No Exit by Taylor Adams 2

“Oh, hey.” Ashley stopped. “You … got a text message
back at the highway.”
The blue glow returned. He was reading her phone again.
Darby panicked. 9-1-1 must have sent a second text
message. Of course. The well-intentioned emergency
dispatcher had no way of knowing that Darby herself was
under duress, that her phone was now in the killer’s hand.
“From …” Ashley squinted. “From someone named …
Devon.”
Then he held the cracked iPhone out to her, and when her
eyes pulled into focus, whatever remained of Darby’s world
disintegrated.
It happened. Mom died.
“Ooh,” Ashley said. “Awkward.”
Then he broke her iPhone in half. “Keep walking.”
* * *
The front door shut like a gunshot.
Jay screamed when she saw Ed. Ashley grinned, all white
teeth, grabbing her by the collar and forcing her to look.
“Cool, huh?”
Ed Schaeffer was slumped in a sitting position under the
Colorado map, the front of his Carhartt shiny with dark blood.
He tilted his head up at them as they entered the room, and his
lips weakly quivered, like he was trying to speak.
“Don’t move, Eddie.” Sandi knelt beside him, trying to
wrap the right length of medical gauze around his ruined jaw.
The white first-aid box was open on the floor, its contents
scattered. “Don’t move, I’m trying to help you—”
Over her trembling hands, Ed’s eyes darted up to Darby
— a flash of recognition — and he tried again to speak, but
only managed a moaned gurgle. A mouthful of blood, ropy
with snakelike clots, squirted through his locked teeth and
splashed down into his lap.