I pull my phone out again and stare at the screen as if that will magically make a signal appear.
Since I do not actually have magical abilities, nothing happens. But I open my text messaging program anyway. I read somewhere that text messages don’t require as strong a signal, and also that the strength of a cell tower’s signal changes all the time. So maybe if I send a text, eventually it will find a signal and flitter away to its destination.
Clearly, there is a reason that I am an actress and not an engineer. But I figure that even if it doesn’t help, it won’t hurt.
I open the messaging app and stare at the phone. Because the first person I think of to text is Ryan—and yet how the hell am I supposed to phrase it? Sorry I skipped out on you. Please come save me.
Somehow, that doesn’t work for me.
I consider texting Sylvia, Damien’s secretary with whom Nikki and I have become friends, but I’m certain that she will simply send Ryan. He is, after all, Stark International’s security dude. Evelyn Dodge, my friend and pseudo-agent, would be a great choice, but I happen to know that she and her lover Blaine left around lunchtime for a Manhattan getaway.
I tell myself I’m being stupid. That Ryan will be mad, yes, but he won’t leave me stranded. I’m his boss’s new wife’s best friend, after all. So even if he doesn’t come himself, he’ll send someone else.
Besides, odds are the text will never go through.
I spend a few moments thinking about it, then decide on the message.
Sorry I bolted, but I need help. Stranded on the 15 just past Yermo. Please?
I read it once more, then press “send” before I can talk myself out of it. Then I put in my headphones, turn my music back on, lean back in my seat, and wait.
If nothing else, I figure I’ll be rescued come morning. There will be more traffic, for one thing, and maybe even the highway patrol.
As it turns out, I don’t have to wait that long.
Not even five minutes have passed when I see the flash of lights in the rearview mirror. I turn off the music and watch the car approach. I can’t tell what kind it is; all I can see is the glare of the lights as it crawls closer and closer, moving at a snail’s pace now.
It is still on the highway, but as I watch it slides to the right, pulling off onto the shoulder. Then it eases forward until it is right behind me.
I expect the driver to kill the lights, but he or she doesn’t, and I am left sitting there in my Please Carjack Me Now Ferrari with sex fiends on my mind.
My pulse starts to beat more quickly, and I curse myself for not getting the tire iron out of the trunk. Because there’s not a damn thing I can use as a weapon inside the vehicle—not unless I intend to beat someone senseless with my iPhone.
I am astounded at my naiveté and pissed off at my own stupidity. I passed through Barstow with its stretch of gas stations and I was so busy trying not to think that I didn’t think. And now here I am, trapped in a car with Ted Bundy parked behind me.
I check the phone once more, but it still shows no signal.
Fuck.
I see the door to the car open, and someone gets out. A man, I think, though I can see very little in the dark in my mirror.
I check the door locks again and am relieved to find them secure.
He is approaching the car now, walking with the light at his back so that he appears as only the shadow of a man. I tell myself to be calm, that he is probably just a Good Samaritan. That most serial killers are not trolling the interstates.
I know it. I believe it, and I’m still scared shitless. Terrified that Ryan will get my text and two hours later will arrive at the Ferrari to find me battered and bloodied and very much dead.
Stop it. Just stop it, already.
And then he’s there—his torso right by my window—and his firm rap on the door combines with my nerves to rip a scream from my throat.
The man bends down, and I suck in a gasp that is part surprise, part fear, part wonder.
Because I’m staring at a man who can’t possibly be there.
I’m staring at Ryan Hunter.
Chapter Seven