Now he felt at a dead end, the next step as obscure and dark as the woods on either side of him.

He hoped Earl had fared better today. He patted his cellular phone in the breast pocket of his shirt, wishing he knew Earl’s number, which lay safely buried in the wallet he was sitting on and would be hell to get out. No matter. He’d be home soon. The traction felt more secure now that he hogged the center of the highway, and he gently eased his speed up to forty miles an hour.

Settling back, he watched the sweep of flakes across his windshield as Krall drifted into another song. She seemed to be whispering it into his ear.

“… I get along without you very well…”

A loud thwack sounded on his right, something stung the side of his face, and the glass immediately in front of him shattered into a silvery web of cracks around a small black hole.

“Jesus!” He jumped in fright against the restraints of his seat belt and inadvertently floored the accelerator. The Jeep lurched ahead, immediately swiveling to the left. He instinctively jammed on the brakes, and felt the staccato pump of the antilock system, but too late. In the snow-spotted blaze of his headlights, he glimpsed the edge of the road as it flew under him and the hood of his car nose-dived down a ten-foot embankment toward a ravine of open water lined with rocks. Amidst a deafening bam of impact and crunch of crumpling metal, he flew forward against the chest strap of his seat belt only to be pounded backward by the airbag exploding out of the steering wheel.

He felt he’d been hit by a giant boxing glove and struggled to breathe. After a few seconds that felt like minutes, he managed to suck in a breath.

He sat in total silence except for the howling of the wind and the occasional ping from the remains of his motor as it cooled down. Though the engine had cut out, the dash lights remained on. He brought his hand up to his stinging cheek and felt it covered with tiny sharp fragments. He looked over to the passenger door, and instantly a searing pain shot through the corner of his eye. “Shit!” he screamed, covering it with his palm, but not before he saw a pattern of splintered glass around a central hole identical to the one in front.

He’d been shot at! One of those fucking drunk hunters had taken a shot at him.

The burning in his eye grew worse, but fury overruled pain. He snapped open his safety belt, and after a couple heaves with his shoulder against the door, managed to push it open and crawl out. “You fucking asshole!” he hollered at the woods on the other side of the road where the shot had come from. “I could have been killed!”

A steady rush of wind through the trees, and the soft hiss of flakes striking the ground amplified the silence.

“You son of a bitch, come and help me. I’ve got glass in my eye.”

No answer.

Christ, would the shooter just run away? “Help me, dammit!”

Nothing.

Son of a bitch.

Still cupping his injured eye, he squinted with the left at the damaged Jeep.

The right high beam, still shining bright, faced straight down into a shallow stream of water that he only then realized he was standing in. The ambient light showed him the front wheel on his side of the vehicle had become part of the doorframe. And he could smell gasoline, a lot of it. Pushing off from where he’d been leaning on the hood, he turned and started to climb back up toward the highway. But his boot slipped on a rock, and he pitched forward into the water, landing on his hands and knees. “Goddamn it,” he yelled, the pain in his eye trebling to the point he hardly noticed the burning cold up to his wrists and thighs. He quickly got to his feet and jammed his fingers under his arms, where they continued to burn. Some water ran down his legs into his boots, soaking the lower half of his trousers, but the all-important feet and toes stayed mostly dry.

“You’ve got to help me!” he hollered one more time, knowing the gutless creep had probably run off, saving his own skin rather than facing up to his brainless act. He didn’t need his help anyway, he thought, reaching in his shirt pocket for his cell phone.

It was gone.

Oh God, he thought, looking down where he stood. By the reflected glow of the headlight, he saw the end of it sticking a half inch out of the water. It had fallen out when he fell.

He snatched it up and flipped it open.

Dead.

He heard a soft whump behind him, and a sudden orange glow came from beneath the Jeep.

Ignoring the pain in his eye, he started to run along the streambed. If it blew, he’d get a backful of steel.

He cut right, and started scrambling up rocks coated in snow. He reached the road and, crouched low, made a beeline for the far side, slipping as he ran.

The Jeep exploded just as he reached the far ditch. He threw himself facedown on the snow-covered dirt and heard bits of metal fly over his head. Peeking through his fingers with his good eye, he saw the entire forest light up in the glow, the trees and glittering ground between cast in flickering gold.

That’s when he saw him.

In a growth of young birch a man stood watching, as casually as if at a bonfire, his eyes fixed on the burning car, gun held at the ready across his chest. The peak of a camouflaged hunting cap hid his face.

Mark’s insides crawled toward his throat.

What kind of creep would deliberately shoot someone off the road, then hang around watching?

A very dangerous one.

The initial burst of light subsided, throwing the interior of the woods into darkness.

Mark riveted his gaze in the direction where he’d seen the man. Could the guy be waiting to take another shot, the initial one intended to hit him after all? He’d obviously ignored the shouts for help.

No, don’t go overboard here. The man’s hanging around didn’t necessarily mean he intended to fire again or meant to seriously injure him in the first place. The guy could be watching to make sure he got out okay. Probably he hadn’t even expected the car would blow up, and was now shitting bricks, not knowing whether his “prank” had ended up killing someone.

Not that he, Mark Roper, was about to put the asshole’s mind to rest by standing up to show he’d gotten safely away.

Metal groaned as it twisted in the heat, lightbulbs blew apart with loud popping noises, and a sickening perfume of burning paint, melting plastic, and rubber filled the air.

But try as he might, Mark couldn’t ignore the darker possibilities running through his head. Icy rivulets of melted snow dripped down his back, and his eye throbbed more fiercely. The man could be a certified crazy. Having taken a potshot and done this much damage, he might decide to finish off his prey.

Or an even worse scenario: This was no random act, and Mark had been deliberately ambushed.

After all, in Chaz Braden he had an enemy with reason to want him out of the way. But how could that asshole or anyone else have known to lie in wait for him on this road at this time? No one followed him on the way out to Nell’s. There hadn’t been another car on the road.

He continued to stare into the forest. Had the man with the gun seen him run to this hiding spot?

Maybe not. He’d bent low and dashed to the shadows of the ditch before the blast illuminated the place he’d crossed.

But the guy would only have to check around the remains of his Jeep to find boot prints in the snow. What if the idiot took a notion to follow him?

Time to get farther away.

He ran along the ditch. After a hundred yards, repeated spills into a creek that meandered under the snow had him soaking wet. As he put more distance between him and where the man had been in the woods, the wind cut through his clothing, making him shiver. He’d soon be in big trouble with hypothermia if he stayed out in this for very long.