Page 119 of Distress Signal

But I’m terrified because, for the first time since that night, I’ll be within spitting distance ofhim. For all these years, I feel like I’ve been bracing myself, waiting for some ultimate showdown with my harasser.

And now, I’m willingly entering his ring.

Maybe he left, but I sincerely doubt it.

I hope LT is ready for a fight.

LT?

Who the fuck was LT?

Little turd? Loose trash? Lowly tool?

My imagination supplied childish nicknames, but I had to admit, I felt better for having thought them.

Taking the task more seriously, I ran through my mental Rolodex, searching through the names of all the people I’d met in Dusk Valley, trying to find the one that fit those initials.

Unfortunately, I came up with nothing.

The remaining few journal entries didn’t yield anything else. She mentioned the pizza from Mozzy’s, giving in to the colder temperatures and moving from her campsite into the motel, and her plan to check out the Swallow again.I want to see if it’s changed, she’d written.Maybe I’ll run into Rea’s soldier too.

She’d be so fucking giddy to know Finn and I had made our way back to each other, and I couldn’t wait to tell her.

When I finally looked up, the lower curve of the sun was kissing the horizon. Knowing I had seconds to capture it, I scrambled to my feet, piled the loose pages into the box, and grabbed my camera.

I allowed my mind to wander while I took photos, but by thetime the sun had fully sunk, the stars blinking to life, I hadn’t come up with any ideas for who LT could be.

Having no desire to remain out here alone after dark, I quickly packed my things, stowed them in my SUV, and set off toward the ranch.

Thankfully, my phone remained free of messages from Finn, so I knew he and West hadn’t touched back down and gone home yet.

Hopefully, I could beat him there.

thirty-four

. . .

REAGAN

Wham.

At first, I thought I’d run something over, but I hadn’t seen anything in the headlights, and the impact had come from behind. A quick glance in my rear view made my blood run cold.

Illuminated in the glow of my taillights was a truck, its headlights extinguished, grill and brush guard menacing in the red illumination.

“Oh, god,” I breathed.

Picking up speed, I groped around my passenger seat in search of my phone. I’d wrapped my fingers around it when another crash came from the back, jolting me forward, the seatbelt digging painfully into my chest.

My phone slipped from my grip and flew out of reach.

Fuck fuck fuck.

I pressed the gas pedal down harder, desperate to create some space between me and the crazy fucker behind me. Glancing around, I searched in vain for some sort of landmark, something to tell me how close I was to the ranch drive.

Surely this person wouldn’t follow me all the way home, right?

Likely not—especially not if they knew who I was, who Finn was, and I guessed that was the case. It would make perfect sense for this to be the same person that had been tormenting me for weeks.