Torch (Take It Off #1)(30)
Author: Cambria Hebert

“You need to call the cops,” said a woman standing nearby.

“Did anyone get his plates? A description? Anything?” I asked. Anything at all would be helpful.

Everyone looked around blankly at each other.

The guy with the sneakers spoke up. “It was a man. He was wearing glasses and a dark hoodie.”

My knee was scraped from where I fell and I could feel the warm blood oozing down my lower leg.

“Thank you,” I told him, trying not to look at his shoes and scream. I knew he wasn’t the one trying to kill me, but it drove me crazy that I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone. How was I supposed to carry on with my life and not stare at every man wearing these shoes or a dark hoodie? Is this how my life was going to be from now on—me looking over my shoulder, searching every face for a sign they were the one? 

Sneaker man watched me warily. I mustered what smile I could and said, “Thank you for offering me help. I really appreciate it.”

“You really don’t want me to call the cops?”

“No. There’s nothing they can do. He’s gone.”

Someone else approached and I tensed, expecting some sort of attack. A young couple held out my bags, offering me my spilled purchases.

“I think we got everything,” the girl said sympathetically. She had a long blond ponytail and really pretty skin.

I thanked them and then bent to pick up everything that dumped out of my purse when I fell.

The crowd started to thin, thankfully, and all I wanted to do was leave. Gripping the bags in both hands, I stepped away from the car on unsteady legs and looked at the truck, which stood like a beacon in the distance.

But then I remembered my sunglasses.

I must have dropped them in my haste to not become road kill.

They were lying in the street.

Beside the shopping cart.

It was completely dented and one of the wheels had fallen off.

I reached down and picked up the sunglasses. They were snapped in half and one of the lenses was shattered.

What a shame, I thought. What a waste of good eyewear.

A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat, and I swallowed it, trekking the distance to the truck, tossing my bags inside and then hoisting myself in.

Once there, I collapsed against the seat, trying to calm the shaking of my hands.

It could have been an accident.

I knew it wasn’t.

15

I went home. I only hit a couple curbs along the way, one of them being in front of the house.

I let myself inside and proceeded to check every room and closet to make sure there were no murderers lurking, and then I went into the bathroom and cleaned up the scrape and drying blood on my leg.

Thank goodness he had a first aid kit beneath the sink because I needed a bandage.

After that I curled up on the couch, inhaling Holt’s scent on the cushions. I flipped through the channels on TV, looking for something that might take my mind off the fact someone out there wanted me dead.

It wasn’t something I could wrap my brain around easily. It seemed one minute I was shelving books, going treasure hunting at flea markets, and wondering what type of candy to eat when I watched a movie, and the next I was constantly chased by a burning flame, looking over my shoulder when I went out in public, and living with a man I just met.

Mom always said the key to life was playing the cards you were dealt. Well, how could I play when I didn’t understand the game?

A commercial for some entertainment “news” show that came on at night broke into my thoughts, causing me to look up.

New details on last month’s death of iconic rocker Tony Diesel have been released. The autopsy report confirms that his sudden and shocking death was caused by an accidental drug overdose. Tony was buried weeks ago in an exclusive Beverly Hills cemetery. The service was not open to the public. Now that the cause of death is confirmed, all attention will be directed…

I picked up the remote and changed the channel, completely uninterested in celebrity gossip.

I didn’t know who Tony Diesel was. I didn’t listen to rock music. I thought it sounded like a bunch of men screaming unintelligible words into a microphone. I preferred pop and country music. But it did seem like he and I had something in common.

Neither one of us was too good for death.

It didn’t matter how much money you had, how famous you were, or how badly you just wanted to be left alone. A drug overdose seemed like a pretty crappy way to die. Of course I really didn’t know of any good ways to die.

I shook my head. I was being weird and morbid. All these thoughts about death and dying. Checking the closets and the showers for lurking killers. This wasn’t reality. This was a nightmare, and I badly wanted to wake up.

And since I was already awake, that didn’t really seem like an option.

So I decided to be in denial.

I was going to sit here and watch an infomercial on hair loss for men and pretend I didn’t have a care in the world.

Okay, I wasn’t going to watch that. It was ridiculous.

I flipped around until I found a marathon of The Vampire Diaries.

At least the men on that show weren’t balding.

I immersed myself in love triangles and teen drama for the rest of the day. It was actually pretty entertaining. Even still, when it was time to pick up Holt, I was glad. I’d missed him all day. And it wasn’t because I’d been scared. There had been a lot of times in my life when I was scared or unsure, and I never missed anyone; I only ever counted on myself.

I missed Holt because… well, because.

I wasn’t going to think about that either.

As I was walked out to the truck (I parked it on the road so I wouldn’t have to back out of the driveway) a car was driving down the street. Normally, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except for the fact someone had just tried to mow me down.

Instead of moving toward the truck, I stopped in the center of the yard and stared at the car as it crept by. It wasn’t a dark sedan like the car in the Target parking lot. It was a silver BMW.

I swear it slowed down as it passed the yard where I stood. The windows were so darkly tinted that I couldn’t see who sat inside. I waited until the car turned off the street before bolting to the truck and shutting myself inside.

At the end of the street, I stopped, making sure no one was behind me, and put the truck in park to adjust the phone books beneath my butt. One was sliding loose and it was very uncomfortable.

Once that was finished, I put the truck back in drive and glanced down the street before pulling out. The silver BMW was parked a few houses down at the curb.