Page 18

Eighteen

Now

Shit, shit, shit!” Jena shouts. “I’m going to get arrested for reckless driving. We’re going almost ninety in a fifty-five. I can’t afford that kind of ticket! My mom is going to lose her fucking mind—”

“Stop! Take a breath and get to the side of the road. I’ll handle it.”

For a second, I think she’s too far into her panic spiral to hear me, but she lets off the gas. We can’t safely pull over until the road straightens out again. It looks like there’s some kind of field to our left, and a guardrail to the right with thick trees on the other side. The breakdown lane is barely wider than the Subaru, but we’re at least safely out of the road when we come to a stop.

“You’re not going to get arrested, because you weren’t driving,” I say, unbuckling her seatbelt.

She blinks at me, and we both look back. The cop hasn’t caught up with us yet. But that’s hardly surprising. They were parked when we blew past them. We only have a few seconds to edit the situation and do some damage control before they come around the bend.

I press myself against the glove box. “Go, go, go.”

Jena dives for the passenger seat, and I climb behind the wheel, buckling into the driver’s side again. Our seatbelts click into place as and the cop pulls behind us. With any luck, they didn’t see us moving around in here. But even if they did, the whole being-stalked-by-an-unhinged-lunatic-with-a-vendetta angle should surely take precedence.

“I was driving the whole time, got it? It’s my fault we’re in this mess anyway, and it’s my car. If there are any tickets or charges, they’ll be on me. You’re an innocent passenger as far as the officer is concerned, okay?”

Jena’s eyes mist. “Thank you.”

“Besides, if your mom’s going to be pissed about your phone, she’d lose her ever-loving mind if you came home with a five-hundred-dollar speeding ticket and a suspended license. Never mind if they tack on a reckless driving charge too. You don’t have the benefit of my dad’s get-out-of-jail-free card, so this one’s on me.”

She nods, but this makes her tear up even more.

I glance at the rearview mirror. This whole night has been a collage of bright, glaring lights. This time they’re red and blue instead of a Bronco’s high beams; still, they’re no less blinding. I grab my wallet out of my favorite purse and Jena hands me my registration from the glove box, but we won’t need it. Not when the officer hears why we were going so fast and calls my dad. Especially not after they call my dad.

Shit.

He’s going to be furious, but even he can’t find fault with me on this one. If anyone knows how impossible the Heck family is, it’s my dad. Besides, what other choice did I have? Let him run me off the road?

I picture my dad pacing the length of his home office, rehearsing answers to generic questions for his last confirmation interview. His face was pinched in concentration. I called his name three times to tell him dinner was ready, and he never once heard me. It was like his meeting was the only thing that existed in the world. Like it was all he had space for.

On second thought, getting run off the road might have been a better option in his eyes. But I’m determined to utilize a similar focus.

I roll down my window and wait for the officer to do the normal sit in the car and fuck around routine, but they surprise me by getting out of the vehicle right away. They stop beside my window and I’m staring straight into a goddamned flashlight from hell.

“What on earth were you kids thinking?” a female voice demands, loud and furious.

She lowers the flashlight, and my vision is all afterimages until I slowly blink her back into focus. Her name tag says LEFEBVRE, and she has a police badge from Dallas, Oregon. A wave of relief washes over me. I didn’t realize we were so close to Dallas already. We’re almost out of the dead zone.

I let that relief drive the conversation. “Thank god you’re here. We need your help. We’ve been racing down this highway—”

“I’m aware of that,” Officer Lefebvre says flatly.

In the shine of her headlights, I see she’s by herself. Her blond hair is combed back into a meticulous ponytail. She looks about thirty.

“How old are you two? And what the hell happened to the back of your car?”

“We’re eighteen,” I say, waving a hand at the back, “and that was all Brandon.”

“Brandon?”

I give her the absolutely shortest version of the story. Bullet points, really. The sooner she realizes we’re in danger, the sooner she makes a few phone calls and I’m no longer at the mercy of that asshole. Being on the side of the road feels too exposed. I keep compulsively looking behind us like he’s about to fly around the corner at any second.

But that’s stupid. If he were still on the road, he’d be here already. And even Brandon Heck isn’t foolish enough to fuck with a police officer. Everyone’s idiocy has limits.

I tell her about the phone calls and the vandalism. Brandon appearing at the beach party. The tailgating, the high beams, the deer, the canned goods… When I get to the broken windshield, I say, “That’s when you saw us. He’d just pulled away when we passed you.”

