Shadowlands (Shadowlands 1)

“Will an agent meet us there?” my dad said.

Messenger shook her head. “All our manpower will be dedicated to hunting this guy down. You have top security—I’m only one of a handful of agents who even knows where this safe house is and we can’t risk blowing your location. I’ll be in touch next week—and I’ll hopefully be bringing you home then. Anything else?”

“No,” he said. “No, I’m fine.”

But there was fear behind his eyes, and my palms started to sweat. I hadn’t seen my dad look scared since right before my mom died. Sad, yes. Angry, every day. But scared? Never.

“Good,” she said. “Now hit the road.”

She turned, folded her tall frame behind the wheel of her car, and slammed the door.

For a long moment, my father, Darcy, and I just stood there. All I wanted to do was go back inside, crawl into bed, and bury my head under the pillows. It was our house. Our home. I saw my sister and me playing tea party on the porch when we were little. Saw my mom planting flowers along the front walk. Saw my dad teaching me how to roller-skate in the driveway. Saw the hearse arriving to take my mother away the day she died. Saw my father weeping in my grandma’s arms on the front step. There were awful memories in this house, many I’d rather forget, but there were a lot of good ones, too. My heart constricted at the thought of leaving them all behind—at leaving my mom behind.

As I opened the back door, I saw Darcy wipe at her eyes. She got in next to my father and hunkered down. A few of the patrol cars backed up and out of the way to make room as we pulled out of the drive. My father cleared his throat and shifted the SUV into gear, then drove down the street. When we got to the stop sign at the end of the street, I turned around to take one last look at the brick facade of my home, my fingers digging into the faux-leather seat. Then my dad took the turn, and the house disappeared behind the trees.

And so she was on the run. It wasn’t the way he usually did things, but he could adjust. He could adapt. That was the mark of a highly developed human being.

He crouched in the neighbors’ yard, behind a child’s playhouse, and watched. He watched the sister curse under her breath as she yanked open the car door. Watched the father struggling with his own emotions as he took the wheel. Those two were so predictable. It almost made him want to kill them first. To do that for her. To rid her of them before he took what he needed.

Then he watched her. Watched her flick her hood up over that lovely hair. Watched her curl into her seat. Saw her staring at her own bedroom window, longing for it even after he had invaded it.

He waited until the SUV had pulled out of the driveway and started down the street. Then he stood up, shook the water from his police hat, and flicked on his flashlight. No one looked at him as he made his way around the side of the house, through the blooming azalea hedge and across the walk. No one blinked when he popped open the door of the idling police cruiser. He smiled and flicked on the stereo, then jammed the car into gear.

No one had a clue.

“Authorities are still scouring the state for accused serial killer Roger Krauss,” the radio announcer said in her nasally voice. “The man who is believed to have murdered fourteen girls and attacked one more is still at large—”

Darcy hit the OFF button on the radio. My dad shot her an irked look, which she ignored. I wondered if Christopher was watching the news. If he had tried to call me. If on Monday, when we weren’t at school, he would realize that we’d had to run. If only I’d called him before I’d found the sick present Steven Nell had left on my bed, before Messenger had taken our phones. I would have given anything right now just to hear his voice.

It was four in the morning and we’d been driving nonstop for seven hours. We’d barely spoken, the only sounds the tires thrumming over the highway; the radio, which Darcy kept turning on and off intermittently; and the mechanical voice of the GPS, which was leading us down I-95 to our final destination in South Carolina. The roads had been nearly empty, save for the occasional sedan and eighteen-wheeler delivering cargo from one state to the next.

“This must be the most boring stretch of land in America,” my father muttered through his teeth, hunching over the steering wheel as he squinted out the windshield. The rain had let up somewhere in Maryland, and now we were in Virginia, surrounded by a dense thicket of trees on either side of the highway, dividing us from northbound traffic and the farmlands to the west. It felt like the scenery hadn’t changed in hours.

My body was heavy. I’d been fighting to stay awake—scared of the nightmares that I knew would overtake me as soon as I closed my eyes—but it was a losing battle. I’d been blearily watching the exits pass, one by one, counting the miles we were putting between us and the place where Mr. Nell had attacked me. Each mile made me feel safer, calmer, until my breathing grew steady and my eyelids lowered as I felt sleep overtake me.

A loud horn blared, and my eyes snapped open. The car was suddenly flooded with light. I twisted around in my seat. A huge truck was bearing down on us, its brights so blinding I could barely make out the boxy shape of the cab. My heart lurched into my throat, and my dad sat up straight, glaring into the rearview mirror.

“What’s this jackass doing?”

A loud horn sounded again and I screamed.

“What the hell?” Darcy turned in her seat and squinted, lifting a hand to block the light. “Just go around, asshole!” she shouted.

“Darcy!” my dad hollered. “Language!”

And then the truck bumped us from behind. Now all three of us screamed. My father swerved, and there was a screech of tires.

“Oh my god, it’s him. It’s him!” I cried, curling forward, my head between my hands and my forehead to my knees. In my mind’s eye, I pictured Steven Nell behind the wheel of the truck, his thin lips peeled back to reveal yellowed teeth as he bore down on my family.

The truck slammed into us again, and my head snapped forward. I pictured his cracked, dry knuckles as he clung to the steering wheel, the ugly bags under his sadistic eyes, that faded plaid shirt and awful corduroy jacket he’d been wearing in the woods.

“It’s not him, Rory,” my father said, sounding panicked. “It’s some drunk who doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

The truck’s engine was so loud in my ear I could have sworn we were under the tractor trailer’s hood. Another crash. The car lurched. My father cursed as he struggled with the wheel.

“What!?” Darcy screeched, one hand braced against the dashboard. “What is it?”

“Our bumper’s stuck to his truck.”