But then he saw a glint up ahead. A flash of the sun on metal, one big white line that shouldn’t be there. Swearing, he jerked the steering wheel to the right, but he made his move too late.
Gunfire exploded, and a bullet ripped through the windshield. Veronica screamed as the truck careened, rushing forward. The bullet had hit him, his blood was seeping out and he couldn’t control the truck.
Couldn’t stop it.
The truck slammed into a tree. Glass shattered and Veronica stopped screaming.
Chapter Eight
She was trapped in the car.
Mommy wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t she moving? Daddy?
The nightmare of her past tangled with her present.
Veronica’s hands were against the dashboard. Broken glass was all around her.
Mommy had been bleeding. She’d been so still.
The seat belt bit into her shoulder.
She couldn’t get out of her seat. She was strapped in and she screamed and screamed because something was wrong. She couldn’t get out.
Her fingers fumbled. There was a click, and then the seat belt slid free. Her body sagged forward. The truck was at some kind of angle—it had slid down a little ravine and slammed into a tree.
Her forehead was wet. Her fingers lifted. Blood?
Daddy had been bleeding.
Her fingers fisted. She shoved the memory back into her mind. She wasn’t a child anymore. And she wasn’t alone.
Her head whipped to the right. “Jasper?” He was slumped over the steering wheel, not moving.
Had he been hurt in the crash or...no, before the crash. The memory of those desperate moments flooded through her. That sound that she’d heard hadn’t been thunder. It had been a gunshot. One that had blasted through the windshield—and hit Jasper.
Carefully now, so very carefully, she pushed him back. The sunlight spilled through the broken windows so that she could clearly see his blood-soaked chest. “Jasper!” This time, her cry was desperate.
His lashes fluttered. “Ver...onica? What...happened?”
“Someone shot us.” You. She tried to find his wound, but there was so much blood. She needed to put pressure on the wound. She had to stop the blood. That was what people always did on TV shows. Apply pressure. Stop the bleeding.
His eyes looked bleary. “Get...out...”
She leaned toward him. She was so scared that her whole body shook. “What? What is it?” There was a huge gash near the right side of his forehead.
“Have to...get out...shooter...coming...”
Her hea
rt stopped.
“Disabled...vehicle...sitting duck...”
She didn’t want to be a sitting duck, but Jasper had to be suffering from some kind of head trauma if he thought she was just going to run off and leave him there alone. Because then he’d be the sitting duck.
Her gaze flew around the truck’s interior. Where was his cell phone? Hers? She fumbled next to his seat, found what she thought was his phone and—smashed.
His eyes began to sag closed again. “Go...”