Chapter 1 - The Man in the Rain
Jack Turner did not wait to find out who was coming.
He grabbed Emma beneath the shoulders and pulled as hard as he could.
She screamed.
Pain tore through her legs.
"I can't move!"
"You have to."
"My legs are trapped."
Jack swept his flashlight through the wreck.
The dashboard had collapsed across Emma's knees. One twisted section of metal pinned her left ankle.
Above them, mud shifted beneath approaching footsteps.
Jack looked toward the slope.
Then back at Emma.
"Can you feel your feet?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"What are you doing?"
"Getting you out before whoever's coming decides to finish what the crash started."
Jack wedged a tire iron beneath the crushed dashboard.
Emma clenched her teeth.
"Push your seat backward when I tell you."
"The motor's dead."
"Not the electric controls. Your battery still has power."
Emma reached beneath the seat.
Her fingers found the switch.
The seat moved half an inch.
Then stopped.
Jack strained against the metal.
"Again."
The footsteps above came closer.
Emma pressed the switch.
The seat groaned backward.
Her ankle came free.
Jack caught her before she collapsed forward.
"Move!"
"I can't walk."
"You don't need to."
He dragged her through the broken window.
Glass cut into his raincoat.
A voice came through the darkness.
"Hello?"
Jack froze.
A man stood halfway down the slope.
He wore a black coat.
No umbrella.
No flashlight.
"Road assistance," the man called.
Jack whispered, "That's not road assistance."
The stranger kept coming.
Jack lifted Emma.
She cried out against his shoulder.
"Quiet," he murmured.
He carried her behind the wreck and toward a cluster of fallen trees.
The stranger reached the SUV.
"Ma'am?"
Jack placed Emma behind a thick log.
"Stay here."
"What are you going to do?"
"Make him believe you're still in the car."
He took off his yellow raincoat and stuffed it into the driver's side.
Then he climbed back toward the road.
Emma tried to control her breathing.
The stranger walked around the wreck.
He looked inside.
For a moment he remained perfectly still.
Then he took something from his coat.
A phone.
He typed.
Emma saw the glow of the screen.
Then he said one sentence.
"She's not here."
Emma felt ice move through her veins.
The man listened.
"No. Someone got here first."
Another pause.
Then he looked directly toward the trees where Emma was hiding.
Emma stopped breathing.
The man ended the call.
He began walking toward her.
A bright beam suddenly struck his face.
Jack stood ten feet uphill holding a massive truck flashlight.
"That's far enough."
The stranger stopped.
Jack held a tire iron in his other hand.
"You with emergency services?"
"No."
"Then get back on the road."
The man smiled faintly.
"You're Jack Turner."
Jack's face changed.
Emma saw it.
He knew him.
The stranger continued.
"You should've stayed out of this twenty years ago."
Jack tightened his grip on the tire iron.
Emma forgot the pain in her legs.
Twenty years?
The stranger looked beyond Jack.
"Where's Emma?"
Jack did not answer.
The man's smile disappeared.
"You don't understand what you've interrupted."
"I understand enough."
"No, Jack. You understand what happened to one family."
His eyes shifted toward the wreck.
"This is bigger."
Jack stepped forward.
"Leave."
The stranger sighed.
Then a siren echoed from the distance.
For the first time, the man's composure cracked.
He looked toward the road.
"You called them."
"Of course I called them."
The stranger backed away.
"Then this just became expensive."
He climbed uphill.
Jack shouted, "What's your name?"
The man stopped.
For a moment Emma thought he would answer.
Instead he said, "Ask Emma what her husband kept in the cabin."
Then he disappeared.
Minutes later, firefighters reached the crash site.
Police followed.
Paramedics placed Emma on a stretcher.
Jack stayed close.
A deputy asked Emma what had happened.
Emma looked toward the road.
The dark sedan was gone.
So was Evan.
"My stepson tried to kill me."
The deputy's expression sharpened.
"Your stepson?"
"Evan Carter. Seventeen."
"Was he driving?"
"No. He was in the passenger seat."
"Then who hit your vehicle?"
Emma looked at Jack.
Jack said nothing.
The deputy waited.
Emma whispered, "I don't know."
But she did know one thing.
Someone had planned the crash.
And her husband's mountain cabin was somehow at the center of it.
As the ambulance doors closed, Emma caught Jack's sleeve.
"You said you'd seen Evan before."
Jack looked toward the police.
Then leaned close.
"Not tonight."
"Where?"
Jack hesitated.
"Three weeks ago."
Emma stared at him.
May you like
"Where?"
"At the same cliff."
