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He muttered a curse and strode past Heller, already running as he hit the exit. He skidded to a stop at the empty parking place and crouched to look at the fluid on the ground.
Definitely brake fluid.
He gazed at the road, spotting the Corolla just as it started the climb up the mountain.
Without a pause for thought, he pulled his keys from his pocket and sprinted toward his truck.
* * *
THE TOYOTA HAD to be on its last legs. Fifteen years old, well-used before she’d ever bought it, the little blue Corolla had put up with a lot in the five years since she’d bought it with cash from a small used car lot over in Mercerville. The heating and air were starting to falter—never good in the dead of winter or the dog days of summer. And as she crested the mountain and started down the other side, she realized her brakes felt unresponsive, spongy beneath her foot.
That was not good.
She dropped the Corolla to a lower gear, and the vehicle’s speed slowed, but only a little. She thought about putting it in Neutral, but in the back of her mind, she had a fuzzy memory that doing so wasn’t the answer.
Damn. Why hadn’t she read that road safety brochure her insurance company had sent out last month?
Fortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of traffic on the two-lane road, but she was fast approaching a four-way stop at the bottom of the hill. There were a handful of cars clustered at the intersection, far enough away now that they looked more like specks than vehicles.
But that was changing quickly.
She dropped to an even lower gear and gave her brakes a few quick, desperate pumps. They were entirely unresponsive now.
Don’t panic don’t panic don’t panic...
The roar of an engine approaching behind her took her eyes off the road to check the rearview mirror. There was a large pickup truck coming up fast behind her. Suddenly, it swung left, around her, and whipped into the lane in front of her.
What the hell was that idiot doing?
The truck slowed as it moved in front of her, and on instinct, she stamped on her useless brakes. The front of her car bumped hard into the back bumper of the truck, bounced and hit a second time. A third time, then a fourth, each bounce less jarring until her front bumper settled against the back of the truck.
The pickup slowed to a stop, bringing her Corolla to a stop, as well. She turned on her hazard lights and put her car in Park, setting the parking brake to make sure it didn’t move any farther downhill.
The driver’s door of the pickup opened, and a tall, lean-muscled figure got out and turned to face her with a grim smile.
Mike Strong.
What the hell was going on?
Chapter Three (#ulink_cbf09962-d32c-5e79-b948-3bcb78516c99)
“The brake line’s been cut.” Bill Hardy, the mechanic at Mercerville Motors, who’d taken a look at the Corolla’s brake system, showed Charlie the laceration in the line.
Charlie stared at it in horrified fascination, trying not to relive those scary moments as she’d struggled to bring her car under control on the downhill stretch of Poplar Road. If Mike Strong hadn’t pulled his driving trick to bring her car to a stop—
Don’t think about it.
“How could that have happened?” she asked Bill.
“Well, maybe you could have kicked up a sharp rock or a piece of metal in the road,” Bill said doubtfully.
“But you don’t think so?”
“Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d think this was a deliberate cut.” He gave her a sidelong look. “You haven’t made any enemies lately, have you, Charlie?”
Had she?
She glanced toward the tiny waiting area, where Mike Strong sat in one of the steel-and-plastic chairs pushed up against the wall across from the vending machine. She’d told him he needn’t wait for her, but he’d insisted. And given that he’d more or less saved her life this morning, she could hardly quibble.
“No, no new enemies,” she said.
Except, she supposed, whoever had killed Alice.
She turned her head to look at Mike again and found him standing in the open doorway between the waiting area and the garage. “Any news?”
“Brake line’s cut,” Bill said shortly before Charlie could stop him.
Mike’s eyebrows came together over his nose. “On purpose?”
“Hard to say with certainty, but it’s possible.” Bill looked at Charlie. “What do you want me to do? You’ve got a little body work needs doing on the front now, and the brake line needs replacing—”
“Can I have the damaged brake line?” Mike asked.
Charlie frowned at him. “Why?”
Mike’s green eyes met hers. “Evidence.”
Bill’s brown eyes darted from Charlie’s face to Mike’s and back again. “Should I call the cops?”
“No,” Charlie and Mike said in unison.
“Okay, then.” Bill licked his lips, looking confused.
“Fix the body damage and replace the brake line,” Charlie said. “And preserve the brake line in case we need to let someone examine it to establish whether or not the cut was intentional.”
“Will do,” Bill said with a nod. “Listen, it’s probably going to take me a few days to get this done. You gonna have a way to get around?”
“I’ll figure out something.” Charlie nibbled her lip, wondering if she could make do with her bike for a few days. She didn’t have any meetings scheduled at work for the next couple of weeks, so she didn’t have to worry about a commute. There was a small grocery store a half mile from her house, so she and the cats wouldn’t starve. Even Campbell Cove Academy was within a mile’s ride. It would be good exercise.
“I can give you a ride home, at least,” Mike said.
“Thanks.”
“What are you going to do for wheels?” Mike asked as they walked to his truck.
“I have a bike.”
He slanted a look at her as he unlocked the passenger door of the truck. “What if it rains?”
