Page 146 of One Last Shot

But there was nowhere to go.

How Reynolds had stranded the car in the middle of the mudflats, she had no idea, but she suspected he’d simply put a brick to the gas and let it drive off the road, down theembankment—she’d felt that—and into the mud, the glacial runoff firm until it was so agitated that it gave way.

And turned to cement.

She sat about a hundred feet from shore now, the wheels implanted in the mud. And the tide filling in around the car. Cold and lethal, but the height of stupidity would be venturing out onto the quicksand.

She should get on the roof, see if she could wave down help.

But the last—very last—thing she wanted was some passersby to unknowingly think they could save her, venture out onto the mudflats, get stuck, and drown.

Even EMS personnel.

Worse, the car sat too far from land for anyone to throw out a buoy and pull her in.

But it was all moot anyway, because she didn’t spot one car along the faraway road, which probably meant Reynolds had taken her on one of the side roads.

He’d probably then joined one of the many hitchhikers along the stretches of highway in Alaska.

Maybe with the tide coming in, she could swim to shore. If it was deep enough. And if she didn’t pull a Jack fromTitanicand die of hypothermia, encrusted with ice before she hit the shore.

Please let the PLB be working. She had hit that on as soon as the car stopped moving and the silence closed in around her. It was then that she’d realized that Reynolds had left. Until then, she’d braced herself against the sides of the car, trying to protect her knee as he wove through the city.

So, not the safest place to ride, the trunk. Cramped and hot. Probably Reynolds hoped the mudflats would swallow the car whole, taking her and the chute with it. And if that didn’t do it, then the sea would finish the job, maybe washing her into the sound.

Out the back window, the long stretch ofglacier and mud ran into the faraway glacier spill, the landscape like the moon, cratered, rippled, and bleak.

The front window, however, betrayed a much different view—the ocean headed in on a rising tide of water. It slapped against the bottom of the car doors, but so far hadn’t made it inside. Although, by the view of her horizon, it seemed she’d sunk farther into the mud.

Of course Reynolds couldn’t rent an SUV or something practical like that. No, she’d die in a Ford Taurus. At least it was clean.

On the inside.

She gave herself about ten minutes before the tide reached the windows and she’d have to climb out.

Ten more and the water would find the roof.

And then there was the bore tide. The wall of water scheduled to crest along the arm tonight. She’d watched it come in last month, the rumble so loud that it had burrowed through her and trembled her bones with the power of it.

Breathe.

Please, PLB, be working.

Of course, she’d left her phone at the Tooth, and that thought burned through her entire body.

He’d never know. Oaken would never know that she regretted running. Never know that he’d... well, he’d restored her trust in humankind, or perhaps just her belief in love. Never know that yes, she wanted to run back to him.

I love you, Oaken. That thought had been running around her head for a while and now simply sat down and wouldn’t budge.

She loved his laughter, the way he believed in her, and the fact that he’d written a song about her for the entire world. Oaken was truth and laughter and food fights and stories and...

And she wanted to be his girl. Just like in the song.

Thunder sounded and she sat up, listening.

The bore tide,coming closer.

She barely glimpsed it, a line of foamy white in the epic distance, but the sound rose, a growl on the horizon.