Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 145803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145803 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“I’ll follow you to the rental agency,” Stella said. “It’s actually on the way to the Airbnb. We won’t have to backtrack at all. I think it will be faster to just follow behind you.”
“I’ll ride with you, Vienna,” Raine said. “That will give them more room in the 4Runner.”
“Are you kidding, Raine? You’re the smallest.” Harlow laughed. “Well, besides Zahra. And she’s, um, curvier.”
Zahra rolled her eyes. “My hips are bigger. Just say it. And my butt.”
“Are you making fun of my butt?” Raine demanded.
“What butt?” they all asked simultaneously and then burst out laughing.
Raine craned her neck as if she could see. “Maybe that’s why I despise riding a bike so much. No padding.”
“Nope, none,” Vienna confirmed. “You have to have the fastest metabolism in town. I’ve seen you put away an entire pizza by yourself.”
Zahra groaned. “Don’t remind me. She does that. She doesn’t even notice either. I love food. She barely notices food. I have to chew slowly and savor, and she works while she eats. She doesn’t pay attention to her food. That’s so wrong of you, Raine.”
“I pay attention to what I drink,” Raine said. “Especially Moscow mules.”
“The three times a year you actually have a drink,” Stella pointed out.
Another round of laughter went up. Vienna slipped into the driver’s seat of the truck. Raine and Shabina both got in the truck with her to give the others more room in the 4Runner at least as far as the rental agency.
The engine turned over immediately as if eager to go. There was no having to warm it up or let it run, although she waited to make sure Stella and the others were good to go in their vehicle before she pulled out of the lot onto the road to head back toward Vegas and the rental agency.
Partway down the road, the headlights flickered for a moment. A tingle of awareness went down her spine, that first unpleasant warning she sometimes got when her radar went off that something wasn’t right. She flexed her fingers on the steering wheel and breathed evenly, checking the instruments. Everything seemed fine.
“Did you notice the headlights?” She threw the question out to both women because that nagging little red flag wouldn’t go away now that it had waved at her.
Nothing else happened as she drove down the road, and she should have dismissed that one little flicker, but instead, little knots began to tighten in her belly.
“I noticed it,” Shabina said.
“Me too,” Raine chimed in.
“A short?” Vienna asked. No way was it a short. Zale would have mentioned if there was a short in the headlights. She didn’t believe that for a minute. It hadn’t happened again, so why was her uneasiness increasing instead of decreasing?
Raine leaned forward as if peering at the road in front of her. “Are the headlights dimmer?”
Vienna couldn’t honestly say. She was almost afraid to touch the high beams. She kept up her even breathing, staying strictly to the speed limit if a little under. Because Stella was behind her and luckily no other cars had come up on them, she was even traveling below the speed limit for the most part. Once on the main highway, she knew she would have to decide to either pull over and have the truck towed, just on her intuition that something was wrong, or drive at full speed. If she did that, she didn’t want the others in the car with her.
“I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling. Maybe I should pull over and have the two of you ride with Stella.”
“No.” Shabina was firm. “If you think something is wrong, we pull over and all of us get out, not just the two of us. We’re in this together.”
“I’m most likely paranoid after all the stories of dead bodies in the desert and seeing Zale and Rainier injured and then the blood in the truck.”
“You don’t get spooked,” Raine said calmly. “I think the lights are dimmer. How is the truck handling?”
“Sluggish. That’s the other thing. You said the truck handled so well. This feels like a big slug. It feels almost as if it’s fighting me every little bend we go around. We’re coming up on the first really big turn.” She slowed even more.
“Is it the tires? Maybe the tire pressure is too low,” Shabina said. “Can’t that be a factor? I don’t really know anything about cars, but I’ve heard Stella and Raine talk about tire pressure.”
Vienna considered that for a moment. Could the tires be so low that the truck wasn’t responding? Wouldn’t she have noticed? Raine would have. Stella would have. And no, this had a different feel to it. Something else, then. Her radar was screaming now. Something was very, very wrong. She didn’t want to go into the turn that was coming up fast.