This would be the last time she did a book signing in some small town no one had ever heard of. She needed to speak to her publicity manager and let him know that just because a town has a bookstore, it is not a major metropolis. Sure, she might seem like a high-maintenance diva by making such a request, but she didn't care.
It was 10:35 at night and Delores Manning was driving down a two-lane road in some long-forgotten neck of the woods in Iowa. She was well aware that she had made a wrong turn about ten miles back because it was shortly after that when her GPS had crapped out. No signal. Of course. It was just the cherry on top of what had been a miserable weekend.
Delores had been on this stretch of road for at least ten minutes. She'd seen no stop signs, no houses, nothing. Just trees and a surprisingly gorgeous night sky overhead. She was seriously thinking about just stopping in the middle of the road and pulling a U-turn.
The more she thought about it, the more that seemed like a good idea.
She was about to hit her brake pedal to come to a stop when a popping sound filled the car. Delores cried out in fear and surprise, but her scream was drowned out by the sudden thunk of the car as it seemed to drop several inches and then careened hard to the left.
She managed to jerk the car back into a somewhat straight course but realized that she could not fight against it-there was too much drag. Giving up the fight, she managed to guide the car to the side of the road, parking it a little more than half off of the pavement. She cut her hazard lights on and let out a heavy sigh.
"Shit," she said.
That sounded like a tire, she thought to herself. And if that's the case…hell, I don't even remember if there's a spare in the trunk. That's what I get for taking this deathtrap of a car with me everywhere. You're about to be a bigshot author, girl. Spring some money on planes and rental cars every now and then, huh?
She popped the trunk release, opened the door, and stepped out into the night. There was a nip to the air, as winter was bearing down on the Midwest, sneaking in behind fall. She pulled her coat tight to her body and then pulled her cell phone out. She was not at all surprised to see the No Service reading; she'd been seeing it continuously for the last twenty minutes or so, ever since her GPS app had stopped working.
She looked at her tires and saw that both the front and the rear on the driver's side were flat. More than that, they were pancaked. She saw something glimmering out of the front tire and dropped to a knee to see what it was.
Glass, she thought. Really? How did glass pop my tires?
She looked to the back tire and saw several large shards of it sticking through. She glanced back down the road and could see no signs of anything. But that meant nothing because the moon was mostly hidden behind the treetops and it was dark as hell out.
She went to the trunk, already knowing that anything she found would be pointless. Even if there was a spare back there, she needed two.
Furious and a bit scared, she slammed the trunk, not even bothering to check. She grabbed her phone and, feeling like an idiot, scrambled up onto the back of the car. She held her phone up, hoping for just a single bar of service.
Nothing.
Don't freak out, she thought. Yes, you're in the middle of nowhere. But someone will come by eventually. All roads lead somewhere, right?
Unable to believe the way this weekend had gone, she got back in her car, where the heater was still doing its work. She angled her rearview mirror so she'd see any headlights approaching from behind and then looked ahead to keep an eye out for any coming straight ahead.
As she ruminated on the failed book signing, the small publicity mix-up, and her most recent trouble of having two blown tires on the side of the road, she saw headlights approaching from ahead. She'd only been waiting for about seven minutes, so she counted herself lucky.
She cracked her door open, providing the overhead light to join the already blinking hazards lights. She stepped out and stayed close to the car, flagging down the approaching truck. She was instantly relieved when she saw that it was slowing down. It veered over into her lane and parked nose to nose with her. The driver switched on his hazards and then stepped out.
"Hey there," said the forty-something man who stepped out of the truck.
"Hey," Delores said. She sized him up, still too pissed at the situation to be cautious of a random stranger who had pulled over so late at night to help her.
"Car trouble?" he asked.
"Tons of it," Delores said, gesturing to her tires. "Two blown tires at once. Can you believe it?"
"Oh, that's terrible," he said. "Have you called Triple A or a garage or anything?"
"No service," she said. She almost added I'm not exactly from around here but then decided not to.
"Well, you can use mine," he said. "I usually get at least two bars out here."
He stepped forward, reaching into his pocket for his phone.
Only it was not a phone he pulled out. She was actually very confused at what she was seeing. It made no sense. She couldn't figure out what it was and-
Suddenly, it was coming at her face, very quickly. A split second before she was struck, she saw the shape and shine of what he had slipped over his fingers.
Brass knuckles.
She heard the sound of them striking her forehead, felt a flash of pain, and then a moment later her knees buckled, and she felt herself collapsing onto the hard road. The last thing she was aware of was the man reaching down for her almost caringly, his headlights shining in her eyes, before the world went black.
