Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates (distant reading .txt) 📗

phone signals must have been strong tonight. I crossed the room and picked the phone up. I didn’t recognize the number, but the words that flashed on the screen got my attention.

It’s me. Josie. My phone’s out of juice. Car broken down half way to town. Borrowed phone from a guy but he’s heading other way. Help!

I replied immediately: On my way.

I thanked the god of phone signals that I did have reception here tonight. I didn’t stop to wonder why Josie hadn’t called the landline. She knows how erratic cell phones can be in here. In my panic and rush, I also didn’t consider why she’d call me rather than her husband. If she was halfway to town, Jake’s restaurant was not much further away than the lighthouse.

I swept up my purse, stuffed my feet into a pair of flip-flops, and ran into the hallway, heading for the stairs. Charles and Fluffy followed me. I hesitated. Charles couldn’t come, and Fluffy would slow me down. I grabbed the cat, called to the dog, shoved them both into the apartment, slammed the door on them, and then I hurried down the stairs. I remembered to lock the door behind me and ran for my car. I jumped in, started it up, and sped down the laneway. I didn’t like the idea of Josie stranded at night on the side of the highway outside of town. Some man had stopped and offered her his phone. It sounded as though she was being suitably careful, as she should be, and hadn’t stepped out of the car. She’d probably rolled her window down an inch or two, just enough to accept his phone. I turned onto the highway. She’d said she was halfway back to town. That didn’t necessarily mean she was at the five-mile point; she could be anywhere along the road. Traffic was light, and not more than one or two cars passed me heading in the other direction. No one was ahead of or behind me. Thick clouds covered the moon, and outside the beam cast by the lights of my car, all was pitch-dark. My headlights picked up flakes of sand scurrying across the pavement, and I kept my eyes peeled for deer; I’d once almost hit a deer at night on this stretch of road. I saw nothing but drifting sand and scruffy grasses moving in the wind.

I drove slowly, alert for the sight of a car ahead of me, pulled off to the side, its red rear lights facing my way, white headlights shining into the night. Maybe the car belonging to the phone owner would be parked protectively next to it.

Nothing. I reached Old Oregon Inlet Road and the traffic picked up slightly, people heading home after a Friday night out. Lights from the rows of houses lining the seafront appeared, but they were far from the highway. Soon I was well past what anyone would call “halfway to town.” Could I possibly have missed her?

I hadn’t spotted anyone stopped at the side of the road when the red and green traffic lights of Whalebone Junction appeared in the distance. I passed through the intersection and pulled off to the side of the road. I sent a text to the number she’d used: Where are you?

No reply.

Maybe the phone owner had left her. Left a young woman alone in a broken-down car on the side of an empty highway at night? Not a nice thing to do.

I made a right at the intersection, turned around in a restaurant parking lot, and headed back the way I’d come, going even slower than I had earlier. Apart from a couple of impatient cars who sped past me, I saw nothing and no one.

By the time I reached the lighthouse lane, I was seriously worried. I turned around once again and stopped the car. I had to call Jake.

If Josie was okay, she’d be angry at me for worrying Jake, but right now I didn’t care. Something was not right.

“Hey, Lucy,” he said. “It’s late for you to be calling. What’s up?”

His voice was so natural, so cheerful, I knew his wife hadn’t called him for help, but I asked anyway. “Jake, I … Have you heard from Josie in the last twenty minutes or so?”

“Yeah. She called about ten minutes ago to say she was home and going to bed. Our schedules are so opposite, that’s the way we usually exchange good-night kisses. Why do you ask?”

“She told you she was home?”

“Yeah. Lucy, what’s wrong? Has something happened?” Panic began to creep into his voice.

“I don’t know, Jake. You don’t have a landline in the apartment, do you?”

“No. Almost no one I know has a landline anymore, except you.”

“She called you on her cell?”

“Lucy. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know. I got a text about twenty minutes ago, supposedly from Josie but not her number. Saying she’d broken down on the side of the road and asking me to come and get her. I drove up and down the highway, but she’s not there.”

“She’s not there because she’s at home. Where are you now?”

“I’m parked on the lighthouse lane, just off the highway.”

“I’m coming for you.”

“No need; I’m sure everything’s okay. It was a stupid prank.”

“Not a funny one. Don’t get out of your car, and don’t stay where you are.” He spoke quickly, issuing orders the way he did in his kitchen on a busy summer’s night. “Get on the highway and drive to Old Oregon Inlet Road; at least there’s some traffic there. Wait for me, keep your headlights on, and do not get out of your car. I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’m hanging up. I want to call Josie to check she really is at home and if she has any idea what’s going on. I’ll call you back when that’s done.”

He hung up, and I suddenly felt very alone. I sat in my car, in a small circle of light, surrounded