“Tell me what you really think.” Lila smirked.
“I think that Dr. Rubio is the ambitious sort. It could be love, or it could be that she found a way into highborn society by playing on Emily’s vanity. Add in her position at the hospital, and you have someone highly intelligent who’s willing to do whatever the chairwoman asks, either for a bit of coin or because she’s in too weak of a position to refuse. Never see her again, child. Not even to treat a splinter.”
Lila could not disagree with Helen’s logic.
Chapter 10
Lila sped down the streets of New Bristol on her Firefly, annoyed at the motorcycle in her rearview. A navy Barracuda had been tailing her since she left Helen’s condo. As Lila was alone, she had decided against provoking a meeting. She also dismissed the idea of returning immediately to the Randolph estate. If she led a stalker back to Sutton and her mother, she might not be allowed to leave the compound without an escort for months.
She’d not allow herself to fall under house arrest, not on top of everything else going on in her life.
Lila escaped the exhaust and fumes of the clogged downtown streets and headed toward the loop. As soon as her tires hit the interstate, she increased her speed to over a hundred and seventy kilometers per hour, then threaded through the spotty traffic. The freezing winds cut through her trousers. She barely felt her fingers inside her gloves.
Green fields and bluebonnets flashed in her peripheral. Scattered lowborn diners, cheap hotels, and shabby gas stations fled from view. Even the cars on the road whipped behind her as she passed, but not the Barracuda. Every time she checked her mirror, the rider hung on behind her, stubbornly chasing. Lila didn’t care whether it was friendly or aggressive. She only wanted it gone.
But it kept following.
Soon Lila gave up, not willing to press her speed or her luck any further. She took the Twelfth Street exit, mindful of the slower cars and trucks that populated the lanes, then zipped through the sluggish traffic. She kept much of her speed, but the cars flowed closer and closer as she progressed, making such movements more and more difficult.
She approached the first intersection, planning to blast through the yellow light and leave the Barracuda far behind. Unfortunately, the light switched to red earlier than expected, and a fleet of three delivery trucks hit the gas, ready to cross.
She would have to stop. Lila only hoped that the rider would not take the opportunity to abandon his bike and approach her.
Lila squeezed the right-hand brake.
It smacked against the grip, offering no resistance at all.
Lila took her eyes off the road. Her frozen fingers shaking, Lila pumped the brake again, her mouth slackening when it didn’t catch.
Her foot brake didn’t, either.
Lila looked up at the delivery trucks accelerating toward the intersection, a moving wall of rubber and steel. The second driver saw that she had failed to slow down, understanding quickly that she would run the red. He beat on his steering wheel, honking in loud squawks, his mouth full of angry threats trapped behind thick glass.
But he braked.
So did the driver next to him. The woman’s curls twisted around her face, and she shook her head in fright as Lila skated before them.
Lila
nearly clipped the rear bumper of an oblivious sedan as it sped across in the opposite direction.
The Barracuda followed her across.
It was at that moment that Lila understood the obvious. The Barracuda’s rider had done something to her brakes. It had been following her the entire time just to watch the aftermath. Perhaps the rider had a helmet camera trained on her, all to capture her last bloody moments.
It wouldn’t be the first time that a death tape was leaked to the media. Her stomach dropped as she realized that Pax might see it, re-watching her last few minutes, immortalized in cold pixels. Knowing him, he would watch the morbid scene play out over and over again, obsessing over it, just as he had done with Trevor’s memory.
He couldn’t handle it. Not so soon after losing his friend.
Lila shook her head against the thought. She wouldn’t leave him so unhappy, weeping over a polished casket that no one could open.
Gathering her wits, Lila thumbed the kill switch, her hand shaking so badly that it nearly slid off the handle. She was frightened now of the vibrating beast between her legs as though it might turn its head and strike like Grendel’s dragon. The cold dropped away around her, and her palms began to sweat inside her gloves.
When the motor died, she downshifted into fifth gear, panicked at the thought that the clutch might not function either.
She grinned stupidly when it did.
The motorcycle cruised forward, inertia still pushing her along.