Page 98 of Hell Hath No Fury

“Yeah. So?”

“I don’t think they’ll find the car in West Virginia or Pennsylvania. I’m pretty sure he was tailing us all the way from Akron.”

Matthias did some quick mental calculations based on the GPS map he’d used to get here. “Akron’s almost… what? Eighty miles away?”

“About that. Yeah.”

“You’ve had a tail foreighty miles?”

“I think so.”

“Do you have any idea who it was?”

“No.” She hedged. “Maybe.”

“What do you mean ‘maybe’?”

“I can’t be sure, at least not until I talk to Nell again.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“I’ll tell you on the way to the hospital.” She waved at the road ahead of them. “There’s an exit about a half mile away. You can get turned around there. I’ve already broken my promise to Eric to not let Nell out of my sight.”

Matthias started the Jeep. “You didn’t really have a choice in the matter.”

* * *

Matthias may have been right about not having a choice, but it did nothing to soothe Emma’s heart. Nell had a broken leg at the very least. She was either on her way to or at the hospital.

Where doctors would administer pain medication. The same stuff Nell was addicted to.

After directing Matthias to the exit, across the overpass, and back onto Route 30 heading south, Emma placed the call she’d been dreading.

Eric’s greeting sounded panicked. “What’s wrong?”

“We’re fine. Mostly. But we were in a wreck.”

“Oh my God. What happened? What do you meanmostlyfine?”

“We think Nell broke her leg. They took her by ambulance to the hospital in East Liverpool. I’m with Matthias. He’s driving me to her right now. I’ll call you once I get there and see her.”

“You do that. Wait. You said Matthias is driving you.”

She knew what he was getting at. “I’m afraid your car got a little beat up. They were loading it onto a flatbed when we left the scene.”

Eric fell silent for a few moments before she heard him exhale. “That’s okay. As long as you and Nell aren’t badly hurt. I can get a new car. I can’t get new sisters.”

Emma repeated her promise to call him again once she saw Nell and disconnected. “That went better than I expected,” she said to Matthias.

“You knew he wouldn’t give you grief about the Prius. Maybe later. In jest. After he’s sure you and Nell are healed.”

The thought oflater, with Eric heckling her about his car, made her snicker. “Definitely.”

“Now. What the hell happened tonight?”

She began to tell him about the headlights in her rearview mirror. About how she believed the same car had followed her and Nell from the convenience store in Akron.

“By the time we made it this far, and he was still laying back, I’d convinced myself I was paranoid. That it was a coincidence. This guy was simply going in the same direction as I was. Or that it wasn’t the same car at all.