There was no what-if; rain fell practically every week in the mountains, and often multiple days a week. She hadn’t really thought about rain, but that was what raincoats were for, right? “I’ll deal.”
He waited for her to fasten her seat belt before he started the engine. The dashboard clock read 11:35 and, to her chagrin, her stomach gave a little growl in response. Breakfast had been a long time ago.
“I could go for an early lunch,” he murmured, sounding amused. “You wanna come?”
She looked at him through the corner of her eye, trying to assess his motives. “To lunch? With you?”
His sunglasses had mirror lenses, so she couldn’t be sure his smile made it all the way to his eyes. “I suppose we could sit apart, if you like. Though that seems like a waste of a table.”
Mayfair Diner was little more than a hole-in-the-wall, one of three storefronts that filled the one-story brick building on the corner of Mayfair Lane and Sycamore Road. Charlie ate there often, since her house was just a short drive down Sycamore. By now, everybody who worked there knew her by name and called out greetings when they entered.
“What’s good here?” Mike asked as they headed for the counter.
“Depends on how much weight you want to gain.”
He smiled at her blunt answer and looked up at the big menu board. “How are the omelets?”
“I like them,” she answered with a little shrug. “The cheese-and-bacon ones are particularly good.”
“I bet.”
The counter waitress, a plump, pretty woman in her forties named Jean, smiled as she approached to take their order. “Hey, Charlie, what can I get for you and your friend today?”
“I’ll have a grilled cheese with chips and a pickle, and iced coffee with cream and sugar,” Charlie said.
“And you, hon?” Jean looked at Mike, her voice instantly flirtatious.
“I’ll have a veggie omelet and a small fresh fruit cup,” he ordered. “And water to drink.”
Disgustingly healthy, Charlie thought. Would explain his smokin’-hot body, though.
“Find yourself a seat, and I’ll send someone out with your orders in a few minutes,” Jean said with one last flirtatious smile at Mike before she turned to clip their orders to the chef’s order wheel.
Charlie and Mike settled in a corner booth. He took the bench seat that faced the door, she noticed. Always on the lookout for trouble?
An uncomfortable silence lingered between them for a moment before Mike broke it in a gravelly murmur. “You didn’t seem that surprised when the guy at the garage thought your brake line had been cut.”
She looked up sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shrugged. “If someone told me my brake line had been cut...”
“You’d start with your self-defense class roster?” She flashed him a cheeky grin to hide her own sense of unease with his question.
He grinned back. “Probably.”
What she didn’t want to admit, even to herself, was that there might be someone out there who wanted her dead. For most of her life she’d been fairly invisible, by design. Her ne’er-do-well brothers had brought more than their share of ignominy to the family name. Better not to draw any attention at all than the kind her brothers had managed to elicit.
A smiling teenage girl came over with their orders on a large tray, saving Charlie from having to find something else to say to break the silence. The girl eyed Mike with starstruck shyness, giggling a little as he smiled his thanks. Charlie wasn’t sure the girl even realized there was a second person at the table.
“Does that happen often?” she asked, taking a sip of her iced coffee.
Mike looked up from his plate. “Does what happen?”
Charlie nodded toward the waitress who was still darting quick looks toward their table as she talked with another server. “Googly-eyed females growing tongue-tied in your presence.”
He frowned. “Never noticed.”
Of course he hadn’t. She changed the subject back to the topic of the hour. “How on earth did you even notice that brake fluid in the parking lot?”
“I happened to be looking out the window when you drove away. There was a big puddle of fluid underneath the car, so I thought I should check it out. When I realized it was brake fluid—”
“You hopped in your truck and raced to my rescue?”
“Seemed like the thing to do.”
“When you first whipped around in front of me, I thought you were a maniac.” She shook her head. “That was kind of a crazy thing to do.”
“Blame the academy. Crisis driving is one of the things we’re trained to do, you know.”
“Does the Campbell Cove Academy teach those skills to civilians, too?”
“Only to professional security personnel at the moment,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s an intense and expensive course, and most civilians won’t have any need to learn the skills.”
“Not sure I agree with that,” she said wryly.
He leaned a little closer, lowering his voice. “You really have no idea who might have tampered with your car?”
“Why would I?”
“You just started taking a self-defense course, and now your vehicle is sabotaged. I have to wonder if there’s a correlation.”
She pretended not to understand. “You think someone messed with my car because I’m taking a self-defense course?”
He frowned. “Don’t be obtuse. I’m asking if the reason you’re taking a self-defense course has anything to do with why someone might tamper with your brakes. Have you been threatened? A stalker or a disgruntled ex?”
“Nobody’s threatened me.”
He sat back, studying her through narrowed eyes. “I’m not sure you can say that with a straight face after today. Assuming your mechanic is right about how the brake line was cut.”
“I don’t know who would want to hurt me,” she said firmly.
That was the problem, wasn’t it? She didn’t know who would want to hurt her any more than she knew who would have hurt Alice. But someone had. She was more convinced of that fact than ever.
“Okay,” Mike said after a long silence. “But I think you should be careful anyway. Maybe this morning was a warning shot.”
“I’m planning to be careful.”
“You still planning on trying to get around by bike?”
