EIGHTEEN
Dear Reader
“In point two miles, your destination will be on your left,” the GPS’s mechanical voice spoke into the tension-filled interior of the old Honda Beat roadster. Lacey Phillips stole a quick glance at her rearview mirror. Blinding headlights from the car on her tail suggested she might not make it those point two miles. If this guy came any closer, she could be spending her Christmas Eve in a snowy New Hampshire ditch instead.
Not what a born-and-bred Southern girl was used to.
Lacey had nothing for warmth but a blue-jean coat and her brother’s army beanie hat.
Check that: her deceased brother’s.
“Stay on the road, Lacey,” she said aloud, and tightened her hold on the wheel.
She could almost hear her brother whisper the same words to her. They’d been each other’s spotter on the racetrack for so long, guiding each and every lane change from mouthpiece to earpiece, guarding against unforeseen hazards on the road ahead. Now it felt as though he guided her again. And it all started when Jeff had left her an envelope with nothing in it but a name and a key. Oh, how she wished there had been a warning of danger inside it, as well.
The car behind pulled up. For the past half hour it had kept the same taunting pace with her as when she’d spotted it outside the small town of Norcastle, New Hampshire. She’d thought it curious when they’d both took the cutoff to ascend these secluded mountain roads. Twenty more minutes of being tailgated through twists and turns and more cutoffs had caused her curiosity to change to full-on alarm.
Lacey wondered how long the car had been there before she noticed it. With her one-track mind on the sole purpose of this trip, it could have pulled up the moment she’d left work at her dad’s South Carolina reconstruction race-car shop seventeen hours ago.
Get the answers was as far as her thoughts had gone when she’d found the envelope in her brother’s office at the shop. Now, with her unwanted company coming up the rear, she probably should have put a little more planning into her mission. After all, her brother was dead, and she didn’t believe it was an accident, as the stamp on his military file implied. How far would someone go to keep that little detail under the rug?
Lacey accelerated, hoping to find the driveway her GPS alerted her to. Somewhere in these twisty back roads and walls of thick trees was the entrance to the home of her brother’s friend, Captain Wade Spencer—the name her brother had left in that envelope.
Lacey’s tires slipped beneath her as the car hit ice, something she was not used to. A yank of the wheel and a downshift freed her from the skid, but she realized this two-seater Beater was not the car to take north in the beginning of winter. Reason number 345 she would never make a good wedding planner like her wise and detailed-oriented, Southern-genteel mother. It was just one more disappointment for Adelaide Phillips to lecture her daughter about when Lacey returned home.
If she returned home.
Lacey looked in the rearview mirror again and breathed a little easier with the little extra space between her car and the one behind her, but with the thoughts of her mother permeating her brain now, it wasn’t too much easier.
What would Adelaide do when she heard her rebel daughter had raced off to places unknown to investigate her brother’s death?
Lacey revved her engine, just as she typically did to tune her mother’s sweet-as-sugar voice out of her mind. Then she floored the pedal, and her tires squealed beneath her just as they would on pit road on race day.
She had a mission, and Adelaide would just have to accept it. Lacey took some solace, though, knowing she didn’t completely go alone. She believed she could step out, or drive out, as the case may be, in faith because God always went with her.
Lord, right about now, I could use a little of Your guidance and maybe some more space between me and the car behind me. They’re getting awfully close again. Please, don’t let them interfere with my goal. I have to make things right. Stay with me, and please cover for me with Mama, and please help me find this Wade guy’s place.
Lacey scrutinized the dense forest ahead of her but still saw no inclination of any living being this far out from town. Talk about cutting yourself off from the world, she thought. What kind of person was this Wade any—
Lacey jolted. The car behind her had tapped her bumper! Was he playing some kind of game?
Back home on the track there might have been some words hollered out, or at the very least, an issue of a challenge for such behavior, but she didn’t think for a second this guy cared about his bad sportsmanship. So what did he want? To stop her from getting her answers was all she could fathom.
But she needed these answers for Jeffrey, Lacey reminded herself. She wouldn’t give up until her brother’s life was honored, not locked up in a confidential file somewhere in DC.
The car bumped her again.
Lacey’s stomach squeezed with trepidation. Never did she think she would need an exit strategy. It had always been get the answers and go home. In and out and home by Christmas dinner. End of mission.
She squeezed her steering wheel tighter and jerked when the car bumped her a third time. How she wished she’d been able to equip the Honda Beat for racing already. If she wasn’t stuck in the shop working other drivers’ cars, the Beat would have included at least a roll cage of tubular steel by now. Her ability to fight back would have put an end to the cat-and-mouse game this guy was playing. What was the point in tapping her bumper? Did he want her to move over?
Or to go home?
Not a chance, Lacey thought. She knew a few racers who used bullying tactics like this guy was doing. One tap meant “I’m behind you and want to come up.” Two taps meant “move it, or I’ll move you myself.” And three taps meant “you’ve been warned.”
So was that her third warning?
“You don’t know who you’re tapping, pal,” she spoke into her quiet cabin. “I don’t play the game for them, and I’m not playing it for you.”
“Your destination is on your left.” The GPS announced her arrival and Lacey flinched. Then she cringed. Apparently, she only talked big.
The GPS repeated the instructions, and Lacey flicked her blinker on. The next second, the car behind her jammed the Beat’s rear bumper at full force.
The impact wrenched Lacey’s neck as her head whipped back into her headrest, but she felt nothing because the looming dark abyss coming at her took precedence.
Crunches and squeals resounded as she slammed on the brakes to fight back with the car plowing her to the edge of the road. Her car turned to the right under the pressure from behind. Then before the edge neared, the strain lessened up. The guy backed off, but probably only to save himself from going over
