Page 4 of The Scenic Route
Before they reached the tree line, the hum of a garage door opener caught her attention. She stopped and turned to see her neighbor across the street, Mr. Villaneau, slowly back hiswhite Cadillac SUV down their driveway and into the road. He paused just to shoot a glare out his window at them before rolling forward. For some reason, this struck Felicity as amusing, and she gave a huff of laughter as she entered the forest.
“Why do all our neighbors hate us?” Charlie asked whimsically. “We’re all extremely likeable—well, except for Jane, I guess.”
The reminder killed Felicity’s amusement, and her smile fell away. “At least we’re not invited to any of the neighborhood barbecues, so we don’t have to come up with excuses to explain why we never go.”
“True.”
They’d both dropped their voices as they started moving through the trees, and Felicity barely heard Charlie’s response. The only sound was the occasional soft scuff of their trail-running shoes against the rocky path. Even the birds and small animals were quiet, as if everything in the forest was holding its breath.
It was too early in the fall for the trees to have dropped their leaves, and the underbrush was still heavy, which made it hard to see very far in any direction. Felicity kept her head swiveling, her gaze scanning the forest for any colors or movement that didn’t belong. Her phone vibrated almost silently against her thigh, startling her. Still keeping her gaze up, she slid her phone from the pocket of her running pants and saw a text from Charlie.
Taking the trail fork toward Bear Creek.
Felicity turned toward her sister and frowned, but Charlie was already mostly hidden by greenery. Felicity hated that theyweren’t in view of each other, but the fork was a narrow one, and the paths ran almost parallel for over a mile. The trees would block the visual, but they’d at least be able to hear each other if they yelled loud enough. Plus, theydidhave their phones. Instead of protesting, she just respondedOKand returned her cell to her pocket.
The woods felt different without her sister right next to her. Every rustle and snapping twig was ominous now. Her feet wanted to slow, but she made herself up her pace, forcing down her apprehension. This was probably pointless anyway, she figured, since her mom could be anywhere by now, and an entire national forest made a pretty big haystack to find that needle in.
A flash of orange up ahead and to the left caught her eye. She left the path and headed in that direction. Off the trail, she was forced to slow down so she didn’t crash through the underbrush and tree branches like an elephant. Slipping around a scrawny aspen, she saw the orange again, bobbing along fifty feet in front of her.
Her adrenaline surged, making it hard to keep each step quiet and deliberate. She fished her phone out again and paused for a few seconds to tap out a message to Charlie.
Spotted someone, no ID yet, following
The orange patch was farther ahead now, and she upped her speed, giving up some of her stealth in order to narrow the gap between them. Closer now, she could see that the orange was actually a tuft of hair escaping a beanie. Although Jane was a redhead,it was too light to belong to her. Also, the person she was following was taller and thicker than Jane, and the way they walked was different, more lumbering than Jane’s usual graceful stroll.
Mentally running through Jane’s cohorts for a ginger, she winced as the obvious culprit came to mind. She quickly texted the name to Charlie.
Zach Fridley
Although he normally kept his carrot-red hair shaved close to his scalp, the shade of it matched, as did his body type. Of course it was Zach. He’d been up to his eyeballs in Jane’s mess since the night she stole the necklace. It wasn’t a surprise that he’d been involved in her latest break-in. In fact, he’d probably been the one to knock Felicity over the head. Leave it to Zach freaking Fridley to attack her from behind like the cowardly man-slug he was.
Ignoring the multiple vibrations coming from her phone, which she assumed was Charlie demanding more details, Felicity put her cell away. With her gaze locked on Fridley’s back, she unzipped the pocket on the inner part of her waistband and fished out her folded knife. Keeping it tucked in the top of her leggings for easy access, she upped her speed.
Once she was fifty feet behind him, she dropped any attempt at keeping her footfalls quiet and started to sprint. Zach twisted around to look at her, his cold blue eyes annoyed, before bolting away. She gave chase, the thrill of the potential capture buzzing in her veins. Maybe she would’ve preferred finding her mom,but Zach Fridley had been a huge, felonious pain in their collective asses for as long as Felicity could remember. Bringing him in would be sweet, even more so because he was guaranteed to have several arrest warrants out on him. There might even be a bounty, a financial bonus to the bone-deep satisfaction she’d feel.
Despite his long legs, Felicity was gaining on him. She ran in this forest every day while Zach was drinking at Dutch’s, the local bar, or committing crimes. There was no way he could escape her now. His back was thirty feet away, then twenty-five, twenty… She dug for more speed, needing to close the gap between them before she’d be able to leap on him and tackle him to the ground.
As she rounded an evergreen in a full-out sprint, her toe caught on the edge of a rock, sending her flying. She immediately tucked her chin and transformed her fall into a graceful dive roll. Using the momentum of her fall, she rocketed to her feet, feeling just a tiny bit smug that her fall wouldn’t cost her any time. Zach Fridley was still within her grasp.
Then a huge shape loomed right in front of her.
Going too fast to change course, she hit hard, bringing whatever it was down with her as she fell. Somewhere in the shocking blur of motion, she realized that the large thing she’d run into was a person. Muscle memory from thousands of training sessions kicked in, and she rolled clear of his grip once they hit the ground. Her freedom didn’t last long though. Before she could push up to her feet—or even sit up—he was straddling her hips, holding her down.
Ready to send him flying, she forced herself to pauseand take stock. Ever since this person stepped into her path, she’d been reacting blindly, and she hated doing that. She gave Molly a hard time about loving her plans, but Felicity was almost as bad. She didn’t like winging it. That was when people got hurt.
She looked—really looked—at the person straddling her hips for the first time, even as she palmed the knife she’d tucked into her waistband earlier. The guy was huge and objectively hot. His rough-hewn features, shaggy black mop of hair, and liquid dark eyes somehow merged together into a whole look that was obnoxiously perfect in a messed-up way. She also knew that he was a total stranger. If she’d ever gotten a glimpse of him before, she would’ve remembered. There was no forgetting that face. Her fairly reliable instincts told her he wasn’t a threat—at least not to her life. Her dignity was another matter.
He was staring back at her, his expression baffled, as if he hadn’t been the one to bring her down and then sit on her. The reminder shifted her from information-gathering mode back to full annoyance.
“What the heck?” It wasn’t the most productive question she could’ve started with, but she still felt the shock of the sudden end to her foot chase. Her gaze snapped up, but of course there was no sign of Zach Fridley. The guy was nothing if not an opportunist, and he’d happily taken the opportunity to get far away from her. The knowledge that he’d slipped through her fingers again made her glare even harder at the guy who wasstillsitting on her. “What are you doing? Get off me!”
The stranger glanced down as if surprised to see that he was,in fact, sitting on her. He stood and reached down to help her to her feet. Ignoring his outstretched hand, Felicity stood under her own power, brushing dirt and bits of twigs and other forest debris from her backside and legs.
She quickly gave up trying to get clean and turned to the still-silent giant in front of her. “What was…that?” She gestured toward the general direction that Zach was running in, indignation building as the shock abated a bit.
Instead of answering, the guy blinked at her, making her notice that his eyelashes were ridiculously long. Irritated with herself for focusing on such a random and definitely not-important detail, she made an impatient gesture with the hand not holding her knife. Taking a breath, she concentrated on asking a simple, clear question.
“Why did you stop me?” Suspicion crowded in, making her narrow her eyes at him. “Are you working with Zach?” She almost addedand my mom, but she swallowed the words before they made it out. No sense in giving the guy information that he might not know yet.
