Caught by the Blizzard: A romantic winter thriller (Tellure Hollow Book 1) (18 page)

“Hello?”

“Hey you.” I cringed at how perky I sounded. “Kayla told me you were in the shop, so I thought I’d catch you.”

“Ah, did she? She barely acknowledged my existence when she was in here.”
He sounds so weird
, I thought glancing at Kayla.
Did she say something?

I nervously laughed. “Well, I’m really calling for two things. One, to thank you again, from the both of us. It was really cool what you did last night.”

He breathed into the phone, grunting a little as he stood, the sound of an old wooden chair scraping against the floor in the background. “It’s really no big deal. I’m just glad you’re safe.”

“Well, it wasn’t much of a first date though, I feel bad about that.”

“And is that the second reason you’re calling?”

I smiled at the flirtation in his voice. “Maybe. I was thinking you could come up? I’ll cook you dinner, we could chill in the hot tub…” Kayla groaned and started making retching sounds. I smacked her leg and shifted the phone to my left ear, staring out the window as we drove. “Whatever you want, really.”

“How about I cook you dinner at my place? I can pick you up and drive you home. I guarantee no crazy exes will show up.”

“Ohhh,” I laughed, “nice dig. Fair enough. Alright, can you cook? ‘Cause I was actually going to make you something—”

“What the hell is this guy doing?” Kayla said. The alarm in her voice stopped me cold. Bright lights flooded the interior of the car. I caught a glimpse of her staring in the rear view mirror before the Jeep started skidding. “Holy shit, hang on.”

I braced myself against the dash, turning in my seat to see a large truck driving within inches of our bumper. He flashed his high beams on and off while honking his horn. Kayla recovered from the skid, thankfully correcting just the right amount so we didn’t fishtail down the embankment. “What does he want? Maybe there’s something wrong with the car?”

“Do you think we should pull over or something?” she asked, her eyes wide with concern.

“What’s going on?” Bryan’s voice was deep and urgent in my ear.

“I’m not sure. Some guy in a big truck is fucking with us, driving really close, hang on.” I moved the receiver from my mouth. “Kay, there’s the gas station, pull over so he can pass.”

“You okay?” Bryan asked.

“Yeah, I think so. We’re stopping and at least there are other people there,” I replied, then spoke to Kayla. “Did you cut him off or something?”

“No! He came out of nowhere.”

I turned in my seat, squinting into the bright lights behind us. I couldn’t see a thing, but every cell in my body screamed
Rick
. “Why is he so close?” Kayla moaned, eyes flicking to the mirror every second or so.

Gravel crunched under the Jeep’s tires. She pulled the car away from the fuel station into the larger area of the lot, the truck still on our tail. As we came to a stop, she moved to put the car into park. I quickly stayed her hand. “Just wait. Let’s see what’s going on first.”

For several long, agonizing moments, nothing happened. The Jeep rumbled with the idling engine, the vents blowing hot air, but nothing happened. My heart thudded against my ribcage, every piece of me wanting to run, but I was frozen in place. When will I learn to listen to my instincts?

“You’re at the Texaco station, right?” Bryan asked.

“Yeah, the one just a couple minutes from the cabin.”

“I’m coming, don’t hang up.”

“You really don’t have to—”

We heard the door of the truck slam shut and both of us turned to see two shadowy figures approaching the driver’s side. Kayla’s delicate hand slipped to the console and locked the doors. A gloved fist rapped heavily on the window and we both jumped. Then, washed in the light from his truck, Rick’s smiling face appeared at the window.

Kayla let out a relieved groan, which I wanted to slap her for. Even though she didn’t have any reason to fear him, she left the doors locked and chose to roll down the window, slipping the car into park. I quickly dropped my phone to my leg but didn’t hang up, hiding the glow against my jeans.

“You guys!” Kayla yelled. She was hanging out of the window, waving at the truck. Two figures walked in front of the lights, Rick and Noah. “You scared the shit out of me,” Kayla exhaled.

