage that she found it much easier this time around. There wasn’t much she wanted to say to him.
Squeaky wipers slid across the windshield, but the rain fell so hard and so fast, there was always a constant river streaking down the glass. She made a note to get them replaced after she returned home. The horrible scraping sound was grating on her nerves.
The music didn’t help. Jack kept the dial tuned to whatever classic rock station he could find. If she heard one more power ballad with the crooner shrieking about lost love, she thought she might open the car door and pitch herself out into the storm.
She looked around, trying to find something else to occupy her.
There. On the opposite side of the highway, Tess could just make out a car sluicing its way through the rain. It had one wide white eye. The other headlight was blown.
Her response was automatic, ingrained in her from when she was a child and she played this game with her mother. Without even thinking, she leaned over and punched Jack in his upper arm.
“Padiddle!”
She knew right away that she made a mistake.
With all of his concentration on the road, he wasn’t expecting the hit. His arm jolted which meant that his hand on the wheel yanked. He pulled suddenly to the left. The front wheels skid, hydroplaning on the slick road as the car slid to the other side. Jack struggled to right the vehicle, breathing heavily when he finally had it back under control.
“Jesus Christ, Tessie, I’m trying to drive here. What the— whoa.”
A bump, then a squeal as they slid again, followed by a rhythmic thump, thump, thump as the entire car started to wobble. He cut the speed drastically, the whoosh of the other drivers as they sped past causing their vehicle to rock.
Tess fell against her window. Her hand shot out, holding tightly to the grab bar above her head. She used it to pull her body up and climb back into her seat. Her heart thundered so fast, it was all she could hear over the drum of the pouring rain.
“What was that? What’s wrong?” When Jack didn’t answer, she let go of the handle and grabbed his arm instead. “Is something wrong with the car? Are we okay?”
He shook her off. “The tire,” he grumbled, cursing under his breath. “Must’ve been when I jerked the wheel that first time. Damn it.” With an aggravated sigh, he flicked on his hazard lights and started to coast onto the shoulder.
Tess sank into her seat, crossing her hands in front of her like a child who’d gotten caught being naughty. Swallowing back the fear lodged in her throat, she murmured, “Sorry, honey.”
As he maneuvered the car out of the flow of traffic, Jack ignored her soft apology. Once upon a time he never would have. He would’ve assured her that it wasn’t her fault, maybe taken her hand instead of shaking it off, given her fingers a gentle squeeze. But those newlywed days were long gone. She felt the loss of them like an ache deep in her gut.
“Stay here,” Jack ordered.
Bracing his big body against the door, he ducked his head and left her alone, disappearing into the night. Logically, she knew he crouched down to take a look at the tire. That was logic. Anxiety said only a few feet separated Jack from the cars whizzing by and she didn’t have eyes on him.
Tess nibbled on her thumbnail, wondering if she should ignore his orders and go out to offer him some help. At the very least, she could provide some light for him. She wasn’t that useless.
Grabbing her cellphone from her purse, she fiddled with it for a second before activating the flashlight app. That should make it easier for Jack to see through the nasty weather.
He was back before she’d reached to unclasp her seatbelt. The rain drenched him, leaving his t-shirt plastered to his skin. His sandy brown hair looked black as water dripped down his face. Shaking his head, he spattered her with chilly drops of rain.
Tess killed the flashlight as Jack slid back into his seat.
“No way I can do anything in this storm,” he told her. “Tire’s shot, though. Looks like we might have rolled over a nail or something earlier. How much longer did we have to go until we got to the resort?”
It was so disappointing to hear the weariness he didn’t bother to hide. She’d been looking forward to this getaway for, well, forever. This second honeymoon was supposed to get them through this rocky patch in their relationship. Tess planned this trip down to its very last detail before they set off for the week away. At the time, the upcoming stormy forecast had been the least of her many concerns.
&n
bsp; She was beginning to regret that oversight now.
“I’m so, so sorry. We’ve still got about two hours to go.”
“What? Are you serious? It's after eight!”
