Page 16

I

shifted, scratching behind my ear as Hunter approached, a small red toolbox speckled with rust and gouges in hand. With his long stride, it took him less than two minutes to cross the road and make his way across the parking lot.

Intellectually, I knew Hunter was tall, but it always shook me for a few seconds. There was knowing something, and then there was experiencing something, and since I could count on one hand the amount of times we’d been within arm’s length, I forgot how short he made me feel until he towered over me by a foot.

His gray eyes locked on me, looking brighter than normal with the grease stains dotting his face. “So it won’t start?”

Well, that was right to the point.

“Ah, no. It turns over, so it’s either fuel or spark.” I cleared my throat at his sharp look before soldiering on. “And there isn’t a single tool in there. Honestly, I just got it maybe an hour ago, and supposedly it went through like a thousand-point inspection at Al’s Lemonade Shop, because my mom’s overprotective. Dad knew she wouldn’t want me driving anything that wasn’t safe, and Al’s a friend of my dad’s, so I don’t think he would have lied—”

“Pop the hood.”

Word Vomit Willa had made a loud return. “Oh, right. Of course. Do you have a screwdriver or something so we can check if the spark plugs are getting spark?” I asked as I fumbled the door open.

One of his dirt-stained blond brows rose. “No, but I brought a spark tester.”

I’d never felt so inept before, and cars were my jam. “Sure, yeah. A spark tester. That works too. Better, even, since that’s what it was designed for.” He just stared, so I leaned down to pull the lever to pop the hood.

The cable clicked, and with two deft movements, Hunter caught the latch to release it. I moved to the wheel, staying out of his way, but also needing the familiarity instilled from hours of talking around an engine bay.

After a length of silence, I licked my lips. “So does the spark checker still need the engine cranking to work?”

He popped one of the wires off and slipped the small tool on. “How else would we get a read? In all your infinite wisdom on cars, you’ve never used one before?”

Oh, the sarcasm.

“I’m sure my dad probably has, but I only ever learn about motors when I’m bored on the trail because someone broke down, and our group has stopped for an hour in the middle of the woods. Most of the things I know are MacGyvered together from what we have on hand to limp it back to the trailers.”

“Hmm. You going to hop in and turn the key?”

Okay, sarcasm.

Some of my nerves gave way to annoyance.

I swallowed the huff that wanted to escape. He’d left work to help me—repeat and underline that phrase about a thousand times as a reminder.

We cycled through all the plugs with only a handful of words exchanged. The heat from the midday sun blaring in full force and amplifying back up from the blacktop was getting to him. I barely felt it, but sweat glistened on his forehead as he worked.

“So it’s probably a fuel issue,” he grumbled, bending down to rifle through his toolbox.

“Seriously,” I began. “You don’t have to—”

“We’ll start with the pump.” Hunter rounded the car, and I resisted the urge to follow and watch. He’d probably just huff and puff at me to turn the key again anyway. “Okay, hit it.”

Case in point.

I turned the ignition, and the Jeep fired right up, settling into a smooth purr. My lips parted as I stared dumbly at the dash, trying to figure out what had happened by the gauges alone.

Movement in my peripherals had me turning to see Hunter climbing to his feet and frowning at me through the passenger side.

Yeah, I’d be annoyed too.

The engine wouldn’t have run while he was using the spark checker, right? So essentially, it’d fired right up on the first time in his presence.

The windows were hand cranks, so I scrambled to jump out to apologize. “I am so, so sorry. It—”

Hunter’s brows pulled into a deep furrow as he stretched his free hand across and over his shoulder. His fingertips came away wet.

I blinked. “Is that water?”

He sniffed it, his face darkening. “No, it’s brake fluid.”

“What?” I stepped around him. A huge, dark stain soaked his uniform. “You’re covered.”

Hunter dropped to the ground. “Shit.” He didn’t stay hunched down long as he moved back to the driver’s side.

Curious and a lot alarmed, I peeked under as well. A large puddle stretched out from just behind the front tire.

I located the master cylinder under the hood and popped the top off. “It’s completely dry.”

Should the puddle have been bigger? Was the entirety of the fluid from the brake system? Had Al sold Dad a lemon instead of lemonade with a slow leak that finally decided to blow?

Hunter rolled out from under the car, staring at me.

“What?” I asked.

“Your brake line was cut.”

My mental train of thought screeched to a halt. “Wait. I’m sorry. Cut ?”

