Fear crystallized her blood.

Don’t panic, Megan! Do NOT panic!

But a scream started to form in her throat.

Suddenly all four wheels found traction, and she had control again.

Oh . . . hallelujah . . .

Heart thudding, nerves jangled, she licked her lips. That was close. So damn close. She let out her breath slowly, concentrated on what she had to do, pushed the fight with James far from her mind and drove ever upward, meeting no cars, which seemed weird even with the blizzard-like conditions here, near the summit. A few more miles and she’d be heading downward.

To Seattle.

To Rebecca.

To sanity.

Over the summit, the car sped up.

She eased on the brakes, hands holding the steering wheel in a death grip. Around one corner. Faster and faster.

Slow it down!

But the car raced forward, gravity pulling her downward, the foggy windshield nearly opaque.

She tapped the brakes a little harder, the back end of the car sliding around a corner, her breath tight in her lungs. She swallowed as she guided the car down the narrowing road, snow piled high on either side.

Just a few miles and—Oh, shit, what’s that? Something in the middle of the road? At the next turn? No!

Her heart a jackhammer, she squinted through a thin patch of clear glass.

On the road ahead something moved.

Something tall and dark against the white.

A deer? Elk? Some other creature?

The steady snow masked its shape as it darted to the side.

Two legs?

“Fuck!”

A man? Woman? Goddamned Sasquatch?

The shadowy image stepped into the middle of the damned road.

A person. Definitely a person.

What the hell?

“Hey!” she yelled, slamming on the brakes. “You idiot!”

The car shuddered.

No!

It began to rotate.

Faster and faster.

She rammed the gearshift into LOW.

But it was too late. The Toyota slipped sideways, spinning out of control. Through the windshield, she caught glimpses of the sheer cliff face on one side of the road and the steep canyon on the other. In the middle of it all, a person. A brainless, idiotic freak. “Shit, shit, shit!” She tried to steer, failed, the Toyota careening wildly to the mountainous side of the road, her bumper shearing ice off the cliff, only to send the little car back across the lanes, rushing toward the ravine, the scenery a snowy blur.

It was all over.

She knew it.

Through the foggy glass, she caught a glimpse of the snowy treetops in the thin beams of the headlights and, beyond the treeline, the vast darkness of the canyon.

This was how she would die, her car hurtling over the edge, crashing through the trees in the yawning darkness, plummeting hundreds of feet to the nearly frozen, snaking river far below.

God, no!

She stood on the brakes.

The crevasse beyond the treetops loomed.

One wheel found pavement.

Caught.

The back end of the Toyota shimmied.