“I know.”
“Damn it, I thought we'd be there by now.”
“We were supposed to be farther along—”
“You spent weeks getting me to agree to this, making arrangements.” His voice was an accusation. Like she invited the rain herself, or caused the tire to go bad.
Tess sank in her seat. That part, at least, was true.
Jack glared at her, frustration coming off of him in waves. “Come on, Tessie. What now? This was your brilliant idea. Except now we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere with a bum tire. Wonderful. And it’s still another two hours? Really?”
“Dinner took longer than I expected, and the rain definitely didn't help.” She bit her lip, then admitted, “We were already behind before the tire got all screwed up.”
When he huffed and groaned, running his hands through his rain-dampened hair, she hurriedly added, “Don’t worry, honey. Plans change, right? Plans change all the time. Our reservation will still be there tomorrow. We just got to figure out something for now.”
“Yeah?” he challenged. “Like what?”
Tess held up her phone. “It’s okay. Really. I checked my maps app a second ago. There’s an exit coming up in less than half a mile. I’m sure we can find something there. Someone to fix our tire, or maybe a motel for the night.”
Another huff. “Well, it’s not like we can sleep on the side of the highway. Okay. Fine. Let’s go.”
After turning his hazard lights off again, Jack waited until there was a gap in the traffic before he slipped back into the steady stream of cars coursing down the highway. He stayed in the right lane, hugging the outer line in case they had to pull over again ahead of reaching their exit.
If it wasn’t for her phone insisting it was a real road, she never would’ve attempted to take it. Nothing marked it as an exit. No sign, no arrows, not even a cone to guide motorists this way. Someone even honked as they turned off the main road. Jack ignored them.
“I don’t like this,” he muttered. He pressed down on the brake, slowing his speed as he navigated the increasingly narrow strait.
She had to agree. The path was suddenly rocky, like they were driving on cobblestones. That couldn’t be good for their bad tire. But, with the rain still coming down, there was no turning back now.
They couldn't even if they wanted to. The exit was obviously a one-way road.
A few minutes passed in silence as the exit turned into a street that seemed to lead to nowhere. Jack even clicked the radio off, lending all of his focus to his driving after the first time the car skidded and they almost ended in a ditch. Though the rain had let up on some of its relentless assault, the night had grown impossibly darker. Probably because there were far fewer streetlights than there had been on the highway.
It was so dark, Jack nearly missed it when the road split into two. Slamming on the brakes, they came to a squealing stop. Both of them flew forward before being yanked back in their seats. Tessa shrieked and Jack cursed as their car came that close to diving nose first into a deep valley that bordered the extremely necessary fork in the road.
There was no fence. No warning sign. Just a muddy path that disappeared into a gulley so deep, all he saw was the drizzle vanishing into a sea of black.
“What the fuck?” He pounded the flats of his palms against the steering wheel. “Goddamn it!”
“Jack—”
“Don't Jack me. You see that? That hole? I almost just drove into—we almost died. No. That’s it! I’ve had enough.”
“But—”
“I said no and I mean it. I’m done. Okay? It’s too dark to keep on driving, and it’s definitely too late to look for a garage or someone to fix this damn flat. So do me a favor, pull up the closest hotel. I really don’t want to sleep in this stupid car overnight and, right now, it’s looking like our best shot.”
She couldn’t quite bite back her sigh. “Whatever you say, honey.”
After giving her shoulder a quick rub, Tess leaned down and picked up her phone. It must have been flung there when Jack came to such a sudden stop. She paused to make sure the screen hadn’t cracked before unlocking it.
Unlike her crumbling marriage, her phone was still in one piece.
Hiding her scowl from Jack, she went to pull up her maps app again when she noticed something strange: except for the battery indicator, her top bar was empty.
“That’s weird. I… I lost my signal.” She pressed the home button. No change. “I lost service. I can’t do anything with my phone right now.”
“Are you sure?”
She held it up so that he could see for himself. “Look.”
“Check mine.”