Officer Lefebvre squints at us. “Let me get this straight. Some guy named Brandon has been chasing you since you left the coast, and he happened to stop right before I caught you going ninety in a fifty-five. You really expect me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth!” I look to Jena for corroboration, but she’s staring straight ahead with her hands in her lap. She won’t be any help. I can’t expect her to be. I turn back to the officer.

“Do you have proof of any of this supposed stalker?” she asks.

“Yes! It’s all right here.” I swipe open my phone to show her my call log but…it’s empty. My finger hovers over the screen as my mind scrambles to explain it. I deleted the calls at the gas station but not the ones that came in while I was driving. There should be a bunch of No Caller ID listings here.

I swipe to my voicemail and my stomach sinks.

There are no voicemails either. Not a single one. Not even the few I had saved from my mom or the message Jena left early this morning, hyping me up for Ivy Day. All my voicemails are gone. There’s no proof. It’s like none of it ever happened.

What???

“I don’t… I can’t find them.”

Officer Lefebvre’s mouth forms a thin not amused line and she steps back. “Turn off the car and give me your license and registration.”

I cut the engine and gladly hand over the paperwork, my mind still reeling. What the hell is happening here? Why aren’t my missed calls showing up or my voicemails? I definitely didn’t hallucinate that terrifying robot voice telling me to confess or die, but even those two answered calls aren’t in my call log.

How is that even possible?

She shines the flashlight on the documents I’ve handed her. I wait for her to recognize my name and stop this interrogation. I don’t need to be questioned or second-guessed or called out. I need her to call my father and get me the fuck off this highway.

I know the moment she clocks my name. She looks up and locks eyes with me. “You’re Brooke Goodwin? As in, Eric Goodwin’s daughter? The attorney?”

“Yes. And I need you to get on your radio and call him right now, please.”

“Because you’re being chased by someone named Brandon, who left multiple, apparently invisible voicemails, and threatened you with calls that…disappeared.”

Why does she sound so snotty and disbelieving? Sure, something’s clearly wrong with my phone, but she saw my bumper, right? Does she think I rear-ended myself?

“Yes!” I insist.

She rolls her eyes—actually rolls her eyes at me—and steps back. “I’m going to need you girls to step out of the car, please.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I said so, Miss Goodwin. Leave your keys in the car.”

She opens my door and I step out. It’s strange standing in one place. Part of me feels like I’m still going ninety miles an hour. The wind raises every goose bump on my entire body all at once, even with Dylan’s sweatshirt.

“Around the back of the car, please. Stand against the guardrail.”

“Why?” I ask, meeting Jena, who looks terrified, by the trunk of the Subaru.

“Because I don’t trust you to not drive off the second I step away. People like you think you’re above the law.”

People like you? What the fuck does that mean? “Officer Lefebvre, I think you have the wrong idea. If you’d just call my dad—”

She folds her arms, still holding my license and registration in one hand, and levels me with a stare that says she’s not fucking around. Suddenly, she seems ten feet tall. “Oh, I’ll be calling your father, Miss Goodwin, but it’ll be to inform him that your license will be suspended for thirty days and your car is being towed. I imagine he’ll have opinions on a reckless driving charge, but maybe having that on your record will keep you in check when you’re allowed back behind the wheel. This road is almost constantly wet from the weather and surrounding trees. It’s full of switchbacks, and you’re racing down it like you’re a Formula One driver. It’s not only dangerous to you and your friend in the car, but it’s dangerous to everyone else on the road with you.”

I sit on the edge of the guardrail. “We had no service and couldn’t call for help! He was trying to run us off the road. What else was I supposed to do?”

She shakes her head. “Let me be absolutely clear: I don’t believe this story about a former classmate’s brother having it out for you. I think it’s far more likely that you and some other friends were being reckless in your cars tonight and made up ‘Brandon’ to get out of it once you got caught. Unfortunately for you, I don’t care who your father is. You do the crime, you pay the fines.”

My mouth falls open and all I can do is gape at her.

“Now, don’t move,” she says. “I’ll be right back.”

Officer Know-It-All gets into the driver’s side of her police cruiser with all my documents.

“What a bitch,” I grumble, turning to Jena. She hasn’t said a word since we got out of the car. She perches on the guardrail, somehow still looking like a supermodel in my jumpsuit, but her face is drawn and panicked.

