Free Driver's Dead by Peter Lerangis Page A

crime? And where did she put the car?
    It was as if the car had just dropped from the sky.
    Appeared out of nowhere.
    Suddenly Kirsten bolted from the kitchen. She ran upstairs. Darting across her room, she yanked open her desk drawer.
    The flyer was still there. On top of the letter to the Trangs.
    She took the flyer out and stared at it.
    The Escort was no longer in profile. It was angled toward her.
    It had moved.
    â€œOh my God.”
    Kirsten slapped the flyer on her desk.
    Crazy.
    She had put this flyer in the drawer. The car had been in profile. No one had switched it.
    Losing my mind.
    Rob’s Escort had moved, too. Much farther. The last time Kirsten saw it, it had practically been facing front.
    No. The second-to-last time.
    The last time, it was gone.
    And Rob had been run over.
    â€œNo!”
    Kirsten’s shout died without an echo. From her desktop, the Escort’s grille looked like a leering face.
    It was waiting.
    Waiting to turn full circle.
    And then what? Then it would run her over, too?
    A laugh exploded from Kirsten. It sounded like a squeal, shrill and unexpected.
    This was insane. Absolutely looney tunes. Cars did not jump out of photographs. It was impossible.
    For God’s sake, throw it out!
    Kirsten reached for the flyer. Her eyes caught a glimpse of the letter in her drawer.
    Mr. and Mrs. Trang.
    She had forgotten about that. She was supposed to forward it.
    Then it began.
    The moaning.
    It wasn’t exactly a sound. Kirsten wasn’t hearing it through her ears. It was vibrating in her bones, careening up her body to her brain, where it gathered force until she thought she would split in two.
    â€œOhhhhh …”
    â€œOhhhhh …”
    Was this what happened before Rob was killed?
    Kirsten had to throw the flyer out. Her fingers closed around it but it was like touching a hot coil.
    â€œYeeow!”
    She put her throbbing fingers in her mouth. They were on fire.
    Fire.
    Paper caught fire. Paper could not be as hot as that.
    But the flyer looked completely normal. Not even a wisp of smoke. And Kirsten felt her eyes drawn again to the letter in her still-open drawer.
    Mr. and Mrs. Trang.
    Forget the flyer. Mail the letter. Mail it now.
    The urge was pounding through her. She grabbed a red marker and completed what she’d written already, until it read: ADDRESSEE MOVED. PLEASE FORWARD.
    And then she knew. Somehow she knew who was invading her. Forcing her attention away from the flyer. Making her mail this letter.
    â€œNguyen?” The word escaped her mouth in a parched whisper.
    She looked at her closet.
    And then, like the sudden end of a wrenching nightmare, the moaning stopped.

Chapter 14
    â€œN GUYEN?” S HE REPEATED.
    The letter shook in her hand as she stepped toward her closet. That was where the moaning had first come from. And the blood.
    She reached toward the doorknob. Fear clamped her like a vise. Her fingers stopped inches away.
    Balling her hand into a fist, she knocked.
    â€œNguyen? Uh, anybody there?”
    She waited, then knocked again.
    Slowly she wrapped her fingertips around the knob.
    Knock-knock-knock-knock!
    Kirsten jumped back from the door and screamed at the top of her lungs.
    She fell to the floor and caught her breath.
    It was the front door.
    The knocking had come from downstairs. Calm down.
    Knock-knock-knock-knock!
    Kirsten ran to her window and looked outside. An unfamiliar bike was propped up against a maple tree out front.
    She ran downstairs and through the house, then pulled open the front door.
    â€œDoesn’t your bell work?” Virgil was pressing the button repeatedly.
    â€œNo,” Kirsten replied. “It’s busted.”
    Virgil looked over Kirsten’s shoulder into the house. “Hey, nice place.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œI was never in here before.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œI didn’t know Nguyen.”
    â€œWant to meet