Prologue
She gripped the steering wheel in fear as she calculated every move he made. For the last hour, he had held the gun in her direction. What if she jerked the car off the road? No. She wanted to live. Still, a car accident had to be better than what he would do to her. She had no idea where they were going.
“Pull over right up here.” He turned his hot breath on her. “Do it now.”
With as much ease as her trembling body allowed, she slowed the car and pulled to the side of the road. There hadn’t been another car for miles on this back road. The sun had disappeared as cloudy dark gray skies loomed ahead.
He cocked the gun toward her chest. “Get out.”
Her hands felt ice cold as she struggled to grasp the door handle.
“Come on,” he growled.
She yanked the door handle and scrambled out of the car to face her abductor.
The man waved the gun and yelled, “Start walking.”
Sticks and leaves crunched as they walked into the mass of trees. From a distance, she saw lightning streak across the sky. A cool breeze whipped through the trees, but it brought no comfort. Her heart raced as if she had just run a marathon. She choked back a sob. He was going to kill her.
To think how much she had trusted him. It never would have crossed her mind that he would hurt her. More lightning split the sky, followed by an intense rumble of thunder. The trees shook their limbs, as if taunting her for being so naive.
“Stop.”
She turned and noticed he’d cocked his head like he’d heard something. Was someone else out here?
He swung the gun an inch from her temple. “Get down.”
“What?”
“Get on your knees,” he snarled.
She fell on her knees, feeling the earth beneath her. Her heart lurched as the thunder roared like an angry lion above their heads. Big drops of rain began to crash down around them. She shut her eyes tight, not believing this was her fate. “Please, God, help me,” she prayed fervently.
When she opened her eyes, an answer lay near her, barely covered by leaves. She glanced up at him. His eyes had grown wilder as he paced around her. He seemed to be having a conversation, but she couldn’t understand a word he was saying. The rain was falling harder now, soaking her clothes. She peered down at the ground again. Why not? What did she have to lose? She had to do something.
She scooped the smooth rock up from the muddy ground. Her dormant softball skills kicked in as she homed in on his hand. Not waiting another second, she swung the rock with all her might.
The rock smacked him square on the hand, and he dropped the gun. “No, you . . .”
She leapt forward like a track runner and headed into the trees. As she ran, the oddest memory of a Sunday school lesson entered her mind. The one about Lot’s wife. God told her not to look back, but she did and lost her life.
His voice bellowed behind her.
“Don’t look back,” she told herself as she ran. “Don’t. Look. Back.”