Free Nightfall by Laura Griffin

Chapter One
    Holly Henriksen skidded
toward the guardrail at fifty miles an hour and realized she was
going to die because of a piece of pie. She shouldn’t have pulled
into Mae’s Truck Stop. She shouldn’t have taken that booth. And she
definitely shouldn’t have ordered a generous wedge of the
blackberry ala mode.
    What she should have
done—what she’d almost done—was gone to the Mickey D’s drive-thru, ordered an
extra-large cup of coffee, and resumed her journey. But instead,
she’d caved. And now the decadent combination of warm fruit and
flaky golden crust, just like her grandmother used to make, was
going kill her.
    I’m too young to
die , she thought as she eased her foot off
the accelerator and resisted the urge to fight the skid. She’d
driven in icy conditions countless times and before this moment,
she’d never lost control of a vehicle.
    But then again, before this
moment, she’d never settled in for an evening road trip with a
giant dessert dulling her senses and a monotonous stretch of
highway in front of her, without even a radio to keep her
company.
    Holly’s hands gripped the
wheel. She braced for impact. Despite her best efforts, her foot
jabbed the brake in an uncontrollable last-ditch attempt to stop
the inevitable. Metal crunched. A giant wall of branches came at
her and her head whipped forward— thunk! —into the steering
wheel.
    Seconds or minutes ticked
by. She opened her eyes to find herself surrounded by a dark cocoon
of foliage. The van was eerily silent. She tasted something warm
and coppery. She touched her finger to her lip and looked around
dazedly.
    The silence was drowned out
by a roaring in her head as she processed what had happened. She’d
careened off the road. She’d wrecked the company van. And not only
that—she’d wrecked it on a seldom-used road just before dusk on an
evening when every weatherman in the state of Montana was
predicting snow.
    Holly’s heart flip-flopped
as she looked around once more. What little daylight remained was
blocked out by the branches smashed against the windows, and the
only illumination was coming from the dashboard. Her gaze landed on
the shadowy shape of her purse, which had tumbled to the floor. She
reached for it and felt a sharp pain as the seatbelt bit into her
skin once again.
    Holly unbuckled herself and
felt around for the bag. The contents had spilled out, but it
didn’t take her long to grope through the clutter and locate her
phone. She clutched it in her hand and it lit up, creating a bluish
glow in the front seat.
    Relief swamped her. But it
quickly vanished as she jabbed her thumb against the screen and saw
only the slightest hint of a bar. No signal.
    Holly tried to open her
door, but the branches pinned it shut. She threw her shoulder
against it and managed to force it open. Sticks and pine needles
clawed at her as she wedged herself out, but the relative light
outside the van made her feel better. She took a deep breath and
tried to calm her racing heart. It wasn’t dark yet. She still had
time to wave someone down. Surely, someone else would be traveling
between Eulee and White Falls on this chilly November
evening.
    Wind whipped through her
long-sleeve T-shirt, and she reached inside for her green ski vest.
She shrugged into it and gazed down at her phone again.
    Still no bars.
    She looked around to assess
the damage. She’d plowed through the guardrail and landed
nose-first in a ditch. Her front tire looked punctured. How had
that happened? Not that it mattered. Although the incline wasn’t
steep, there was still no way she was driving out of here. This
definitely called for a tow truck.
    Her stomach tightened with
dread as she thought through the implications. Even if she managed
to get a truck out here soon, there was no chance she’d reach White
Falls by eight tonight. Which meant no chance she’d deliver her
cargo on time. Which meant no chance she’d collect that check from
the client—the one she