Wake to Darkness by MAGGIE SHAYNE Page A

metaphors like a writer having a panic attack.
    And pretty soon I was dragging my sorry ass over the gravel on the shoulder of the road and onto the pavement. I saw shiny black shoes attached to legs that came running toward me, and I screamed.
    “Easy, miss, easy now. You’re okay.” The legs crouched, and I saw the uniform. A cop. Mason had sent the cavalry. I was safe. Thank God.
    * * *
    By the time Mason arrived on the scene there were three cruisers and an ambulance on the side of the road. He pulled over, spotted Rachel’s SUV at the bottom of a massive drop and damn near threw up.
    A big hand clapped his shoulder. Rosie. “Easy, Mace. She’s over in the ambulance, see?”
    Mason breathed again and jogged to the back of the ambulance. A medic was cleaning the blood from a small cut on the left side of her forehead, and she was wincing in pain—until she glimpsed him. Everything in her eased when she met his eyes. Made him feel ten feet tall when he saw that.
    “I need to talk to the detective,” she told the medic. “Can you give us a minute?”
    Mason had to force himself not to pull her off the stretcher and hug the crap out of her, because he didn’t know how badly she was hurt. He settled for touching her face with one hand, her shoulder with the other.
    “I’m sorry it took so long. I was doing a final check of that crime scene. Are you okay?”
    “I think so. Mason, it was him. It was the organ thief.”
    Shock jolted him in the chest. He’d thought it was a simple car accident. “What happened?”
    “He was in the backseat. He tried to jab me with a needle, and I—”
    “Easy, Rache. Easy now. We need to go slow. I need to get everything. This person was in your car with you?”
    She nodded, and he noticed her pupils were dilated. She was still shaken up.
    “Did he get out?”
    “I don’t know. I couldn’t see into the backseat and the hatch got ripped open, so I don’t know.”
    “Hold on. Okay?”
    He backed out of the ambulance, put his fingers to his lips and whistled. Two uniforms and Rosie gathered around him. “All right, we have a murder suspect who was inside the car before it went over. Fan out. Rosie, call it in, get a couple of roadblocks in place.”
    “We have a description, Mace?” Rosie asked. The other cops paused in what they were doing, awaiting his answer.
    He looked in at Rachel. She shook her head. “Dressed in black and wearing a ski mask.”
    He nodded. “Ski mask, that’s all we’ve got. Go.” He nodded at the two uniforms. “Check the car, but be careful. The suspect is armed and dangerous. And the car’s a crime scene, so don’t contaminate it. Check for the suspect, then tape it off.”
    The two men nodded and started down the slope.
    He moved back into the ambulance with Rachel. “I need to know how this person got into your car. Where were you?”
    “I was at the mall. But I locked it. I was careful.”
    He nodded. “Did you stop anywhere else before you headed up this road?”
    “Yeah. Subway. In the village.”
    “Did you lock the car then?”
    She thought back, lowered her head, then shook it slowly. “No. No, I was in a hurry to get up to Sandra’s to pick up Misty and—” Her head came up, eyes widening. “Misty! She’s alone, her and Myrt, at Sandra’s house.”
    “I already called her, the minute I saw where your text came from,” he said. “Figured she should know you’d been in an accident. She was fine. I sent a uniform up to keep her posted, and I stayed on the phone with her until he arrived, just to make sure she wouldn’t panic. She’s safe. Worried about you, though.”
    She nodded. “I should call her.”
    “Yeah, we’ll get to that. So you stopped at Subway. And then what?”
    She swallowed hard, her eyes meeting his. He felt her fear. Hated it, but felt every ounce of it. And that was a lot. She didn’t scare easily. She hadn’t been this scared even the last time a killer had stalked her.
    “I glimpsed this