The Complete Colony Series. Lisa Jackson

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      What the hell was it about Rebecca Ryan Sutcliff? Renee asked herself as she punched the accelerator of her Camry and slid through an amber light just before it turned red. She was headed west, ever west, merging onto Sunset Highway, a section of Highway 26.

      You’re running away, her mind insisted over the pain of a headache that was pounding at the base of her skull. “No,” she answered herself aloud as she flipped on her blinker and passed a yokel in an ancient truck that refused to go over forty, a truck not too many years newer than the pickup her father used to drive. She wasn’t running away from anything, she was running to what promised to be a new life; one that didn’t include her husband Tim and the Valley Star.

      What a two-bit rag. It kinda matched with her two-bit husband and her two-bit life. Well, it wasn’t good enough. None of it. Not now, not when she knew the brass ring was finally within her reach.

      She’d always been looking for a story, no, make that the story that would propel her to the big time, and thanks to Jessie Brentwood, Renee was about to make that leap. No one was going to stop her. Not a whining husband who had lost most of her inheritance in the stock market, nor an editor who couldn’t see her talents.

      And she wasn’t going to let strange mumbo-jumbo predictions and a feeling of persecution stop her, either. And what had she been thinking when, outside Blue Note, she asked Becca if they could get together sometime and talk things over? What had she expected from Hudson’s ex-girlfriend? Just because she kind of reminded Renee of Jessie—probably because of Hudson—didn’t mean she had any answers. Worse, Becca seemed to have her own problems dealing with Jessie’s disappearance.

      She slowed to sixty because of the drizzle and the fact that she really couldn’t afford another speeding ticket. That was the trouble, Renee thought, the rest of the world was cruising along at fifty-five and she was revved up to ninety. Sometimes it seemed that she was dragging everyone through life with her and they were all limp, dead weight.

      The rain poured down in earnest and she cranked up the speed of her squeaking wipers. They slapped away the drops and Renee wondered again about Becca. Hudson, it seemed, was taken with her all over again. Oh, yeah. Renee had witnessed it the other night at Blue Note. No big surprise that they were hooking up again, though Renee didn’t understand it.

      Becca was pretty enough. Streaked hair, light brown with pale highlights, large hazel eyes that hovered between green and gray, and a smile that showed off teeth that weren’t quite straight, probably even a little sexy. Her cheekbones were prominent, her eyebrows arched, and she had one of those long Audrey Hepburn necks. She was definitely his type. He always went for the blondish, mysterious-looking chicks.

      A flaw, in Renee’s opinion. But then her twin had many.

      The needle of her speedometer hit seventy-five, her tires hydroplaning on the slick asphalt before she noticed and slowed again. It was as if she couldn’t get to the damned beach fast enough. She checked her rearview mirror, afraid she might have blown past a cop and sure enough, another car was bearing down on her, one with bright headlights.

      Great.

      She slowed, not by braking, but by taking her foot off the gas until she was going a lawful fifty-three miles an hour and the car behind her slowed. Probably to run her plates.

      This was just getting better and better, as the Camry belonged to Tim. She steeled herself, practiced her smile and “Oh, dear me, Officer” routine, had her excuses all in a row, but no red and blue lights began to streak the night, no siren screamed at her to pull over. If anything, the vehicle behind her just hung back. Maybe he hadn’t clocked her and was waiting for her to speed up.

      Screw that!

      She pulled into the right-hand lane and sure enough, the guy following her did, too, tucking in behind a compact.

      Not a cop, then.

      Or at least not a cop interested in her.

      No lights. No siren.

      Maybe just her imagination, her sense of persecution. She plugged an old Springsteen CD in and watched as the compact swung off the highway at Hillsboro. Another few miles, past North Plains and Laurelton, and the СКАЧАТЬ