a few stars visible as the night thickened. Hudson leaned back in his seat. “I called the owner of the cabin where Renee usually stayed. It’s owned by a friend of the family. The police are done with it and he said we could spend the night if we wanted. I said thanks, but no thanks.”
Becca shivered.
He drew a long breath. “I made a reservation online for Cliffside, a B&B in Deception Bay. Great view of the ocean and dog-friendly. But I think we should go to Renee’s cabin and look around.”
“Oh, definitely.”
She glanced in the rearview mirror, frowned, then stepped on the accelerator as the road widened to four lanes for a while and she was able to pass a white panel truck that was slowing with the incline.
A few minutes later, she looked in her rearview again, and Hudson twisted in his seat, peering through the foggy back window.
“Something back there?” he asked.
“No.”
“Renee thought she was being followed,” Hudson reminded her.
“And she didn’t even have visions,” Becca murmured.
Hudson gave her a long look. “What did you see? In your last one?”
“I haven’t wanted to talk about it.”
“That, I know.”
Becca wanted to just forget, and he’d let her for a while. She didn’t want to think about what she’d seen—some hooded being with evil intent. She wasn’t convinced it was even real. But they were on the same path Jessie had taken, and Jessie was the reason she’d had the vision. And she was worried about what it meant for herself, for Hudson, and now for their unborn baby.
“I think the visions mean something,” she said. “They may have a physical cause that no one’s found,” she granted, shooting him a look, “but I believe they are some form of communication, even if it’s only with my own subconscious.”
“You saw Glenn’s burning note,” Hudson allowed.
“That’s right. And I’ve had other visions in the past. But the ones that include Jessie? The ones I seem to be having more and more of? They’re a warning. Jessie’s at the beach and she’s trying to warn me about something—or someone—who wants to do me harm. She keeps saying something, then putting her finger over her lips. And in this last vision, there was a being behind her. In a hood. Dark. Angry. I could feel how much he hates me and my baby!” she added, her voice quivering a bit. “It’s—real. I believe it’s real. And Renee ran into him and it’s what got her killed.”
Hudson let that sink in for several miles. “You’re sure it’s a he?”
“Positive.”
He sighed. “Maybe you do see things. Like Jessie, I guess,” he said. “Everyone says she was precognitive.”
“She knew something was after her,” Becca said, with another glance in the rearview. “And I know something’s after me.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Becca was letting her nerves get the better of her as she made the long drive through the canyons and ridges of the mountains. Tall evergreens, like an army of sentinels, rose into the thick dark sky. Sleet and misting clouds caused the winding, slick road to seem even more isolated and sinister than ever.
Whatever was after her felt very close.
But she was safe.
Hudson was at her side.
Ringo was in the damned car. Sleeping in the backseat.
Nonetheless, despite her internal pep talk, Becca felt the gloom of the night-dark forest closing in on her. And as she drove, listening to some obscure country song riddled with static, she thought of Jessie, who had traveled on this very same road so many times.
It seemed as if Jessie’s spirit had infiltrated this stretch of road.
She told herself she was imagining things, that she couldn’t “feel” Jessie or “sense” her ghost wandering through the rain, mossy, old-growth timber, and sharp canyons. Her mind was playing tricks on her.
She glanced at Hudson, whose eyes were trained on the road. His jaw was set, his expression harsh in the dim glare from the dash lights. He, too, was lost somewhere in his thoughts.
She drove across an icy bridge spanning a deep chasm and her heart seized when she recognized the area. Hadn’t she herself been run off the road here on her way from Seaside sixteen years before?
The last time you were pregnant.
She slid another glance at Hudson, then stared through the windshield where condensation was fogging the glass. She felt as cold as death as she passed the mile post marker where her car had been forced off the road.
Nervously, she checked her rearview mirror, but the car that had been behind them for a while had lagged back, no headlights visible. Nothing but the frigid black night. Her teeth chattered and no amount of adjusting the temperature of the Jetta’s heater could warm her.
“Cold?” Hudson asked, rousing from his thoughts.
She offered a weak smile as her fingers clenched the wheel. “It’s supposed to be eighty in here.”
“It is. At least.”
Really? God, she was chilled to the marrow of her bones. “I guess it’s just me.”
“We could turn back,” he said reluctantly.
She shook her head. He wanted to see this through as much as she did.
Should she admit why this stretch of 26 gave her the willies? Point out the place where she, like his sister, had been forced off the road? Admit that she’d been pregnant with his child and hadn’t had the guts to tell him about it?
Now her hands were sweating. Though she felt chilled to her soul, her palms were damp. You’re a basket case. Just tell him. Let the chips fall where they may.
A flash caught her attention and there in the rearview, she glimpsed twin headlights cutting through the night. Either the car that had been following at a distance had caught up, or someone else had passed the first vehicle and was bearing down on them.
Hudson’s attention was on the radio. “I think we should be able to pick up a decent station from Astoria or Seaside,” he said.
Becca kept her eye on the rearview. Why here? Why after all this time alone on the highway would a vehicle appear at this winding spot in the road, so close to where—
“Is he nuts?” she said as the beams bore down on her.
Just around the next bend, the highway widened, a passing lane over the summit, but the vehicle behind—a truck—didn’t wait. In a rush, it swept by, sliding a little as it flew into the oncoming lane and roared past, no one visible through its foggy windows.
Hudson
