Free The Wrong Side of Dead by Jordan Dane Page A

might fire a gun. She’d be a sitting duck.
    She spotted the interstate ahead, not more than a few miles.
    “Come on. Come on!” She urged the blue monster on, white-knuckling the wheel and keeping an eye on her mirrors.
    All she had to do was stay ahead of the jerk. If she got to the freeway, she’d have a chance.
    The sedan veered into the other lane again. This time, the driver gained the advantage, pulling alongside her. She clenched her teeth and kept driving, focusing on what lay ahead. A flashing red light marked the intersection of the farm road with the freeway. The entrance ramp was a hard right. She wasn’t sure the blue whale could take it.
    “Damn it.”
    And worse, she caught motion from the corner of her eye. The bastard was rolling down his window. And from the shadowy interior she saw the murky silhouette of a man raising a weapon. He was going to shoot. And with the turn up ahead, she’d have to slow down, making her an easier target.
    “Oh, shit!”
    Precious seconds. She had run out of time. Only one option remained.
    Jess took a risk. She yanked the steering wheel left and collided with the sedan. To hell with being a victim! The crunch of metal sounded like the high-pitched grind of nails on a chalkboard. On impact, she sent the sedan hurtling for a ravine to the left. Traveling at high speed, the car went sailing over a ditch and bellied out on the other side.
    “That’s gonna leave a mark,” she muttered as she hit the brake to slow down.
    Jess made the turn onto the entrance ramp, watching over her shoulder as the sedan barreled for a wall, struggling for control. The vehicle scraped the embankment, sending up sparks like a Roman candle on steroids.
    Once she got on an open road with streetlights, she took a ragged breath, her nerves catching up. Looking for Desiree had made her a target. But if she wanted to help Seth, she couldn’t stop at the first sign of trouble.
    “Damn it, Harper! What the hell did you get into?”

The next morning

    “Yeah, I need to speak to Dispatch please.” Jess gulped more lukewarm coffee and rubbed the back of her sore neck. “Yeah, I’ll hold.”
    Last night’s car chase had left Jess dealing with a stiff neck and aching muscles. And to add insult to injury, she hadn’t slept at all, not with Harper in jail. For her to catch a few Z’s felt like a complete waste of time and a betrayal of her solidarity with his predicament. And after seeing the remnants of the bloody crime scene, she was afraid the powerful images would stir her own demons.
    Sleep had never been much of a friend.
    “Dispatch. Arnie here.”
    “Hey, Arnie. I was wondering if you could help a girl out.” She told him what she wanted and settled down for a wait after he put her on hold.
    When he came back onto the line, he said, “Nope. I got nothing on that. Sorry, lady.”
    “Yeah, thanks.” She hung up, striking out again.
    Jess took a break from her morning phone calls and dumped her stale coffee in favor of fresh brewed. With coffee percolating, she thought about last night, an odd cluster of events, especially more surreal in the light of day.
    Her trip to Dirty Monty’s had started it all—setting her on a course with a major pack of scumbags—a collision course that earned Seth’s blue whale a few more scrapes. But at the crack of dawn—after coming up empty on finding Harper’s ’65 Mustang at the motel parking lot last night—she throttled her mind into overdrive, running various scenarios through her plausibility meter. And her brain hadn’t stopped since.
    According to that sleazoid bartender, Harper had made it to Dirty Monty’s, but Jess wondered how he had gotten there. Sometimes even the small details might be significant in the right context.
    She hadn’t found his Mustang parked near the bar or at the crime scene. If the real killer had taken it, that would have been a bonehead maneuver. The cops would be looking for it so crime scene techs could