Blind Pursuit

26

The windshield exploded. The hood popped open as the Ford’s front end caved in. That hideous grinding noise was the sound of the van punching into the passenger side like a mailed fist.

Erin was conscious of none of it. Her sole awareness was of white, a field of white, endless white, expanding before her, swallowing her up with a lover’s sigh.

The airbag, erupting out of the steering wheel to cushion the collision’s impact.

It caught and held her. Dazed, she lay in its soft folds, a captured insect in a napkin.

A heartbeat later the bag automatically deflated. She fell back against the headrest, blinking at a whirl of stars.

She wasn’t dead. Didn’t think she was even hurt. The airbag had saved her.

Did the van have an airbag?

Her gaze ticked to the rearview mirror.

The van’s front end loomed impossibly close. A zigzag crack bisected the windshield. Behind the glass, movement. Her abductor, pulling himself upright.

He’d been thrown sideways in the crash, but he wasn’t dead, wasn’t even unconscious.

Why couldn’t he have cracked open his head on the dashboard, flown through the windshield, broken his neck? Something, anything, it didn’t matter what, just so he’d been stopped and she could be safe.

No time to dwell on that. He’d survived, and now he was groping on the floor of the van for some item he’d dropped.

The gun, of course.

Couldn’t miss her at this range.

She fumbled at the door handle, wrenched the door ajar, pulled herself out. Light-headedness made her stumble.

Loose desert soil sank under her boots. She staggered forward, slipping and sliding on scattered rocks strewn like ball bearings in her path.

Steam hissed from under the sedan’s folded hood. She nearly fell again, caught herself by grabbing the car’s front panel, then jerked her hands away. Hot.

Behind her, movement in the front seat of the van. He was leaning out the side window, the pistol in his hand.

Down.

She flung herself on hands and knees at the front of the car, then froze, waiting tensely for the pistol’s report.

Nothing happened. She’d ducked in time. He couldn’t hit her with the wreckage of the car blocking his aim.

Gasping, she clambered over the saguaro, prone in the glare of the Ford’s one remaining headlight, its arms outstretched as if in a silent plea. The hundreds of spiny needles encrusting the fallen giant poked and jabbed her, spotting her legs with pinprick dabs of blood.

Then she was half running, half crawling toward the road, afraid to rise fully for fear of making herself a target, afraid to stay on all fours because her progress that way was too slow.

At the edge of the road she dared a backward glance, expecting to see the man with the gun racing after her out of the gloom.

Astonishingly, he was still in the van. She saw him pushing on the driver’s door with no response. The frame must have buckled slightly, wedging the door shut.

He gave up on trying to open it and began to slide over to the passenger side.

For the moment he was distracted, and she was probably out of his range.

Run.

She sprinted across the empty road, toward the Exxon station two hundred yards ahead.

Whoever was in there must have heard the crash. Might be on the phone already, requesting an ambulance.

She didn’t need an ambulance. She needed cops.

“ Help!” Her lungs strained to find the air necessary for a shout. “Police! Call the police!”

When she glanced over her shoulder once more, the van’s passenger door was swinging open.

Where was the attendant? How long did it take to phone 911, anyway? A man on the night shift ought to have a gun behind the counter, ought to be out here now, protecting her.

She reached the asphalt court of the service station. The office was straight ahead, separated from her by two floodlit fuel islands.

One of her boots trod on a cable near the full-service island. Inside the building, a bell rang.

She cut between two of the gas pumps, avoiding a tangle of hoses that threatened to trip her up. As she sprinted for the self-service island, she risked another look over her shoulder.

He was sprinting after her now, the gun in his hand. She glimpsed a flash of metal in the waistband of his pants-another pistol? How many guns did he have?

Across the second island. Glass door ahead, framing a lighted snack shop.

She nearly flew into the door, slammed her palms against the glass at the last second to stop herself, then grabbed the pull-bar and jerked it violently.

The door didn’t open.

Locked.

No, not again, not another locked door.

Her fists hammered the door. The ghost image of her reflection, caught in the glass and staring wild-eyed at her, was a mask of frenzy and terror and despair.

“Let me in, he’s going to kill me, let me in! ”

But no one let her in, and abruptly she realized that no one would.

The station was closed. Despite appearances, it had been shut down for the night.

Through the glass she could see the self-contained world of the snack shop, invitingly safe and friendly. Candy carousels, magazine racks, maps and map books, microwave oven, coffee maker-everything neat and orderly and heartbreakingly normal, but not a human being on duty anywhere.

Nobody had heard the crash, and nobody had called for an ambulance, and nobody would open the door, because nobody was here. The lights had been left on by mistake or activated by some timer mechanism’s glitch.

The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was alone, utterly alone, and her abductor had reached the edge of the service court.

She ran.

There was no place to go, nowhere to hide, but she ran anyway, thinking wildly that she could give him the slip somehow, duck into a rest room or huddle behind a trash bin-crazy thoughts, hopeless, everything was hopeless and she was certain to die.

She rounded the corner of the building, then stopped short, staring in amazement at what was simultaneously the most unexpected and the most obvious thing in the world.

A pay phone. Well, of course. Every gas station had one.

For a moment, shock made her stupid. She dug in her pants pockets for some change, knowing she didn’t have any. Then she remembered that a 911 call required no deposit.

She yanked the handset off the plungers, heard a dial tone-it worked, actually worked — then stabbed the push buttons with a shaking finger.

Even as she dialed, she wondered what the hell she was doing. Response time to her call would be a minimum of four minutes.

Ringing on the line.

True, the police couldn’t arrive fast enough to save her. But perhaps they didn’t have to. If she gave her name, said she’d been kidnapped, described the van and the approximate location of the ranch, then her abductor couldn’t hope to avoid identification and arrest.

A second ring. Still no answer.

Was he sufficiently rational to refrain from killing her merely because he couldn’t hope to get away with it? Only one way to find out.

Third ring.

“Come on, answer!”

Scuff of shoes nearby. He was closing in.

By all logic she should abandon the phone and run.

But she couldn’t hope to outdistance him, and somebody had to answer soon.

Fourth ring.

He turned the corner. His silhouetted figure, looming huge against the starry sky, expanded to fill up her world.

The pistol-at least she thought it was the pistol-came up fast, the muzzle thrust at her face.

She spun away, nearly dropping the phone, and a coolly dispassionate female voice spoke into her ear. “Pima County Emergency Services.”

“ I’ve been kidnapped, my name is-”

Agony in her neck. Blinding pain. Her mouth wouldn’t work. Her breath was frozen.

Shot. She’d been shot. Oh, Christ, he’d shot her in the neck Then she heard the sizzle of electricity, felt the pinch of metal, voltage singing in every muscle and nerve.

Not the pistol. The stun gun.

Her jaws clamped shut. The handset fell from her grasp.

A buzzing roar rose in her brain, and she was gone.

Michael Prescott

Blind Pursuit