Like the other great tragedy in her life, Anna Collins never saw this one coming.
Just minutes before midnight, a deer bounded out of the rain and darkness onto the isolated two lane highway directly into her path.
She’d been driving too fast, terrified and already out of control in her panicked state. So when she saw the deer, all she’d been able to do was react instinctively.
She slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel. Through the driving rain and slap of the wipers the doe’s huge eyes caught for an instant in the headlights, then it bolted, disappearing in the pines lining the road as the car skidded across the wet blacktop.
Anna turned the wheel hard, overcorrecting, sending up a shower of puddled rainwater. She caught the blur of pines and the steep face of a rocky cliff an instant before the large, heavy car left the pavement on the opposite side of the road, and plunged down the mountainside.
Mute with terror, she didn’t have time to screa ...
read full excerpt from Shadow Lake ebook
