Page 54 of Midnight Secrets

I’d never met anyone like her.

Frustration tamped down my ego. Why did I have to meet her now, like this? Why couldn’t our first encounter over Pebbles and the fact we were neighbors be the sole reason for our acquaintance? The complications involving my case were a setback neither of us wanted.

But there was nothing I could do.

Gritting my teeth, I stepped off the elevator and followed her to the front desk. This case needed to be over.

CHAPTER 19

Claire

Iwas so ready for this day to end. My leg throbbed. So did my head. I probably could have alleviated the leg pain if I’d bothered to use both of my crutches today, but they got in my way, so I continued to only use one. Coupled with a restless night thanks to the way Ozzie and I parted ways at the airport and the hunger gnawing at my stomach, I wascranky.

Leaning forward, I peered through the windshield, like that would make the road I needed magically appear.

Where was it?

Lifting my foot off the gas, I glanced at my phone.

Still no bars.

I really should have left when the client did, but no. Silly me wanted to take more photos of the view.

Now it was dark, I couldn’t see any of the landmarks I noted on the way in, and I had no phone signal to pull up a map.

Getting lost in the bush was not on my to-do list this evening.

My headlights illuminated an intersection.

“Oh! Yay!” I came to a stop, then put the car in park and turned on the overhead light, reaching into the backseat for the paper map I kept in the car. There weren’t many crossroads in the area. I might be able to figure out where I was.

Studying the map, I traced the faint lines indicating dirt roads and found the house I was at earlier. From there, I tried to figure out where I went wrong.

“Ha!” I stabbed the map with my index finger. “There it is. I knew I missed a turn.” Laying it on the passenger seat, I put the car in gear and did a U-turn in the intersection. I remembered now where the turn was. It was overgrown and easy to miss in the dark.

Pausing a couple of times to look at the map again, I finally made it back to the area near the road I missed. With my foot barely on the gas, I crawled forward, brights on, eyes glued to the trees on my left.

After five minutes at a snail’s pace, I started to wonder if I’d missed it again.

How, I didn’t know. I’d scarcely blinked.

My lights glinted off something in the trees. I slowed further and squinted into the dark.

“What is that?”

I braked, peering into the heavy evergreen branches.

It looked like a car. But there was no road there.

Shifting into park, I got out and hobbled around the back of my vehicle to get the flashlight from my emergency kit in the cargo well.

The light came on with a click. I swept the forest with the beam, looking for any large animals, then, cognizant of my booted foot, I took my crutch from the backseat before I stepped off the edge of the road and into the woods.

It was slow-going, and the throb through my lower leg intensified, but I kept moving.

Just past the first line of trees, my light bounced off a silver BMW X5 about fifty feet away. “Whoa. How did that get here?” Slowly picking my way forward, I passed the flashlight beam over the area around it as I neared. Behind the car, tiretracks ran through the undergrowth and disappeared into the darkness. Someone must have driven in from another road.

But why was it here?

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