Mistress

Chapter 22

After a minute or two of panting like a desperate animal while I regain full consciousness, I pull myself onto the dock and lie flat. The rain’s lightened up a little, but it’s still coming down strong. I listen and hear nothing, but then again, the rain might be drowning it out.

I slither along the dock toward the boathouse and silently thank Steve for not having the light on. Maybe he’s not even at the lake right now.

Steve Sykes used to let me escape to his house whenever I could get away. I would assure Father I was training again, on a nice century ride somewhere-a hundred miles can take hours-and I’d sneak over and watch old movies for the afternoon. Steve would always leave the side door unlocked. But it’s been years. With any luck, old habits die hard.

I try the handle. It’s locked. It’s a glass-panel door, so I grab the canoe oar engraved with SYKES from over the top of the door and break out the windowpane by the door handle.

Sorry, Steve. Getcha back for that one.

I carefully reach in through the broken pane, unlock the door, and sneak into the quiet house. The side door opens onto the laundry room. I rummage quickly through the basket by the dryer and find dry clothes and slip on the flip-flops by the door. I peer around in the kitchen. The fridge is still right there by the door, and it looks like his old off-roading Jeep keys are still hanging there. At least that habit stuck around. I take the keys and creep back out the side door.

I don’t hear anything from outside except the rush of the wind and the beat of the rain, so I dash quickly over to the old Jeep, a 1986 CJ-7 with THIS END UP in big yellow block letters across the top of the windshield. Steve liked extreme sports before they were called extreme sports.

It’s been a long time since I drove a stick shift, but she roars to life, along with Brian Johnson of AC/DC singing “Back in Black,” and I have no trouble remembering how to crank up a manual transmission and let her rip. I floor it out of the driveway, kicking up gravel behind me. Thank God for the hardtop in this rain.

What are those guys with automatic weapons thinking right now? They don’t know, that’s what they’re thinking. Maybe they hit me and I died in the water. Maybe I’m still in the water, swimming somewhere, could be anywhere, they have no idea. Lake Anna’s an enormous lake. Probably they’ve given up on me.

I take Halls Drive up to a fork. The soft left will take me west. I slow down only slightly and follow the fork west, just as I see headlights to my right, the east-the direction of my cabin.

It’s them.

(This is when Mel Gibson, in some action flick, would say, We’ve got company. I always wanted to say something cool like that.)

I floor the gas and kick the old Jeep as hard as it can go, but now the headlights behind me have negotiated the fork and are bearing down on me. The beams are high. It’s probably an SUV. I can’t outrun it. I hear a staccato burst from behind me and see the flash of light from the automatic weapon, but the first round misses completely. I weave along the road, trying to be as unstable a target as possible while drilling the gas pedal to the floor.

The SUV closes ground on me and then my back window shatters and bullets rip into the passenger seat, thump-thump-thump, and the radio blows out just as Angus Young was starting into his guitar solo and the windshield takes two or three pops as well. I’m ducked as low as I can go and the wind is whistling in through the holes in the windshield and another staccato burst, rat-a-tat-tat, drums into the body of the vehicle and I know it’s any second now, any second, and the SUV is getting so close that they probably think they’re going to ram me and force me off the road and I veer left, to the far left of the road, and they’re staying along the right side, probably because the shooter needs a steady ride so he can aim and they probably like the angle, with them all the way on the right side of the road and me on the left, it makes it easier to shoot at me but guess what? it’s about to create a serious problem for them because-

This road is about to veer sharply to the right.

Bullets rip across my windshield and tear through the dashboard and I cut the steering wheel hard right and navigate the turn and pray that this Jeep doesn’t topple over, especially on a slick road, praying that the angle I’ve given myself will make up for the centrifugal force and the SUV behind me is completely out of position and I make the turn but the SUV slams on the brakes and it’s too little too late and I look in my rearview mirror but I don’t have one anymore so I crane my neck around while I keep driving forward and the SUV has…

Yes, it’s gone off the road, missing the curve and sending it into underbrush and, if there’s any justice, an unforgiving tree.

I let out a breath. You narrowly escaped again, Benjamin.

But the bell tolls for thee.