On Midnight Wings

“Tough love, my ass,” Heather said, throat tight. She pressed her fingers against the seat belt latch. She muffled the quiet snick with her sleeve, then held the seat belt in place with her arm. “It was never about love, just control.”

James shook his head. “You don’t have the proper perspective. Being a single parent hasn’t been easy. Not by a long shot. But I’ve always done what was necessary, even if it was hard.”

Heather tightened her grip on the fork handle. “What about Mom? Was her murder one of those necessary but hard things too?”

James Wallace went still. He watched her from the rearview, his shadowed eyes unreadable. But mild disappointment underscored his words. “You say that as though I had something to do with it. Good God, Heather, your mother’s death—”

“Murder.”

“All right—murder—was tragic and difficult for us all. But so was the way she lived.” The Lexus’s interior filled with blue-white light from an approaching car, drawing James’s attention back to the highway. The vehicle passed, and darkness returned. “I don’t know how many times I came home from work to find you kids alone and hungry because your mother was off drinking or . . . whatever.”

“She was bipolar and an addict,” Heather said, slowly leaning forward toward the front seats. “She needed help. Just like Annie.”

“Your mother didn’t want help. Flat-out refused it.”

“Again. She was bipolar and an addict.” Heather shrugged free of the seat belt. “You should’ve insisted. Kept her best interests in mind.”

Provided you weren’t busy blackmailing your partner into murdering her and setting up a local serial killer suspect to take the fall.

Something, even now, Heather desperately didn’t want to believe. She hoped with all she had that he would prove her wrong. She shifted her grip on the fork, steadied it. Pressed against the back of his seat.

“I tried, pumpkin, you have no idea,” James said softly, his tone low and haunted and utterly false. “As horrible as your mother’s murder was, in many ways—and I truly hate to say this—it was a blessing. With her gone, you kids finally had stability and a shot at a normal life.”

Heather glanced away, a muscle ticking in her jaw. The worst part of that statement? The lying bastard actually believed it. Drawing in a steadying breath, she looked at him again. “I know what you did,” she said quietly. “At the club.”

“Risk life and limb to rescue you? You’re welcome.”

“This isn’t a thank you, you smug son of a bitch. I know you tried to murder Dante, I know you left him and my friends to burn. I know what you did to Annie too.”

“Do you? How is that poss—” A quick glance into the rearview. His jaw tightened. “So Annie was right, you are linked mind-to-mind to that bloodsucking bastard. He must still be alive, then.”

“No thanks to you,” Heather growled, lunging forward and jabbing the fork tines into his neck just above his carotid. “Pull over. Now.”

20 RECEDING IN THE REARVIEW

“WHAT THE HELL DO you think you’re—”

Heather jabbed the fork harder into James’s throat. He winced, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. The fork bobbed in time with his rapidly increasing pulse.

“Heather . . .”

“Now.”

Heather applied a little more pressure to the fork as incentive. Beneath the tines, blood stippled James’s skin. Sudden sweat glistened on his forehead, at the back of his neck, blotting out the scent of his spicy aftershave. Icy displeasure radiated from him in nearly palpable waves.

Without another word, James Wallace steered the Lexus onto the shoulder of the road. A cold sweat slicked Heather’s body, plastered her sweater to her back. She knew, without a doubt, that once James stopped the car, he would stop at nothing to regain control of the situation. To regain control of her.

Even if it meant killing her.

Gravel crunched under the tires as the car slowed to a stop. In the rearview, Heather caught a peripheral flare of red from the brake lights. Adrenaline flooded her veins. She sucked in a breath. Time slowed. Stretched. And everything took on a sharp-edged, crystal clarity.

The muscles in James’s neck twitched. His shoulder tensed. But before he could jerk his head away from the fork, Heather threw her upper body over the seat back and slammed the fork deep into his thigh with both hands.

James screamed.

Pulse roaring in her ears, Heather slithered and squirmed her way over the seat, landing on her side. She groped for the glove box with cuffed hands. Slapped the latch. It tumbled open. Beside her, James’s cry of shocked pain gave way to a clenched-teeth snarl of rage.

“I don’t think so, pumpkin.”