She opened her mouth to say something and he cut her off, leaned forward so far that his breath ruffled her hair. “I didn’t kill him. You got that? I did not kill him. He was dead when I got there. I knocked. He didn’t answer. I figured maybe he got wasted or something; it’s not like that’s been unheard of. I saw that the TV was on and that the door was open, so I let myself in. Like you. And I found him on the floor. Already dead.”
She glanced again in the mirror as a phone rang. Not her cell. Jonas’s. He already had a phone? And someone was calling? Who? She watched in the mirror as he answered, thought about the text she’d received from the unknown number. She’s alive. From Jonas?
“Hi. Yeah . . . I’m on the road,” he was saying in a hushed voice. “Yeah, yeah, I know . . . Look, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you when—” He glanced up then, caught Kara looking at him, and his face flashed with anger before his expression turned to horror. “Watch the damned road!” he yelled. “Holy shit, Kara, watch the goddamned road!”
From the corner of her eye she spied a deer bounding from the woods. It stopped, poised for a split second in the piled snow at the side of the road. Ready to leap. “No!” Kara said. “No, no—！”
A flash of movement. The forked-horn buck sprang—a blur of brown fur, big eyes and long legs.
“No, no!”
Kara stood on the brakes!
The deer landed in front of her.
Kara screamed.
Cranked hard on the wheel.
The Jeep started to spin.
The deer leapt into the oncoming lane.
“Fuck!” Jonas swore from the back seat. “Kara! Are you nuts?”
Still the Jeep rotated, almost as if in slow motion.
Oh, God, oh, God, oh God! Kara was shaking, her pulse pounding, her fingers curled over the steering wheel as she tried to drive away from the oncoming lane, where the cliff, beyond a low barrier, dropped deep into the river’s gorge.
“Get control!” Jonas said, panicked. “Turn into the slide, turn into the fucking slide!”
Through the windshield, she spied the semi. A huge monster of a rig bearing down on them.
“Oh, no!” She eased up on the brakes, hoping beyond hope there was enough time to get out of the huge truck’s path.
“Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh shit!” Jonas was screaming. “Kara! Pull over!”
Headlights, two huge glowing eyes, closed in on them.
The driver honked the truck’s horn.
Long and loud.
Echoing through the woods.
Still the Jeep spun out of control.
Panicked, she tried to right it, to find her lane.
“Kara!” Jonas rolled over the back of the front seat. Jostling her. Her hands slipping away from the steering wheel as he shouldered closer.
“Watch out!” she cried.
He grabbed the steering wheel.
“No—are you crazy?”
“Fuck.” Leaning over her, he jerked on the wheel. He was twisted over the console.
“Don’t!” she cried, seeing only swirling snow in the windshield, feeling a cold terror. This was all wrong!
Another blast from the truck’s horn.
Terror clawed at her heart.
Close! The truck was close!
Oh, God, so damned close.
As the Jeep spun wildly, she peered through the curtain of snow and pressed hard on the brakes, standing on them.
They had to stop, to find a way—
Jesus, was that the semi’s huge grill bearing down on them? Above the massive hood, the driver in the cab was chalk face and working the steering wheel.
“Get out of the way!” Jonas screamed as if the trucker could hear him. “Get the fuck out of the way!”
Too late!
They were going to hit!
The driver, so close, was blasting them with the horn and cranking hard the steering wheel.
“Shhiiiiit!” Jonas yelled.
Kara braced herself.
Screamed.
Eighteen wheels thundered through snow that had collected at the edge of the road. The top of the trailer skimming the lowest tree branches, ice sheering, limbs snapping, snow and needles and shards of wood flying over the truck, scattering across the road.
With a squeal of brakes, the tractor trailer seemed to move in slow motion as the cab swept past, the Cherokee still out of control, the back end of the truck swinging as the rig jackknifed.
“Fuck!” Jonah yanked even harder on the wheel.
The Jeep jerked, careening to the side of the road, just as the back end of the trailer clipped the SUV’s rear bumper.
Reeling faster and faster, the SUV spun crazily toward the piled snow on the edge of the road and the canyon beyond.