The Girl Who Wouldn't Stay Dead. Cassie Miles

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       Chapter One

       She had to wake up. Someone was trying to kill her.

      Her eyelids snapped open. Her vision was blurred. Every part of her body hurt.

      Emily Benton-Riggs inhaled a sharp gasp. The chilly night air pierced her lungs like a knife between the ribs. Slowly, she exhaled, then drew a breath again and tried to focus. She was still in the car but not sitting upright. Her little Hyundai had flipped, rolled and smacked into the granite side of a mountain at least twice on the way down, maybe more. The car had landed on the driver’s side.

      Likewise, her brain was jumbled. Nothing was clear.

      Even in her dazed state, she was glad to be alive—grateful and also a little bit surprised. The past few years of her life had moments of such flat-out misery that she’d come to expect the worst. And yet, recently, things seemed to be turning around. She liked her rented bungalow in Denver, and her work was satisfying. Plus, she’d just learned that she might be a very wealthy woman. I can’t give up. It’d take more than crashing through the guardrail on a narrow mountain road near Aspen and plummeting down a sheer cliff to kill her.

      Her forehead felt damp. When she pushed her bangs back and touched the wet spot above her hairline, her pain shot into high gear. Every twitch, every movement set off a fresh agony. Her hand came away bloody.

      Her long-dead mother—an angry woman who didn’t believe in luck or spontaneous adventure or love, especially not love—burst into her imagination. Her mom, with her wild, platinum hair and her clothes askew, took a swig from her vodka bottle and grumbled in harsh words only Emily could hear, “You don’t deserve that vast fortune. That’s why you’re dead.”

      “But I’m not,” Emily protested aloud. “And I deserve this inheritance. I loved Jamison. I did everything I could to stay married to him. It’s not my fault that he slept with...practically everybody.”

      Her voice trailed off. She never wanted to relive the humiliating final chapter of her marriage. It was over.

      “You failed,” her mother said with a sneer.

      “Go away. I’m not going to argue with a ghost.”

      “You’ll be joining me soon enough.” Unearthly, eerie laughter poisoned her ears. “Look around, little girl. You’re not out of the woods. Not yet.”

      Mom was right. Emily was still breathing, but her survival was not a sure thing.

      With her right hand, she batted the airbag. The chemical dust that had exploded from the bag rose up in a cloud and choked her. She coughed, and her lungs ached. When she peered through what was left of the windshield, which was a spiderweb of shattered safety glass, she saw boulders and the trunks of pine trees. Literally, she wasn’t out of the woods.

      With the car lying on the driver’s side, her perspective was off. She couldn’t tell if her Hyundai had careened all the way to the bottom of the cliff or was hanging against a tree halfway down. The headlights flickered and went dark. She saw steam rising from around the edges of the crumpled hood.

      In the movies, standard procedure dictated that when a car flew off the road, it would crash and burn. The idea of dying in a fire terrified her. Her gut clenched. I have to get out of this damn car. Or she could call for help. Desperately, she felt around for her purse. Her phone was inside. She remembered tossing her shoulder bag onto the seat beside her.

      She twisted her neck, setting off another wave of pain, and looked up. The passenger side had been badly battered. The door had been torn from its hinges. Her purse must have fallen out somewhere between the road and here. Through the opening where the door should have been, she saw hazy stars and a September crescent moon that reminded her of the van Gogh painting.

      Trying to grasp the edge of the roof on the door hole, she stretched her right hand as far as possible. Not far enough. She couldn’t reach. When she turned her shoulders, her left arm flopped clumsily inside the black blazer she’d worn to look professional at the will reading. The muscles and joints from shoulder to wrist screamed. Blood was smeared across her white shirt; she didn’t know if the gore came from her arm or the head wound matting her blond hair.

      A masculine voice called out, “Hey, down there.”

      She froze. The monster who had forced her off the road was coming to finish the job. Fear spread through her, eclipsing her pain. She said nothing.

      “Emily, is that you?”

      He knew her name. Nobody she’d met with in Aspen counted as a friend. She didn’t trust any of them. Somehow, she had to get out of the car. She had to hide.

      Carefully avoiding pain, she used her right hand to manipulate the left. The problem was in her forearm. It felt broken. If she’d known first aid, she might have fashioned a splint from a tree branch. Her mind skipped down an irrelevant path, wishing she’d been a Girl Scout. If she’d been a better person, she wouldn’t be in this mess. No, this isn’t my fault.

      She cursed herself for wasting precious moments by being distracted. Right now, she had to get away from this ticking time bomb of a car and flee from the man who wanted her dead. Holding her arm against her chest, she wiggled her hips, struggling to get free. When she unfastened the latch on the seat belt, the lower half of her body shifted position. The car jolted.

      With her right knee bent, she planted her bare foot on the edge of her bucket seat and pushed herself upward toward the space where the passenger door had been. The left leg dragged. Her thigh muscles and knee seemed to work, but her ankle hurt too much to put weight on it. Inch by inch, she maneuvered herself. Using her right arm, she pulled her head and shoulders up and out. The cold wind slapped her awake. She was halfway out, halfway to safety.

      Her car hadn’t crashed all the way down the cliff. Three-quarters of the way down, an arm of the forest reached out and caught her little car. Two giant pine trees halted the descent. The hood crumpled against the tree trunks. The back end of the car balanced precariously.

      “Emily? Are you down here?”

      The voice sounded closer. She had to hurry, to find a place to hide.

      She hauled herself through the opening and tumbled over the edge onto the ground. Her left leg crumpled beneath her. Behind her was the greasy undercarriage. The pungent stink of gasoline reminded her that she wasn’t out of danger.

      Unable to support herself on her knees, she crawled on her belly through the dirt and underbrush toward the security of the forest where she could disappear into the trees. Breathing hard, she reached a cluster of heavy boulders—a good place to pause and get her bearings. With her right arm, the only body part that seemed relatively unharmed, she pulled herself into a sitting posture, looking down at her car.

      Exhaustion and pain nearly overwhelmed her. She fought to stay conscious, clinging to the rocks as though these chunks of granite formed a life raft on the high seas. She heard a small noise. Not the fiery explosion she’d been expecting, it was only the snap of a dry twig. The sound filled her with dread.

      He was close.

      She had to run. No matter how much it hurt, she had to get to her feet. She struggled to stand but her injured leg was unable to support her. She sat down hard on the rock. A fresh stab of pain cut through her. Before she could stop herself, she whimpered.

      A silhouette of the man separated from the surrounding trees. He turned toward her. Please don’t see me. Please, please.

      “Emily, is that you?”

      Quickly, he came toward her. She hoped he’d kill her fast. She couldn’t take any more pain.

      He sat on the rock beside her. Starlight shone on his handsome face. She knew him. “Connor.”

      Gently