Claim asylum and pray the Canadian authorities believed her story. Still risky. With no ID, no phone, a stolen truck, and about sixteen hundred left in cash after four gas stops and an uneaten McDonald’s drive-thru splurge, Eve ran a little low on credibility.
Plus, she had Yolande and Carlos to consider. She couldn’t do or say anything to jeopardize their safety. They’d saved her life. She wouldn’t risk theirs in return. Yeah. Across the board, her options sucked, and so far, the only decision she seemed capable of making was in which direction to point the truck.
Saturday night she’d followed any highway sign pointing her north and away from Seattle. She figured a straight run for Canada would be too obvious a choice if anyone came looking for her. Unable to keep her eyes open, she’d slept in the cab for a couple of hours on Sunday morning before crossing into Utah.
By noon, she’d stopped to fill the gas tank in Pocatello, Idaho, while consulting a ten-dollar road atlas. She’d meant to stay on Highway 15 to the Port of Entry at Sweet Grass, but must have slow blinked somewhere near Butte, Montana because she’d gone left instead of right. When she’d finally caught on miles later, she recalculated and headed in the direction of Eureka and the Roosville border crossing.
Well—she was maybe headed in that direction. Hard to tell at this point.
Fatigue making her eyelids heavy, she closed one eye and squinted through the other. The hazy mountains in the distance and the yellow fields rushing past blurred into one, and she fought to keep her attention on the road with limited success.
Exhaustion numbed her brain, the constant hum of rubber on asphalt lulled, and from one blink to the next, the truck crossed into the oncoming lane. The only warning of impending disaster? The lurch of the wheel in her hands as she hit a rut on the other side of the road.
Shocked into momentary alertness, Eve overcorrected, and the Ford’s backend fishtailed, spraying gravel until she got things under control. Heart pounding, she pulled over and braked hard.
The truck slid several feet before coming to an abrupt stop. The momentum sending Yolande’s eight-inch chef’s knife to the floor along with the atlas, a new tin of Burt’s Bees lip butter, and a crumpled bag containing Eve’s Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal.
Through the windshield, she watched a cloud of dust blend into the late afternoon sky, and it took a minute for her to realize she’d taken yet another wrong turn. Highway 93 wasn’t a gravel road.
Oh God!
A familiar queasiness set up residence in her stomach, and sweat, thick and clammy, beaded along her hairline as she jammed the transmission into park. With jerky movements, she cranked the window down, stuck her head out, and panted like a dog.
Oh God! Please don’t vomit.
Cold mountain air sliced through her lungs but did little to cool her flaming cheeks. The over-the-counter medication barely making a dent in her symptoms, her fever had come back with a vengeance. Only a fool would ignore an infection this bad. She needed antibiotics. And she needed them now.
Decision made, she retreated into the cab, and with a groan, leaned into the passenger footwell to retrieve the book of maps. Her right shoulder too sore to move, she twisted her torso to reach with her left, and when she stretched too far, pain ripped through her side, and she damn near passed out.
No!
No. No. No!
Atlas forgotten, she sat up and pulled open the two halves of Carlos’s plaid shirt. Blood soaked the gray cotton she wore underneath, a growing bullseye forming around the bandaged area of her abdomen.
Shit!
No need to lift the T-shirt to know she’d reopened the wound. If Eve didn’t get to a doctor soon, she wouldn’t make it to the border, and who would stop the Matthews then?
Lightheaded and with a sense of urgency driving her actions, she put the truck in gear and pulled a sloppy U-turn. The safest thing to do? Go back in the direction she’d come from and hope she made it to civilization before passing out from blood loss or running out of gas.
Unfortunately, she didn’t get far. Positive her mind played tricks on her, she rubbed both eyes with one hand. Rubbed them again when the mirage refused to clear. A wall of white approached. Flakes, white and fluffy, went from sparse to dense in the span of three tire rotations.
Snow.
And in her side mirror, a set of headlights, closing in fast.
CHAPTERTWELVE
If the Californialicense plate didn’t signal to Adam the old Ford truck was out of place, the rack of rakes certainly did. Not the typical tools of the trade for hunters and backwoods enthusiasts. Then again, those types knew enough not to venture this deep into the northern section of Flathead National Forest when the weather forecast called for an early November blizzard.
The U-turn suggested the driver might be lost. The rear-end swagger and rapid acceleration, followed by hard braking at every slight curve, hinted the asshole might be impaired. With the truck’s rear window obscured, Adam had no way to see inside the cab.
Following at a reasonable distance, he conducted a rapid risk assessment that left him with more questions than answers. Could the odd appearance of the vehicle be a ruse meant to deflect suspicion? Had Johnson and his backers found the JTT’s location? Agents from Homeland Security? Some other branch of government?
Highly unlikely. Jay monitored all systems, and nothing had appeared on the radar to indicate a compromise of their location. No hints. No warnings. No tingling sense of danger from well-honed instincts.
Since his departure, Adam hadn’t encountered anything else suspicious, and with the lodge still thirty minutes up the road, the single-cab truck now traveled in the opposite direction. Regardless, he couldn’t take any chances. For his own peace of mind, he needed to know who was inside and what the fuck they were doing out here.
