it was long gone. Furious, she unfastened her seat belt and leaned over to scoop up her phone and purse from the passenger-side floorboard.
Suddenly the passenger door opened and the bright beam of a flashlight made her wince and shy away. “Hurry, Sophie.” A hand stretched out to her from the other side of that glaring light.
The voice... Impossible. Sophie? Only Frank had ever gotten away with calling her Sophie.
She froze, too startled to move or reply. Maybe she’d hit her head. Maybe she’d been killed and didn’t realize it yet.
“Move it!” The sharp command left no room for debate. “We have to get out of here right now.”
The urgency in his voice seemed at odds with what must be a hallucination. If, somewhere deep in her subconscious, she hoped for help from her dead husband, wouldn’t he be as calm as he’d been through every stress during their life together?
“Snap out of it.” He tugged on her free hand. “Or they’ll kill us both.”
She couldn’t see his face, though his touch felt familiar. “You’re already dead,” she whispered.
“Not anymore,” he said, his tone gentling.
First the notes, now this...
What was going on? A terrible hoax was the only explanation. Who would do such a thing? “Go away.” She resisted the warmth in his voice. The sense of awareness was a figment of her imagination. “Go away!” Panic swelled inside, expanding outward until she thought her skin would shred from the pressure. “Leave me alone!”
Engines roared closer and faded away, cars of all sizes going on about their business as if reality hadn’t spun her world out of control. She snatched up her purse and reached to open her door.
It was jammed. Of course it was jammed; the other car had damaged the driver’s side of her car.
“This way. Now!” The man who couldn’t be her husband swore as she continued to fight with the door that wouldn’t budge.
“That’s enough.” The flashlight went out. He grabbed her arm and dragged her across the seats and out of the car.
The crush of his fingers burned her skin with undeniable familiarity. She told herself to fight him, told herself she was delusional, and still her body refused to resist.
When her feet hit the ground, she wobbled a bit, whether a result of the shock, the panic or the uneven ground, she couldn’t be sure. Probably all of the above. Her determined rescuer steadied her body with his, and in the shadows she recognized the shape and scent of the man who’d been her partner in life for three decades. Impossible...
“Frank?” In the darkness it was hard to tell. Maybe her vision had been compromised along with her common sense. “How?”
“I’ll explain everything in a minute. Can you walk?”
“Of course.” Offended, she took a step as he did, then stopped short. “My suitcase!” Her computer was in there; she wouldn’t leave it behind. “It’s in the back.”
“At least you came prepared to run.” He sounded relieved as he returned to pull her suitcase out of the backseat. “Tell me you didn’t check out of the hotel.”
She hadn’t, though she refused to volunteer anything. “I don’t owe you any explanations.”
“True enough.”
She struggled to keep up with his longer stride even in her flats. Just like old times, she thought. At just over six foot he was eight inches taller than her, and those inches seemed to all be in his legs. Where were they going? Away from her car...back the way she’d come, she realized. The headlights of a car in the distance allowed her to make out a vehicle waiting in the ditch a few yards away. Black. SUV.
He opened the passenger-side door for her, the way he’d done at every opportunity since their first date. Her stomach churned as her heart floated on a silly, girlish burst of hope. Could this really be Frank, alive and apparently well? She squashed the fluttery sensations. If it was, her husband owed her a great many answers. “Where are you taking me?”
“Does it matter as long as you survive?”
“It might,” she replied. “I can take care of myself, you know.”
“One of the many things I love about you.”
Though he’d surely meant it as a comfort, his use of the present tense deflated her hopes and sent them crashing in an unwelcome thud in her chest. It couldn’t be true. If he still loved her, why had he let her suffer thinking he was dead? “The rental agreement is in the car,” she remembered, too late.
The SUV bumped and lurched along the ditch until he found enough of a rut to get them back up to the road. “Sophie, they know you were driving the car. You were run off the road because they were following your movements. They’ve targeted you.”
She studied what she could see of his hard profile, finally registering his all-black attire. In the dark sweater, cargo pants and matte jump boots, he’d dressed for an operation rather than a reunion. She suppressed the chill of concern about what he’d gotten himself tangled up in. “Who is ‘they’?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Then start talking.” How could this be happening?
“As soon as we’re safely out of here. The story I have to tell you is too important to be interrupted.”
“Convenient.” She crossed her arms. “You invite me to a conversation and then you won’t talk.”
“It’s better if you hear none of it rather than only some of it,” he insisted. “Keep an eye out for anyone on our tail.”
“Fine.” She wanted to ignore him and the outrageous situation, but she couldn’t afford such a childish indulgence. “At least tell me how you faked your death.”
“Soon, I promise.”
Anger surged through her, fueled by the adrenaline of sliding off the road into increasingly impossible circumstances. “Tell me now or take me back to the hotel.”
“If I take you back to the hotel, they’ll kill you tonight,” he claimed. “And Frankie tomorrow.”
That got her attention and put her focus back on point. She pulled her cell phone out of her purse, her fingers brushing, in the process, the notes he’d written. Goose bumps surged up and down her arms. “I’m calling Victoria. She’ll send someone to pick us up.”
He shook his head. “No. Turn it off. Please,” he added, softening the order to a request. “There’s no such thing as safe if they can track you.”
She’d deactivated the GPS signal, but he didn’t need to know that. Until she could trust him, she wouldn’t give him any more advantages. Let him worry that she could turn on her phone at any time and get help immediately. “Give me a good reason to trust anything coming out of your mouth.”
“I’m your husband,”
