EXPOSING LETHAL SECRETS

Her eyelids fluttered, the world around her nothing but a blur. The overpowering odor of gasoline yanked her awake, and the smell of smoke followed right on its heels. The crackle of flames reached her before she could force her eyes all the way open, and she had to wait a moment for her vision to clear.


Pain threatened to split her head when she tried to lift it from the seat. Nausea surged, sending bile rushing up her throat. A feeling of intense terror washed over her, and she sat perfectly still, forcing air in and out, the acrid stench burning her lungs. Wherever she was, she had to get out of there. Now.


She looked around, trying to catalogue as many details as possible. She was in a wrecked car. A man lay half in, half out of the vehicle, having gone through the windshield. She unbuckled her seatbelt and inched forward slowly, then reached for his wrist, felt for a pulse—too late.


Who was he? Did she know him? Did she love him?


She studied his form. Nothing. There was nothing at all familiar about him. The overwhelming sense of fear didn’t abate—if anything, it increased the longer she studied him. But there was no time to contemplate that now.


Thankfully, there was room enough for her to wriggle past him and out. She landed hard on her side in the sand, then scrambled backward away from the vehicle. Or rather, the mangled remains of what appeared to have once been a limo. But why had she been riding in a limo? She choked back the fear, had to or it would paralyze her. Her mind was an absolute blank. She had no memory of what had happened to make her so frightened, what she was doing in a limo or where she’d been going. She couldn’t even recall her own name.


She blinked a few times in rapid succession, trying to clear the horrible burning from her eyes, then crab walked farther back from the burning vehicle. She had to stay calm.


A glint caught her attention, and she saw a handgun lying on the ground a few feet from the car. Did she own a gun? She had no idea. But with the intensity of the fear threating to consume her, she wasn’t taking any chances. And she wasn’t about to leave a weapon lying in the desert where some kid might come across it and get hurt.


She stood, her bare feet burning in desert sand made even hotter by the fire, waited out a wave of dizziness, then grabbed the weapon and stuffed it into the waistband of her skirt, snug against her back. It was then that she noticed the blood soaking the front of her lightweight, ivory linen jacket and silk blouse. Hers?


It didn’t seem to be. She must have gotten it on her when she checked the man’s pulse. She gingerly removed the jacket and dropped it on the ground, then untucked her ivory blouse and let it fall over her skirt, hoping it would conceal the weapon.


She surveyed her surroundings and managed to find two black pumps she assumed were hers. It would be ridiculous to try to escape wearing pumps, but probably more so to attempt it barefoot on the blistering sand. Since there didn’t seem to be any way for her to climb back up the sheer mountainside they’d apparently gone over, she simply stepped into her shoes, turned toward the desert and started walking.

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