THURSDAY, 12:31 A.M.
GRANITE RIDGE CAMPGROUND
Harper’s bed jerked. Bumped. Vibrated. She stirred awake. Confusion rocked through her.
What in the world? She sat up on her elbows.
We’re moving? Emily, why didn’t you wait for me? She would much rather be in the truck riding than in the RV. Maybe Emily thought she needed the rest.
A scream from the other end of the RV alerted her. Emily wasn’t in the truck driving. Harper climbed from the bed and steadied herself against the wall as the camper rocked back and forth. She slid the pocket door open and remained in the doorframe for stability.
The camper bounced, and she fell forward. On the floor, Harper pushed to her knees. She looked up in the dark camper, grateful they had secured all the contents in the cabinets last night. All except the coffeepot. Something slid across the counter and crashed to the floor. The coffee pot?
“Emily! Where are you? Are you okay?”
“What’s happening?” Emily was on the floor too. She switched on a flashlight and crawled toward Harper.
“We’re moving. Our camper is moving!” Harper struggled to wrap her mind around it. “Someone’s driving the truck!”
“But why?”
How? Who? “I don’t know that, but it doesn’t matter. We have to get out.” She fought to gain her footing and finally stood.
The driver was going much too fast. Harper made her way to the door. “It’s moving fast, so we have to be careful jumping out.”
Whoever had stolen their truck—camper included—would have to slow down at some point. Stop signs. Traffic lights. Corners. Something. And that’s when Harper and Emily would be ready to act.
Except the door handle wouldn’t budge. Was it stuck? “Oh no.”
“Harper? What is it?” Terror edged Emily’s voice.
“The door won’t open. I don’t know if it’s jammed or someone locked it from the outside.”
“Someone can do that?”
“I don’t know. Didn’t you say it got stuck the other day and Mr. Stein fixed it?”
“I thought he fixed it.” Emily gasped for breath. “Okay, so plan B. The emergency escape window. We practiced this, remember?”
“No. We talked about it. But we never actually took that swan dive from the sofa through the window.” Or tried to slip one foot up and over and through the window while the other balanced on the furniture. She wasn’t 100 percent sure she could get her hips through that small window—the downside of going vintage.
“But we practiced taking the screen off, opening the window, and closing it again.” Emily’s voice had grown excited. Or frantic.
Harper almost laughed, but the camper swerved hard to the left and she hit the counter, her face slamming into a cabinet. Pain lanced through her. What happened to Emily? The flashlight beam had gone out.
“Are you okay?” Harper asked
“No. Let’s get out of here.”
Harper held on to anything she could find as she made her way toward the window. Whoever was driving was intentionally making it hard for them to move around.
And if he or she had somehow locked the door, what about the escape window over the sofa? Had they intentionally blocked that too?
Acid crept into her throat.
“We need to call for help,” Emily said.
Okay. Deep breath. This wasn’t a fire. They wouldn’t burn to death or suck in noxious gases and die. They could think this through calmly.
“I’ll go for the phones.” They were charging in the kitchen. “You make your way to the window and get it open.”
The camper continued to sway back and forth on the road. Harper thought she might have gotten her swaying camper legs when the camper hit a bump and she suddenly bolted into the air, knocking her head on the ceiling. Someone screamed.
Was that her or Emily? She didn’t care. She reached for the cell phones and yanked them from the chargers. “Got the phones. How are you doing on the window?”
“I can’t find the latch.”
They had to get out of there before the driver killed them. Would that be an accident? Or on purpose?
Granite Ridge Campground was located at the top of a granite ridge.
Emily grunted. “It won’t budge.”
Harper thrust her cell into her pocket. “Let me help you. You call 9-1-1 while I try. Maybe you’ll get a signal.”
As the RV moved and swayed, Harper tried to open the window as she balanced on the sofa Emily had rolled out to a bed. If only she had something she could use to smash through it. Then. The latch moved. They laughed in unison as if they were out of trouble.
Not yet.
Emily’s voice trembled as she spoke into the phone. “Granite Ridge Campground. Yes. Someone’s driving away with my camper with me in it! I can’t get out!”
The camper whipped to the right, jarring Harper’s hold. Emily screamed as they both slammed against the opposite wall. Something clattered.
“Em, are you okay?”
