Page 41 of Wreck Me

He chuckled as he shifted his hands on the steering wheel. “I guess that’s true. What did you tell her?”

“I was going to tell her you’d traveled back in time to talk to your mother, but that would have confused her, and it’s never a good idea to confuse my big sister.”

“Let me guess – she can be a bull in a China shop when she’s looking for answers?”

“Bulls are surprisingly light on their feet. Monique has all the delicacy of a tornado in a trailer park when situations seem out of her control. I avoided the question, but then she accused me of putting a hex on you, so I said my curses don’t work that fast.”

Nico entered onto the Pacific Coast Highway. “Thank goodness for that. I’d be a lowly beetle or something by now. Something squishable.”

Instead of laughing, Ginny swiveled in her seat to face him. She made a square shape with her fingers and squeezed her right eye half-shut. She appraised him through this imaginary frame for a few seconds, then lay her hands back down and faced front again. “You’d make a very handsome beetle. That was actually going to be my senior thesis topic.”

“Really? Curses or beetles? I thought your major was art history?”

“Insects in ancient art. There’s quite a lot of bug-themed antiquities if you look for them. My favorite is a gold Hellenistic headpiece from 300BC. It’s a circle of life-size, paper-thin oak leaves, and tucked into them are shiny gold cicadas.”

“Wow.”

“I know. It’s all hand-worked of course and so detailed. I hope to see it someday, but it’s in the British Museum, and it’s usually not on display.”

“No, I mean, I’m surprised you like insects. Most women don’t.”

“Oh. We’re taught to fear them, but insects are evolution’s jewelry. In art they represent the delicate and the grotesque,and their involvement in decay gives them cachet as omens of death.”

For the next hour, as they sped down the Pacific Coast Highway with its scrub-dotted, rocky outcroppings and vistas striped by white sand and blue water, she told him about the surprising influence of insects and other fauna on the development and form of art through the centuries. Their crushed bodies were even used in paint. He’d never thought of himself as someone who cared about art (other than its price tag), but the discussion fascinated him. She had a way of bringing the topic to life. By the end, he was hoping to visit the British Museum himself to see that golden cicada crown.

Leaving the highway, they headed up Pacifico Street to begin the breathtaking series of twists and turns that would bring them to their destination. Driveways split off every two or three hundred feet to homes perched above or below the quiet canyon road. Some were visible, but most were set deep into their acreage.

She stared at the hills surrounding them. “You sure you’re not whisking me off somewhere discreet to…uh…take care of your problem.”

“What?”

“Some shack in these hills where no one will hear me scream?”

“If you know of a shack around here, I’ll buy it. These are all multi-million-dollar homes.”

“All the more reason why it makes no sense we’re driving this way.”

He smiled to himself as he stretched a little in his seat, feeling like a satisfied cat. For once, he might have gotten a bit of the upper hand with Ginny Heppner. “Just wait. You’ll see. We’re almost there.”

Right where the road dead-ended at a small cul-de-sac, one final driveway split off. It was gravel—and pock marked and poorly cared for gravel at that. This was why he’d brought the truck. They drove slowly and bumpily along a gradually climbing, finger-tip ridge.

Ginny rolled down her window and leaned her head out, her eyes huge. “That’s quite the drop off.”

“There’s a matching one on my side.”

There was a click, and he looked over to see that Ginny had locked her car door from the inside. He let out a nervous laugh. “People who think they’re being kidnapped don’t generally lock themselves in!”

“But people who worry they might ‘accidentally’ be pushed into a remote ravine do!” she said sharply.

He let out a sigh. They were almost at the lot. The final thirty feet or so climbed steeply, and the truck tilted in response. The sooner they got there, the sooner Ginny could relax. He pressed his foot on the gas, and they jolted upward. “Seriously, I’m not going to?—”

Ginny interrupted him with a terrified scream.

19

Ginny lurched forward as Nico hit the brakes. Though relieved to be at a standstill, adrenaline pumped through her veins and hammering heart.

Nico craned his head forward as he searched the area just in front of the truck. “Was I about to hit something?”

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