When Stars Collide by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Author:Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2021-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

13

“Driver!” Thad shouted into the ceiling intercom.

The limo picked up speed—going much too fast—and the smoked-glass partition separating them from the driver stayed shut. Thad scrambled past her and banged on it. “Stop the car!”

The car swerved off the highway. She clutched the bar for support as they lurched onto a bumpy road. Thad regained his balance first. “Let me have that.” He grabbed Olivia’s silky flamenco shawl and began twisting it around his hand.

Olivia snatched up her phone and hit the emergency SOS button.

Nothing happened.

“Get back!” Thad pushed her behind him and slammed his wrapped arm into the partition window, shattering the tempered glass between them and the driver into pebbles.

The limo careened, throwing them both to the floor. As Thad scrambled to his feet, she tried again to use her phone. “I can’t get a signal!”

“Cell jammer.”

The car lurched to a stop.

Thad dove toward the broken place where the partition had been, but the driver threw open the door, killed the headlights, and jumped out before Thad could touch him. She leaped for one of the passenger doors, while Thad went for the other. They were both locked. He glanced toward the limo’s bar, looking for something to make into a weapon—a wine bottle or glass—but the compartments were empty.

“Whatever happens, stay behind me,” he ordered.

“This is because of me,” she cried. “You know it is.”

“Do what I say.”

A click. The rear passenger door flew open, and the dome light went on. “Get out,” a gruff voice said.

Thad pushed in front of her and stepped from the limo. Her flamenco scarf dropped to the ground as he blocked the door with his body to shield her inside.

This was all wrong. She should be the one protecting him. She made another desperate visual search of the interior. Nothing in the bar. Nothing in her purse except a room key and tissues. She dropped her cell and scooped up two handfuls of the security glass pebbles that had fallen onto the seat from the broken partition. Even though it was tempered glass, the edges bit into her palms.

“Move over,” that same gruff voice shouted outside. She could see nothing through the windows except the dark.

Thad stayed where he was, blocking the rear door. “What do you want?”

“Move over or I’ll shoot. Both of you! Out here!”

“Stay inside,” Thad ordered her.

She wasn’t having it. Keeping her fists clenched, glass inside, she pushed against him and wedged herself out of the limo into the emptiness of the Mojave Desert.

At first, she could see nothing beyond the ooze of dim yellow light from the limo’s interior. A jet flew overhead, maybe from Nellis Air Force Base, maybe from McCarran. As her eyes adjusted, she took in the hulking shape of the man standing outside the light. He wore a dark suit, but the brim of his chauffeur’s hat concealed most of his face. Was he the man who’d accosted her at the bookstore? They seemed to be roughly the same size, but so were millions of other men.

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