“Yes, cut.”

“But…”

“Come here,” he ordered, having me hunch down. “See the brake line there? It’s cut clean in two.”

“Yeah, but rust—”

“No, the ends are pressed together, like someone took a pair of tin snips to it. If it’d been a blown line, the edges would push outward. There’d be evidence of rust and flecks. Brake fluid is highly corrosive.”

Right, I knew that.

Hunter was still staring at me. “You need to call the cops.”

“I’m… I… Why?”

“ Someone was under here and cut your brakes. That’s one of the deadliest things that can happen in a car, so unless you know something I don’t…”

Deadliest… “Someone tried to kill me?”

He shrugged, the heavy weight of his stare fixing me in place. “That’s one theory, and it should be up to the police to figure out. If you aren’t going to call them, I will.”

When I didn’t object and his frown deepened, I figured he thought it would be better for me, as the car owner, to call, so I did. He leaned over my shoulder as I dialed 911 and stayed with me throughout the entire conversation with the dispatcher.

“They said an officer will be out here in ten minutes,” I shared when I hung up.

“Okay,” he said and pulled his phone out.

“Are you texting Ben?”

“My boss.”

I shivered, rubbing away the chills that’d broken out over my arms. “Why text him? It’ll take you less than five minutes to get back to work.”

He glanced at me. “I’m staying with you.”

“Oh.” That surprised me.

“If someone wants to hurt you, then they could still be in the area,” he added, as if he sensed the questions I wanted to blurt out.

That added a darker twist to the bright and sunny day. For some reason, the severity of what’d happened wasn’t fully clicking in my head yet. I glanced around the parking lot, but nothing appeared out of place.

“I should call my parents.” My voice sounded far away, as if traveling through water.

Hunter probably responded, but if he did, I didn’t hear him.

The police showed up—two men.

There were questions being thrown about that I answered through numb lips. One of the officers disappeared, only to reappear later and gesture for me to follow them into the store where a manager showed us a black and white still shot of the parking lot.

“Do you recognize this person?” the officer asked.

A tall figure dressed in jeans and a dark hooded jacket stood frozen, his hand in his pocket. The image was pixelated and zoomed in. I’d seen a toddler’s toy camera with better resolution.

“No?” Goosebumps erupted over my skin with fury, and I shivered.

An arm wrapped around me, and I blinked in surprise when I had to glance way up to see Hunter’s face.

He was still here?

His gaze was locked on the monitor, as if he could burn it into his memory. “Is that the suspect?”

“We can’t disclose that information at this time…” The officer trailed off at whatever expression he saw on my face before he relented and nodded to the store manager who clicked play.

The figure moved around, eventually disappearing on the driver’s side of my Jeep before reappearing as he walked off screen.

That was where the line had been cut.

“Unfortunately,” the other officer began, “that’s the best shot we have, and since you don’t know anyone who would want to hurt you…”

He left his sentence open-ended, as if encouraging me to recant my earlier testimony in the parking lot.

My feet shuffled me a step closer to the monitor.

With the way the figure stood in comparison to the Jeep, he was tall and lean. Violent chills raced over my skin, and I rubbed my arms, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. If not for Hunter’s sturdy frame offering support, I’d have staggered.

A discrete glance at my watch showed my temperature at ninety six—no, ninety-five point nine, and dropping.

No, not now! This can’t happen now!

“Sorry, I don’t.” This needed to wrap up, like yesterday. “Is there anything else you need from me?”

The cop frowned.

“No, we think we have everything. We’ll get you a copy of the report so you can send it to your insurance company.”

I nodded, taking the handwritten slip with the case number. “Will you call if you learn more?”

The officers shared a look. “Actually, this vandalism—which is what it is—doesn’t meet the threshold for minimum damages, so we can’t actually press any charges, even if we do find the suspect.”

Hunter’s arm tightened. “You’re kidding, right? That asshole cut her brake lines. That isn’t vandalism. That’s attempted murder.”

The officer spread his arms helplessly. “I agree, but she didn’t actually get hurt, so our hands are tied.”

Shivers began racking my body, and if I didn’t get food in me right this instant, things would go from bad to worse.

“So what?” Hunter ground out. “She has to wait for this twisted fuck to kill her before you can get off your asses and help?”

The older officer’s face pinched. “Watch your tone, boy.”