I nudge her. “Hey, are you okay?”

She shakes her head, and stares fixedly at the pavement. “This is so messed up. All of it.”

I rest my temple on her shoulder. “It’s not ideal, but I promise it’ll be fine. My dad will never let this lady charge me with anything serious, and so many people saw Brandon screaming at the party. Someone will back up our story. Plus, the voicemails aren’t the only evidence I have of the harassment. Brandon plastered my car with newspapers about the special investigation after school today, and I’m not the only one who saw them. Felix found me cleaning them up. He’ll vouch for us.”

“So then you knew this harassment stuff was about Claire the whole time,” she says, pulling away.

“Well, I had an idea. I just never thought Brandon was smart enough to mastermind something like that. Until tonight, I thought he was about as organized as a car full of monkeys.”

Jena fists her hands in her lap and looks off into the night. “Yeah, well, he’s not going to do anything now. Not with a cop here. It’s over.”

“For now. Honestly though, what did he expect to accomplish? A few newspapers, some missed calls, a little lake water in my locker, a slashed tire or two, and I’d…what? Run to the police? Now he’s pushed it so far that he’s for sure going to jail and I’ll be rid of all this for good.”

I may not have to completely wash my hands of Oregon after all. My harasser will be housed in the Oregon State Penitentiary, and I’ll get my fresh start at Yale, Dylan, and keep my roots too. It’s the best-case scenario. Well, now that we’re not being run off a cliff or whatever.

Maybe I should thank him.

“You didn’t tell me any of this was going on,” Jena says, pulling me back to the present. “Not one word for months, Brooke.”

I nod. “I didn’t want to let whoever was behind it know they were getting to me. If I complained and got all panicky, it felt like he’d know somehow. I wanted to pretend none of it was happening, leave for Yale, and be done with all of it. But Brandon had other plans.”

“Brooke, we don’t know for sure that it’s Brandon.”

“Who the hell else would go to such extreme lengths to avenge Claire BottomFeeder Heck? You said it yourself last year: she alienated everyone close to her. Nobody even cares that she’s gone.”

Shock is written all over Jena’s face. “Brooke, how can you—”

The revving of an engine draws my attention to the road. At first, I think the sound came from the police cruiser, but it’s still idling where it was, with Officer Lefebvre sitting inside.

Then I see it.

Headlights appear around the bend, and then…the white Bronco—minus its windshield—is bearing down on us. My heart lodges in my throat, beating so fast I can barely breathe. Jena’s hand is a vice grip on my forearm.

The Bronco doesn’t slow down. It tears around the corner, wobbling over the yellow line, then jerking back to the right side of the road. It looks like it’s picking up speed.

“Brooke!” Jena shouts, pulling my arm.

The Bronco swerves one more time, then slams into the back of the police cruiser without so much as tapping its brakes. The cruiser flies into the back of the Subaru, sending pieces of bumper and glass everywhere. I instinctively throw my arms over my face, but it all happens so fast. A cloud of smoke goes straight into my lungs and I hack it back up as everything goes dead silent.

I drop my arms. Jena’s entire body shakes beside me, but I don’t look away from the wreckage. The Bronco is mostly unscathed, apart from a substantially crunched front end. The Subaru was parked far enough from the cruiser that the trunk got a little more smashed, but it doesn’t look much worse than it did when we got pulled over.

The cruiser, on the other hand, now has a trunk where its backseat used to be. Every single window is smashed or spiderwebbed.

In the Bronco’s headlights, I see Officer Lefebvre sprawled across her steering wheel. She doesn’t move. Panic crawls through my veins in a way I’ve never felt before. It’s like adrenaline but with the thickness of Jell-O. I can’t stop shaking.

There’s movement from inside the Bronco. Without the glare of glass between us, I can see the figure in the driver’s seat as clear as day. They’re wearing a black sweatshirt with the hood drawn up over their head. And a fluorescent pink skull mask, Purge style.

My mind registers what I’m seeing, but it’s too slasher flick to process.

The driver’s side door of the Bronco opens. The person in the pink mask jumps down like they’ve parked at Target rather than smashed three cars into a pile by the side of the road.

They turn toward where we sit on the guardrail and the sound of that grating, robotic voice cuts through the silence.

“I warned you, Brooke.”

The masked figure steps toward us, and I drag Jena over the top of the guardrail.

“Run!”