Postcard killers

Chapter 123

The stolen mercedes WAS speeding over a bridge with glittering bright blue water on both sides.

Smal, wooded islands strewn with light gray rocks rose on the left and right.

"Do I turn off up here?" Mac asked, leaning in toward the windshield.

"What do you think?"

Sylvia looked down at the road atlas and started to feel sick. She always got carsick when she tried to read on a car trip.

"Left onto the two-seven-two," she said grouchily. "Somewhere on the other side of this lake."

She fixed her eyes on the horizon, the point where the road disappeared in the distance, just as her mother had taught her.

Mac slowed down.

"There's no need to be so miserable about it," he said. "This was your idea, after al. I'm doing the best I can."

She swal owed and glanced at him, leaning close and giving him a quick kiss on the ear.

"Sorry, darling," she cooed. "You're driving bril iantly."

She ran her hand lazily along the dashboard. There was no longer any 165 reason to hide their fingerprints or DNA. On the contrary, it was time to let the world know their message.

Soon they would be able to sit back and enjoy what they had achieved.

Mac braked, signaled, and turned off to the left. They drove past fields with sheep and cattle, past thick groves of trees.

"It's kind of beautiful in its own way, don't you think?" Sylvia said, putting the atlas away. She wasn't planning to look at it again. They were almost there now.

Mac didn't answer.

The landscape opened up around them as they drove through a smal town. To the left were a few houses, to the right a farm. They passed a row of what was once laborers' housing, a school, and an apartment block. Then they were out the other side. So much for civilization on this road trip.

They drove on in silence.

Mac was looking intently through the windshield.

"What do you think about that one?" he said, pointing to a farm on the edge of the forest.

Sylvia leaned forward to check the place out. "Could be. Maybe."

Mac slowed down, then stopped the car. "Yes or no?"

The farmyard seemed quiet and deserted. Al the windows and doors were shut. They could see an old Volvo behind a barn, a sedan that must have been the height of style in the early 1980s.

"This'l do," Sylvia said, taking a quick look behind her.

No cars in sight.

"Quickly, now," she said. "We need to be really careful from here on. No mistakes."