“No—”

I nudged Hunter’s side, and despite the barely there touch, he glanced down. “It’s okay. Let’s go. I’m cold, and I’m hungry.”

His gray eyes flashed. “They—”

“It’s okay,” I repeated. “Arguing with them isn’t going to change the law.”

It might, however, risk a major episode in front of them, and then my parents would definitely be called.

Oh, crud.

I forgot to call my parents.

Save it for later, Willa , I ordered myself. Freaking out would only exasperate the oncoming shakes and hallucinations. Even now, shadow figures danced in the corners of the dark office.

“Fine,” Hunter bit out, but he didn’t release his hold on me as the officers reminded me one last time to call the station tomorrow for the incident report on our way out the door.

Incident. Report.

Someone had tried to murder me. Somehow, “incident report” didn’t seem to encompass all the ugliness and terror that evoked, but other things kept me preoccupied, especially when the strange white noise began. Even in the blinding brightness of the well-lit grocery store, darkness encroached at my peripherals.

I did my best not to focus on them too much.

“Are you okay?” Hunter asked.

“Huh? Oh, yeah.”

“Really? Because you didn’t answer that question the first four times I asked it—whoa, hey.” He righted me when I stumbled.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Shock. Need food.”

There was a bench next to a newspaper stand near the store entrance, and he guided me to it with a firm, “Wait here.”

Yeah, I had no problem following that demand. I doubt I’d even be able to move at this rate.

Voices murmured all around me, but in a scant few seconds, the orbs receded from my vision. Nobody was there…

Until there was.

“Here,” Hunter ordered, his voice gruff before he belatedly apologized for startling me.

“Thank you.” The wrapper on whatever he’d bought, I didn’t even look at the label to see, posed a problem for my shaking hands, so he grabbed it from me before handing it back opened. “And thank you again,” I added around a mouthful of about half the bar. “Peanut butter chocolate?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, it was the closest thing I saw with the most substance. Didn’t feel like wandering the aisles when you looked like death twice over.”

The protein bar, because that’s what it was when I checked while I was busy chewing, helped. “No need to explain. Reese’s cups just so happen to be my favorite candy.”

“Your hands are shaking.”

They were. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it, and the protein bar seemed to be doing its job of pulling me back into the land of the living, so to speak. My skin still felt like ice though. Ninety-four degrees. My temperature had dropped fast. “Thank you for staying.”

He shrugged off my gratitude, glancing around. “Do you need to call someone to come get you? You keep checking that smartwatch.”

“Ah, just checking to see if my parents… uh…”

Had his lips just twitched into a brief smirk? “Finished?”

I gagged and scowled down at the granola bar.

Did I want to call them and needlessly worry my overly paranoid mother when there wasn’t anything the police could do? Not really. Sure, I’d need a believable excuse for why my car was missing, but I planned to leave out the part about the terrifying murder attempt—something that would be difficult to do if my parents clocked the police on their way to get me.

“Yeah, maybe Ben can give me a ride.”

If he found that odd, he didn’t comment on it. “What about your car?”

I huffed a sigh, rubbing my arms to stave off the chill and beaming when Hunter proffered a second protein bar. “I don’t know. Might have roadside assistance or something on the insurance policy.”

“How are you with being towed across the street?”

I paused, glancing up at him. At first, the automatic denial to tell him that I’d just have my dad fix the brake lines for a fraction of the price rose, but I tamped it down the longer I considered the proposal.

Honestly, this would be perfect. I could tell Dad I ran over a nail or something and damaged the rim and that they’d have my car back in a jiffy. “You know, that would be perfect. I have money.”

He gave an ambivalent shrug that expressed exactly nothing and then told me to phone Ben while he went to get their tow truck. Being pulled by a chain wouldn’t work without brakes.

Hunter paused three steps away. “And make sure you tell Ben the truth. We don’t know who this person was, but he was a full-grown man. Ben needs that information.”

“Right, because if someone targeted me, Ben might get caught in the cross fire.”

Hunter’s dirty blond eyebrows lowered until a wrinkle bisected them above the bridge of his nose. “No, because he can’t help shield you if he doesn’t know what’s coming.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. That.”

“Right, I’ll text him.” Honestly, if telling my boyfriend made him want to shield me, then that sounded dangerous for Ben, so maybe I could word it in a way so he was aware but not putting himself in the line of fire.

“And Willa?” Hunter added, waiting until I met his gaze before continuing. “Send it in the group text.”

Well, there went that plan.