“Count on it,” I muttered, angling the phone between Raine and me, propping it against the center console where we could both see the glowing screen. “Tell me exactly where you are,” I said, leaning forward until the seatbelt cut into my shoulder.
“Just passed mile marker thirty-one.”
Raine’s foot slammed the accelerator to the floor. The SUV surged forward, engine growling deep in its chest. My back pressed into the seat as the landscape smeared past the windows, dark shapes bleeding into one another.
Every few minutes, Evan gave us an update, letting us know the moment Carson’s car exited the highway. “They just took the ramp exiting toward Black Creek Forest.”
Black Creek? It’d been too long since I thought about those woods on the very edge of Elmwood, a huge chunk of the forest spilling into the bordering town. “We’re not far from the exit now. Four minutes if Raine stops driving like he’s eighty.” I took a jab at my brother’s driving.
Raine snorted as he pressed the gas pedal harder, zooming past a car.
On the highway, we’d been able to shave off our drive time by half, which meant we should only be a few minutes behind Evan. Once we took the Black Creek exit, we’d have to be a little morecautious of our speed. If Raine got pulled over, the cop would be following us to the fucking cabin, which might not be such a bad thing, if you didn’t factor in the number of unregistered guns we had on us, including the one Kaylor had taken from me.
“I think I see your taillights up ahead,” Raine said to Evan. His gaze checked the speedometer, clocking his speed. “That BMW’s got no business doing seventy on these roads.”
“How far ahead is she from you?” Mason asked from the back seat, his voice flat.
“A quarter mile,” Evan answered.
“Evan, keep your distance,” I advised. “I don’t want Carson seeing you.”
“He won’t,” Evan replied, confident despite the tension threading through his voice. “I’ve cut my headlights. Visual’s clean.” A beat of silence stretched out before Evan’s voice sharpened. “BMW is slowing. Right turn…looks like an off-beaten path. No signs.”
Raine glanced sideways at me, one eyebrow raised in question. “What do you think?”
“I think I’ll kill Carson if she gets a scratch,” I said, teeth bared.
“One body is doable, but two dead bodies?” Mason criticized from the back seat.
“Shut up,” I snapped, not bothering to look back.
The road thinned as we followed, narrowing into a single lane carved through dense woods. The asphalt gave way to packed dirt and gravel. Trees pressed in from both sides, their branches reaching across the path, trying to knit themselves together. I kept Evan’s car in my sight, watching as the sedan pulled onto the shoulder. “BMW just turned onto the trail.”
“Good,” I said, forcing my breathing to steady. “Stay put. We’ll follow from here.”
Raine brought us up alongside Evan’s car and kept going, taking over the pursuit of Carson’s vehicle. I caught a flash of Evan’s silhouette through his windshield, and he gave me a curt nod as we passed by.
“If anyone else shows up, you know what to do,” I said to Evan.
“Understood.”
“If Kaylor comes back this way,” I said quietly, “you get between her and whatever’s behind her. You hear me?”
Evan’s reply was immediate. Fierce. “Always.”
I ended the call and pocketed my phone as Raine guided the car onto the incline.
The path was barely wide enough for the SUV, more mud and rock than road. The wheels jerked left, then right, fighting for traction as the forest closed in around us. The higher we climbed, the colder the air became, seeping through the vents, coiling against my skin.
Jesse leaned forward between the seats, bracing one hand on each headrest. “He’s going to kill her,” he said, too confident for my taste. Too certain.
I shot him a look cold enough to freeze bone. My eyes locked onto his, unblinking. “You think I don’t know that.” Sneaking up on Rusty might be dangerous and stupid, but I had a feeling he was expecting us.
The cabin was somewhere ahead, hidden in these massive trees. A person could easily get lost and never be found…or a body. It made me wonder how many souls Rusty had discarded in these woods.
I’d be damned if Kaylor joined them.
It was time to lock in and get this motherfucker. My pulse steadied, slowing, evening out into something cold and disciplined. My vision honed, narrowing until everything else fell away. The pain in my side. The cramped interior of the SUV. Mason and Maddox breathing behind me. Jesse’s nervous energy.
