of your battle is going to be just letting it rest. The surgeon didn’t repair your medial collateral ligament. That’s only going to heal with rest. So you have to take it slow.”
He leaned into her until their foreheads were only a couple inches apart. She smelled of hand sanitizer and citrus, and he offered her a compromise. “Then you’ve got to give me more to work on than the first name of a woman you haven’t seen in years.”
She reached for his crutches and wedged them in front of her. “You need to rest.”
“And you promised to let me help you.”
She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling as though asking for patience from above. “I don’t have anything else to give you right now. I’m going to call Detective Fletcher, who I reported the almost hit-and-run to, and tell him what Gary said so he can look into Camilla. And then I’m going to go home.”
“At least let me walk you to your car?”
A slow smile lifted her cheeks, despite the shadow of fear reflected in her eyes. “All right.”
He trailed after her as she went to her office and called the detective. It must have gone straight to voice mail, and she left a short, succinct message. “This is Mandy Berg. I have a tip on someone who might be taking her frustrations out on me. Would you call me back as soon as you have a chance?” She gave him her number before hanging up. Then she tossed the flowers, which were still sitting on her desk, in the trash and scooped up her tote bag. “Let’s go.”
“Good night, Tara,” Luke said as they walked through the lobby.
“Have a good one,” she hollered over the sound of her radio, which was playing a hit from the mideighties.
Luke clattered down the ramp beside Mandy, thankful she hadn’t suggested taking the stairs. “Is everything all right at your house? No one’s tripped the alarm?”
“It’s all fine. Nothing new since two nights ago.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “Well, nothing except finding out about Camilla.”
“Do you think she’s capable of this?”
Mandy dug her hand into her bag, rooting around for her keys for several seconds before producing them. “I don’t know. I don’t know her. But a woman scorned, well, she’s capable of nearly anything.”
Luke nodded as the lights on her white SUV blinked. He glanced at the wheel as she opened her door, and the parking lot lights reflected off a puddle peeking out beneath her front bumper. “I think you’re leaking.”
“I know.” She threw her bag into the car and slid behind the wheel. “It’s been leaking antifreeze for a couple days. I need to have it looked at.”
He nodded. “You’ve had other things on your mind.” He put his hand on her door to close it. “Have a good night. Drive safe.”
“I will.”
The door clicked closed, and he stood silently watching her pull out of the lot and onto the major cross street. When she had disappeared, he moved toward his car, watching the pool of liquid in her empty parking spot to make sure he didn’t slip in it.
The yellowish lights above made the puddle’s color hard to distinguish, but it wasn’t a neon color like many antifreeze brands. In fact, it looked more like oil.
A knot in his stomach went taut, and he shifted one of his crutches to the other side so that he could bend almost all the way over. Stretching his arm as far as he could reach, he swiped a finger through the fluid. Dry and oily. Lifting it to his nose, he inhaled. It smelled like fish oil.
Like brake fluid.
Like her brake lines had been cut.
“Mandy!” He yelled her name, even as his throat closed. The strangled cry died quickly on the wind, and he ran as fast as his crutches would carry him to his car.
Get to her. Get to her. Get to her.
He had to find her before she couldn’t stop. Before she sailed through a red light or flew off a mountain road.
He flung his crutches into his car, gritted his teeth against the eruption in his knee when he bumped his leg and peeled out of the parking lot. He whipped in front of another car and floored it in the direction she’d gone.
She hadn’t given him her cell number. Too personal.
But this, this was beyond personal. This was a matter of life and death.
The light before the highway entrance turned yellow, and Mandy pressed her brake pedal.
Her car barely slowed and coasted through the red light, accompanied by the angry honking of several other drivers. Her SUV let out a squeal of pain. With white knuckles, she gripped her steering wheel and tried to pull over, but there was no shoulder and she was moving too fast. A car at her side blocked her in, and one in front of her slowed way down.
“Please. Please. Please,” she begged as she pressed her sluggish brake again. Her car gave a woeful shudder, stopping just inches from the bumper in front of her.
“What’s wrong with you?” Leaning back, she glanced at her floor mat, which seemed to be bunched under the brake. Giving the carpet a tug, she pressed the pedal again. Her little SUV lurched but stopped.
Much better.
Even so, the interstate’s stop-and-go traffic could be more than trying if her brakes were being cranky. With a quick turn, she slipped into another lane. She’d take the back roads home. Dark and windy, but at least they weren’t quite as busy.
Mandy zipped along the twisting roads as she headed up the hill, hugging the center line, keeping her distance from the sheer cliff to her right. The vertical wall of stone on the far side of the two-lane highway was almost invisible against the black sky as she worked her way out of the city. One pair of headlights in her rearview mirror and the fading red lights of three other cars in the distance before her were her only company.
She let out a breath, already feeling the stress of the day and Gary’s visit lifting.
Until she tapped her brakes as she crested a summit.
Nothing happened.
She punched them hard and gasped as the pedal reached the floor. With no response.
Grabbing the wheel with two shaking hands, she tried to keep her vehicle in her lane as it picked up speed.
The road before her curved back and forth, a black snake—and just as terrifying.
Blood rushed in her ears, swallowing every other sound, including the frantic prayer leaving her lips. “Help me. Please. I need help.”
The car behind her seemed to be gaining on her, but she couldn’t let herself be hypnotized by the white lights. Her lane seemed to narrow, and she focused on the center line.
Just