Rick inserted himself into the open window, resting his arms just inside. His dark eyes were locked on me as he replied and I instantly got the feeling he’d been expecting me to be the one driving. I could almost see him recalculating. Noah hung back, watching the scene unfold like he’d orchestrated the entire thing.

“Sorry Sin,” he said. “I didn’t get your new number last night at the party.”

My whole body tensed as he used her Rick-name, short for ‘Assassin.’ She’d been his primary dealer for nearly two years, her unassuming demeanor allowing her to slip into all sorts of untapped markets. Sororities, high schools, he’d point and she’d make a killing.

“God, yeah. I don’t know what happened. I do remember being really glad to see you, though,” she said, touching his arm. During their entire conversation, he’d yet to look at her, his eyes trained on mine. I glanced down long enough to see the time ticking away on the screen, indicating Bryan hadn’t hung up.

Hoping my voice wouldn’t shake, I spoke up loudly. “Rick, what do you want?”

His creepy smile widened, the corner of his mouth shifting with the curl of his lips. “Just to see my two favorite girls, is that a problem?”

“Of course it isn’t, right Lizzy? She obviously freaked out last night but I think she was just surprised to see you.” Kayla sounded like a child caught in the middle of a divorce, doing her best to keep mommy and daddy from fighting again.

“Surprised,” he repeated flatly. “No, that’s not the right word for it. I think guilty is more accurate. What do you think, Beth?”

Kayla laughed nervously, glancing at me, her eyes begging me to defuse the tension she found herself caught in. Trusting my voice a bit more, I smiled sweetly at him. “Rick, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why don’t we go into the gas station and get a couple things? Then we can head up the hill to the cabin and talk.” I prayed that Bryan was able to hear everything.

He squinted at me. Rick wasn’t an idiot. He could smell the insincerity a mile away, but he wasn’t sure what my angle was. If there was anything he’d stressed in our time together, both professionally and romantically, was that he held honesty above all else. I remember him driving the point home a few months after I started working at the club. He beat one of the strippers so badly she needed her left eye socket rebuilt, all because she’d been keeping some of her tips hidden before he got his cut.

Rick bit the middle finger of his glove and pulled it off, white teeth flashing in the light. He ran his thick fingers through his dark hair and sighed. “No, I think we’re alright here for right now. Why don’t you come out so we can talk properly, Beth? It’s been a long time since we had a good…chat.” The word dripped with insinuation.

I jumped as Noah tapped on my window. I’d been so focused on Rick, I hadn’t noticed him come around to my side. As he watched me with those cold, shark eyes, he tried my door. Locked. He motioned to Rick over the hood of the Jeep, telling him so.

I went on the defensive, fear lacing my blood with ice. There were only two things I had to do. Try and keep him as calm as possible, and wait long enough for Bryan to come find us. I didn’t think Rick would try anything in the middle of a public area, but his temper was unpredictable at best. “I talked to Kyle.”

He snorted, his breath floating away in a white cloud. “Yeah? And?”

“He told me you got released, but I know you’re here illegally.” I spoke slowly, calmly, like you’d speak to someone standing on a ledge about to leap. “You’re breaking parole by coming to see us.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched in the light. “Aren’t you the smart one? Seems you’ve gotten a real good education about the legal system this past year, haven’t you?” He bared his teeth slightly, less smile and more primal show of dominance.

“You’re risking worse jail time if you get caught,” I replied. I tried to sound concerned and not terrified. The entire time we spoke, I kept doing fast calculations in my head. If Bryan left the moment he heard me say Rick’s name, it’d take him a couple minutes to get to his truck. We’d been driving for at least five before he’d nearly run us off the road…

“Why don’t you let him worry about that, sugar,” Noah yelled through the glass.

Rick’s eyes finally fell on Kayla, who’d shrunk into the seat. “Why don’t you pop out of there darling? Beth and I have a few things we need to talk about.” She rose at his words, but looked to me, hesitating.