Jack always kept his cellphone stowed in one of the cup holders in the center console. She picked it up and shook her head. She didn’t even need to put in his password to see that his phone wouldn’t be any help either.
“The storm must have done something to the phones,” Jack figured. “That’s fine. Right now, I wouldn’t put it past it. So no cell phones. Whatever. We’ll just have to look for a sign or something.”
“I can do that,” Tess offered. “You keep your eyes on the road. I got this.”
“Do you think we should go left or right?”
She blinked. It wasn’t often Jack asked her her opinion about anything. She wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass her by, no matter that it was for something so inconsequential. “Let’s go right.”
He took his time as he took the turn. With one bad tire, it was safer not to push it. So, as they coasted, Tess leaned as far as her seatbelt would allow, peering through the windshield. Between the rain, the clouds and the fact that this road still was missing many of its street lamps, she couldn’t see very far, but she was nothing if not determined.
“I think I see a sign ahead. It’s coming up on my right. You see it?”
“Maybe. Let me get closer.”
“It’s there. You see it now? Look.” She tapped her finger against the windshield. If he wanted to be pissy about the prints she left behind later, that was fine. “Jack. The lights. Over there. That sign… that looks different. Wait a second— is it handmade?”
He turned the wheel to the right, angling the headlights in the direction Tess was pointing. Through the curtain of steady rain, he could just about make out a wooden sign. Propped on a pole standing three feet high, the square sign was obviously hand-carved and painted. It read:
Welcome to Hamlet
est. 1941
Population: 193 192
~ Hamlet Helps ~
Each letter was beautifully drawn in a script that was pure art. The sign was dark, the letters much lighter; the whole thing had an air to it that made it glow. Tess studied it closer. She had to really peer through the rain but she was almost sure that someone had used a different paint to change the population.
Jack noticed that detail at the same time. “Huh. Looks like someone left.”
“Or else they died.”
“Lovely, Tessie. How nice.”
Didn’t mean it wasn’t true, she thought.
2
The road began to widen about ten minutes after they saw the sign. Lights were still sparse, the bumpy cobbles fading to a blacktop street flooded with rain. As she squinted, Tess couldn’t find a sign that they weren’t alone, which made her wonder if perhaps this Hamlet might have exaggerated its population.
When she pointed that out in an abashed murmur, Jack said, “Should I turn back around?”
Tess shook her head. He drove on.
A few houses eventually started to pop up on the outskirts. Taking heart in that, Jack continued to test the tire, pushing the car until he happened to see something that looked promising coming up on his side.
It was another hand-carved sign with that same
reflective paint. Hoping it wasn’t announcing that they were leaving Hamlet now, he slowed down so that he could read it:
The Hamlet Inn
Hamlet’s Finest Guest Establishment
A Luxurious Bed, Breakfast & More!
Inn. Inn meant boarding. Boarding meant a roof over their heads until the morning when he could find someone to provide him with a spare.
Thank God. He'd been beginning to think they'd be bunking in their old Honda after all.
The grand building beyond the sign didn’t look like any of the hotels he’d ever seen before. It was more like a mansion, someone’s home that was a few stories high, made up of countless rooms and had been converted into an inn. With a massive wraparound porch, a circular driveway that led to a set of double doors and the single descriptor luxurious, Jack had the sinking suspicion that a night here was going to cost him a fortune.
His gaze slid to his wife. She was curled up into her seat, her slender legs tucked under her, one hand pillowed beneath her cheek as she rested her head against the window. Her soft, wavy light brown hair covered her like a curtain. She stared straight ahead, silent as the night. He didn’t think she even noticed he stopped the car.
Jack resisted the urge to run his hand down her thigh in a caress. It was a damn shame when a man couldn’t be sure if his wife would welcome his touch. He could do one thing for Tessie, though. No matter what it did to his wallet, he was giving her a place to lay her head tonight that wasn't made of glass.
Flicking on the blinker, the static click—click—click drew her attention away from the rain. She turned toward him, her golden eyes vivid and bright. There was hope there.
Don't Trust Me Page 1