Free Hotwire by Alex Kava

good rubbing from the towel Lucy had offered, Maggie’s hair dripped into her eyes. The blast from the heater only emphasized the chill that had invaded her body. Never had Maggie trusted a stranger, let alone gone home with one she had met only hours before. Yet there was an undeniable comfort being in the presence of this woman.
    Maggie shifted in her seat, pulling up her leg to tuck underneath herself. She thought about Platt and had the sudden urge to hear his voice. She checked the dashboard clock: 2:16. Just after three in the morning his time. She didn’t want to wake him. Instead, she sat back and closed her eyes.

FIFTEEN

     
    NORTH PLATTE, NEBRASKA
    Dawson Hayes opened his eyes. Plastic tubes shot out of his arms and nose. He startled and gasped and somewhere a machine hissed and gurgled. He’d been dreaming about birds with scalding white eyes perched over him in the tops of the forest’s highest pine trees.
    He searched for the woman’s eyes—the soft brown—that held him above the pain and promised not to drop him. Where was she?
    His eyelids fluttered despite his panic. He tried to keep them open. A shadow over him said, “I think he’s waking up.”
    Two blinks means “yes.”
    But Dawson couldn’t blink. He couldn’t hold his eyelids open.
    Half a blink was all he could manage but it was enough to see the shadow insert a needle into one of the tubes.
    “No, no … not,” he stuttered, his throat suddenly raw and dry. Something was stuck down it. He couldn’t swallow. It hurt to breathe. Unfamiliar hums and beeps assaulted his ears.
    Then he saw the fiery red eyes across the dimly lit room. The creature had followed him. How was it possible?
    He struggled and strained but couldn’t move. Something clamped him down. He opened his mouth to scream but the contraption in his throat choked him. He tried to open his eyes beyond the half shutters that blurred his vision.
    Then he felt it, warm liquid sliding into his veins. But it was pleasant and soothing. Whatever the shadow had injected into the tubes had started to invade his insides. He felt it seeping into his brain and he imagined it racing along his arteries, replacing cold blood with soothing liquid warmth that made his mind fuzzy and his heart stop exploding.
    Another shadow stood over him. This one leaned down and he caught the scent of pine needles and river mud mixed with sweat. Dawson felt hot breath on his ear as he heard the shadow whisper, “You’re gonna wish you hadn’t survived.”

SIXTEEN

     
    “The sheriff’s a man who means well,” Lucy Coy said.
    She handed Maggie a tray that held a bowl of steaming homemade chicken noodle soup, half a sandwich with layers of deli slices on a plate garnished with fresh strawberries and blueberries, and a mug of spiced tea. It took discipline for Maggie to wait for her host to get settled.
    “He’ll make sure those teenagers are properly taken care of,” Lucy continued. “Even the dead.”
    They sat on the screened-in porch off the second-floor loft of Lucy’s contemporary A-frame house that looked like something out of Architectural Digest . The porch looked into treetops and over Lucy’s backyard. When the moon broke through the clouds Maggie could see rolling hills dotted with pine trees, the landscape unbroken for miles by fences or another homestead.
    The rain had turned to mist. Once in a while it came in on the breeze. But Lucy had turned on an electric fireplace in the corner and the outdoor room became a cozy retreat. Behind the sliding glass door was the loft with a queen-size bed waiting for Maggie. She felt too tired to sleep and when Lucy offered a bite before bed, Maggie gratefully accepted. She hadn’t eaten since morning, a banana and a Diet Pepsi on the flight from D.C. to Denver. She’d forgotten about crossing back and forth over three time zones. Her head and stomach were still set on eastern time. No wonder it felt like days.
    Besides, for months now Maggie