Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [90]
“Chop shop?”
“The kind of place where they take stolen cars, strip them down and then send them out on the roads looking entirely different. It’s quite a business, but you need to be fast and good to get away with it.”
Jamie clutched the huge steering wheel of the Cadillac. It shouldn’t have surprised her—drugs and stolen cars were an obvious way for Dillon to have earned a living. Not so obvious for Nate, which was probably why they got away with it.
“I still want to check out the place before it gets dark. Take a few photos. The light’s always best just before dusk.”
Wilfred shook his head. “Suit yourself, miss. The roads are in lousy shape—no one ever goes out there. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’ve got a cell phone if I get into trouble.”
“Won’t do no good. There’s no service around here. Too many hills, not enough people willing to let them put towers up.”
“Well, I expect I’ll be fine. The only people out there would be ghosts, and I don’t believe in them.”
“Don’t you, miss? I wouldn’t be too sure. People see lights out there sometimes, when no one should be anywhere around.”
“No ghosts,” she said firmly.
“Well, good luck, then. I’m afraid the motel down on Route 3 closed down a couple of years ago—the nearest place you’ll find a room for the night is at least twenty-five miles away, near Cranston.”
And that was exactly where she should go, and she knew it. She’d been driving all day, she was exhausted, and it was growing dark. A smart woman would find a place for the night and start out the next morning, in the clear light of day.
But she’d already proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was a complete idiot. Why mess up when she was on a roll?
“I don’t suppose you’d feel like telling me how to get to the ruins?”
“Hell, it’s your funeral. Take a left at the corner up there. Used to be a stoplight but it broke and no one’s gotten around to fixing it yet, so be careful of the intersection. Not that you’ll run into any traffic, anyway, not in this town. Head out that way for about three miles, and you’ll see a narrow road off to the left. It’ll be overgrown, and no one would have plowed. You probably won’t even see it.”
“I’ll take my chances. That’s the driveway to the ruins?”
“If you could call it that. It’s more than a mile long, and the farther in you go the worse shape the road is. I’d hate to see you hurt that pretty car of your boyfriend’s.”
Boyfriend. Such a strange, teenage word. There was a time when she would have given anything to have the Bad Boy of Marshfield, Rhode Island, as her boyfriend. No matter what anyone else said.
But hell, better late than never. Better five minutes of fantasy than the brutal truth. “My boyfriend will forgive me,” she said. “He loves me.”
Wilfred the Gas Station Man was right—she almost missed the turnoff. Getting through the intersection had been no problem, considering there were no other cars around to deal with the missing traffic lights, but the narrow path between the overgrown trees looked more like a path than a driveway. She was crazy to drive down that deserted road in the snowy dusk. But then, she knew she was crazy, from the moment she climbed into Dillon Gaynor’s bed. From the moment she faced the fact that she was still in love with him after all these years, and part of her always would be, no matter what happened.
The Cadillac wasn’t made for rough roads. She made it about a mile into the woods, the road getting narrower and narrower, when a downed tree stopped her. She managed to slam on the brakes in time, and sat in horror as the huge car continued to slide forward in the snow, stopping just inches before hitting the thick tree trunk that blocked the path.
She looked behind her into the darkness. There was no place to turn around—her only option was to back the huge car more