I shook my head earnestly, hoping against all hope she could hear the threatening undertones of his words. She knew I’d given the prosecution information in exchange for a lesser sentence, but seemed to think Rick wouldn’t mind. If Rick beat the tar out of some stripper he barely knew for less than a hundred bucks, what was he going to do to me for ratting him out? “Please,” I whispered.

Kayla’s hands froze on the steering wheel, knuckles turning white with tension.

When Rick spoke next, all the pretense had fallen from his voice. “Sin, I can pull you out of this window with one hand if I wanted to. You aren’t going to protect her from what happens next. You know what she did. You know there are consequences to our actions.” I shivered as a coil of deep, instinctual fear wrapped itself around my spine. “So, why don’t you just open the door and let me in?”

I screamed out as her hand slipped from the wheel to the door. “No!” In my fright, the phone dropped from my hand and fell to the footwell. Bryan’s tinny shout was audible to everyone. Rick’s eyes fell to the glowing phone, comprehension sliding across his face. His eyes went flat as he reached inside the car and manually unlocked the door. Ripping it open, he reached in and grabbed Kayla by the jacket, throwing her to the hard ground like she was little more than a bag of garbage.

Noah cackled like a hyena, pounding on the window by my head. I was trapped. I briefly considered trying to fly out the back but one of them would catch me.

Rick slid into the driver’s seat, shutting the door behind, and rolling the window back up. Kayla was on her feet but stood motionless, Noah quickly moving to her side in case she decided to intervene. “I think maybe we should go someplace to talk,” he muttered. His voice was villainous, devoid of any emotion but dull anger. For the first time, I genuinely feared for my life. All of the terrible things he could do to me flashed through my mind, the worst of which was killing me and hiding my body someplace where I’d never be found. The thought of my dad going through that sort of torture absolutely wrecked me.

Rick pushed the car into drive with a violent shove, slamming on the gas so hard the tires sprayed gravel a few seconds before gaining traction. They tell you that your chances of survival during an abduction practically disappear if you let them take you away from the original scene. That’s all I could think of. If I left Kayla, if I let Rick take me away from the gas station, I’d never come back.

I clawed at my seatbelt with one hand, the other grabbing the door handle. I didn’t have time to think. As he whipped the Jeep around to head back into town, my door swung open and I rolled out. The ground rushed up to meet me, knocking the wind out of my lungs as I hit. I must’ve rolled three or four times, stopping on my stomach in a gasping heap. Even though I couldn’t breathe, my only thought was to stand. Stand! Surely, he was going to reverse and try to run me over. He was going to come back and grab me. I had to stand.

I faintly heard Kayla screaming my name in the distance, but my ears were ringing too badly to make out exactly what she was saying. In my panic, I figured she was shouting a warning. My nails dug into the frozen ground as I tried to push myself up and suddenly, a pair of strong hands were on my shoulders, yanking me upright. Noah.

I slapped against him, trying to free myself from his grasp. Regardless of what was going to happen, I refused to let him touch me ever again. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” At first I didn’t recognize him, but Bryan held me close to his chest as he shouted. I finally stopped fighting him long enough to shake my head.

“No, I think I’m…” I gasped, the air not fully retuning to my lungs. “I’m okay,” I whispered. The panic rose quick in my chest. Where was Rick? I looked over Bryan’s shoulder and saw his truck idling, door wide open. A few people standing around the gas station were watching the scene agape. Kayla stood about twenty yards away, her gloved hands clasped over her mouth. Noah had a hand on her shoulder, almost as if he were comforting her. I spotted the Jeep idling not far from where I’d rolled out, the memory so fresh it made me sick. From that angle, I couldn’t tell if Rick was still behind the wheel. I doubled over, the cold air finally flowing into my chest.

“Where is he?” Bryan growled, his hand on my back. He was scanning the parking lot but with so many lit cars, it was difficult to make out which shapes were who.

“I don’t know,” I panted, “but Noah’s still here. They were in the same—he could still be—” Just as I was about to say that he could still be in the Jeep, its white reverse lights came on as it came flying towards us. Rick spun the car around wide enough we didn’t feel threatened and pulled forward, edging up beside us with his arm casually hanging out of the window.