The Property Virgin: And The House with a Dark Secret.

Chapter 2

The Journey

Driving along the highway skirting the Sierra Mountain Range, I recalled squealing with delight when the phone call came through.

"They've accepted your offer," Roberto had said.

The weeks that had passed since then had seemed like a lifetime. Squinting at my gas gauge, I was almost out of gas. For all my planning and packing, in the excitement, I had forgotten to fill up the tank. I'd long since left LA behind. With the GPS map on my phone indicating that there was still twenty miles more to go to get to my new home, and low on gas, a nervous tick started twitching in my left eyelid. Country music blasted through the speakers. Not my usual type of music, but it seemed apt for where I was heading. That was until a song started with lyrics reminding me that I was still bitter and hurt that my relationship had ended. The needle on the gauge was now pointed to red. Switching off the radio, I glanced in my rearview. There was no sign of the van belonging to the furniture movers that I had hired, just a white SUV that had been a distance behind me for some time. Not that it worried me. The highway was the only one to get to where anyone was heading.

Easing off the gas pedal to conserve fuel, my heart fluttered. I tried to remind myself that eventually, the movers would catch up with me if I ran out of gas. That edged out my trepidation at thoughts of my gang of friends inviting themselves to a decorating party for the weekend. I'd wanted to say no, having decided to leave them behind, but I hadn't had the strength to deny them a visit.

A few miles down the road, and glancing at the fuel dial, I was now running on fumes with the needle off the gauge. I snatched a look in my rearview, with my palms now stuck to the steering wheel with sweat. The SUV was still the same distance behind me, which I thought odd, since I'd lowered my cruising speed to conserve what little gas fumes were left.

Reaching out to my phone on the cradle, I tried to reset it to show gas stations on the route, when a call came through with a number I didn't recognize, and without thinking, I accepted the call.

"Helen."

I immediately closed the call, recognizing Steve's voice right away, sending me into a blind rage. Before the gas dilemma, my mind had been churning over the situation with Steve, my ex-boyfriend. He'd been battering me with texts to get back together since I started to switch off my phone when his number appeared. That situation took my mind in the direction that he could be following me and phoning from the white SUV. It was some relief when I looked ahead and noticed a gas station sign. Glancing in my rearview, the white SUV had pulled over.

The gas station wasn't one of those franchised modern setups. The main building was an old wooden shack, with a row of car wrecks to the left. To the righthand side there were two recovery vehicles, and a wooden bench, with three guys in overalls, passing the time of day.

One of them rose to his feet to the sound of a bell that I must have triggered with my wheels. He walked over with a limp as I stopped next to a gas pump. The guy looked to be in his late sixties.

"What'll it be, regular, or regular?" he said and snickered.

"I guess regular if that's all you have. It's all I need."

"Waiting for a delivery. We have diesel, but I guess you won't be wanting that?" he said, and chuckled.

Can't say I was expecting service, but I wasn't about to complain. I smiled his way as I handed him my keys.

"Fill her up."

"You from LA?" he asked.

"Yeah, how'd you guess?"