“I’m alive. And I want to stay that way. But I dropped the phone.”
This was an abduction or a murder in progress. No way Harper could let either of those things come to pass. Moonlight broke through the clouds. She shared a look with Emily. They were going to get out of this together.
Harper crawled onto the sofa bed and finished opening the window. “We can do this. We can fit through.” They had to. They couldn’t wait for someone to come to their rescue.
Why hadn’t someone stopped this maniac by now? A park ranger? Anyone? Someone should have noticed the dangerous driving.
Fear corded her neck and tightened. Maybe she and Emily couldn’t make it. The driver was going fast enough that the fall out of the camper could kill them.
Emily held on with one hand and swiped at her furious tears with the other. “I don’t understand why this is happening.”
“We’re getting out of here. Don’t think about why it’s happening right now.” She thrust her head out the window and held on. She took in the view.
And sucked in a breath.
Harper pulled her head back in to look at her sister.
“What’s the driver doing?” Emily asked. “Where are they taking us? I have a bad feeling. I mean a worse feeling. I think I’m going to throw up.”
Nausea roiled in Harper’s gut too. The driver was steering the camper along the switchbacks on a curvy mountain road. The most treacherous part. It wasn’t easily traversed, even in the daytime while driving slowly.
Others had died there before.
She and Emily, they wouldn’t be the first.
“We have to get out. Now!” Harper urged her sister forward toward the window. “You have to go feet first. You don’t want to land on your head.”
The road dipped. It might already be too late. Harper had a feeling the driver had already jumped from the truck and was letting momentum carry the vehicle and camper forward toward the deadly cliff’s edge. Was there any hope they could survive the drop from this camper?
“Go, Emily. I’ll hold your arms. I won’t drop you, I promise. If you can’t do this, then we’re both going to die.”
Emily climbed through the window, legs first. When she was halfway through, Harper grabbed her arms. The camper bounced up and Harper lost her grip. Emily disappeared from the window.
“Emily!”
Oh, Lord, please let her be okay. Let her survive this!
Harper climbed through the opening and positioned herself to drop from the window. Her sweats caught on the latch. No, no, no . . .
Squeezing her eyes shut, she prayed hard and shoved, ripping the sweats. Though she had planned to hang from the window and let herself drop, the camper bounced again, and Harper fell. She tried to roll when she hit the hard ground, pebbles cutting into her skin, asphalt scraping and gouging her.
The camper bounced violently as it tumbled over the cliff. Metal clanked and crashed.
She was hyperventilating.
She was alive.
But she wasn’t so sure nothing was broken. Every bone in her body ached. Her head pounded. Had her head wound ripped open? She’d be bruised all over, but nothing mattered except Emily.
“Emily!”
Harper crawled until she found her. “Emily,” she whispered.
Sirens resounded in the distance. Good. Emily’s call to 9-1-1 had been taken seriously.
Emily lay sprawled on the side of the road. Unmoving.
“Emily!” Tears spilled down Harper’s cheeks as she reached for her sister. Her hands shook as she looked for signs of life. Breath. A pulse. Something. Then she found a pulse. “Oh, thank God.”
Harper wasn’t sure what to do. She wanted to cradle her sister’s head while she waited for help, but she was afraid to move her. Instead, she rested her palms on Emily’s face. “It’s going to be okay, Em. You’re going to make it.”
She grabbed her cell from her pocket and called 9-1-1. After she explained the situation and their approximate location, the dispatcher informed Harper that EMTs and deputies had already been sent out with the first call and she wanted Harper to remain on the line until help arrived.
But that help was going to take far too long.
“Please tell them to hurry. I don’t know. Send a helicopter or something. My sister is badly hurt. I . . . I have to go.”
Her trembling fingers struggled to end the call, then find Heath’s stored number. She was grateful she’d put his number in her new phone. He lived out here somewhere close. Law enforcement might even still be at his ranch, given the explosion.
“Oh, Heath, please answer.”
The call went to voice mail. Her voice shaking, she did her best to leave a coherent message, but she couldn’t count on him getting it in time.
Harper took in her surroundings as she remained with Emily.
Had the driver gone over with the truck? Or was she right to believe that he had jumped out while slowing down at that last switchback, knowing the slope alone would carry the truck and camper right over? He might have fled the scene.
Or he could still be out there, watching.