Born to Die - Lisa Jackson [93]
She needed to get back to Tom and the kids. He’d agreed to watch them while she made her hasty trip to Spokane for some major Christmas shopping. While at the mall, she’d found the cutest new addition to her grapevine reindeer herd, a new Rudolph that would knock the fading nose off her original once he was set up near the little fir tree in the front yard and plugged in.
Yep. Rudolph II was phenomenal, and he’d been on sale. Twenty percent off with the coupon she’d clipped from the local paper. She couldn’t wait to display him in the frozen, snow-crusted grass, but she hoped the neighborhood would respect her display. Last year a couple of kids in the old neighborhood thought it would be funny to see Rudolph I mounting one of the female deer.
Elle hadn’t found any humor in the situation. Not at all. Talk about bad taste. Then again, some of those hoodlums had been cretins. So maybe, in some ways, the move to Grizzly Falls was a godsend.
She coughed again and wished the damned antibiotics would kick in. Yeah, it had been only one day, but she’d been fighting this crud forever. And no bug was going to keep her from this weekend’s price-busting sales. She’d missed Black Friday and Black Saturday, but damn, she’d scored big on Black Sunday, or whatever it was called.
Without slowing, she hooked up her iPhone to the console, then found her iTunes list and selected a special holiday mix she’d created herself. The music started to play, and within seconds she was singing along with Faith Hill as the wheels of her Dodge ate up the miles.
Her only problem, other than the nasty flu—pneumonia, really?—was that she wasn’t all that familiar with the roads around these parts. As she’d told the doctor, she’d been an Idaho girl all of her thirty-five years, well, except for that one summer when she’d driven to L.A. and thought she’d bleach her hair blond, live near the beach, Venice or Malibu or somewhere that sounded exotic, and learn how to roller-skate in a bikini.
Big mistake.
Too hot. Too crowded. Too many other beautiful blondes.
She’d returned to Boise four months later, her proverbial tail between her legs, and decided being a “hick from the sticks,” as she’d called herself, wasn’t such a bad thing.
Besides, she’d met Tom Alexander, hadn’t she? The love of her life. Or at least he had been when they had dated and were first married. Over a dozen years and two kids later, some of the passion had slipped out of their relationship. Lately, Tom had been distant.
Caught up in her worries about her husband, she sped past a road sign, just catching sight of it in the corner of her eye. “Crap!”
She realized she’d missed the turn and slowed at the next wide spot in the road and did a quick one-eighty. Some of the roads around here were so poorly marked and confusing! And it didn’t help that it was dark, not a streetlight for miles. At the corner, she turned toward Grizzly Falls and noticed that the vehicle that had been following her at a distance was much closer now. It, too, turned toward town and followed the two-lane road that wound along the banks of the river.
Elle glanced at the dash clock again. She wouldn’t get home until after eleven, and Tom would be worried sick. She probably should call.
In her rearview she noticed the car behind her was catching up to her, the harsh glare of its headlights reflecting right into her eyes. “Bastard,” she grumbled, then turned on her Bluetooth, but, of course, it was dead.
Perfect.
She’d forgotten to charge the damned thing. That was the problem. There were just too many devices to keep alive, along with juggling the demands of a family, keeping the house, volunteering at the school and, of course, shaking this damned flu, or whatever it was.
Slipping her phone out of the console, she pressed the two key, her shortcut to home. After the third ring, Tom answered.
“Hey,” he said, obviously recognizing her number. She heard the muted sound of the television in the background. “Where are you?”
“God, I wish I knew. On the right