Mortal Pursuit

77

Trish lunged for the steering wheel.

Out of reach.

The wall of pines rushed closer. The horn blared.

She stretched between the bucket seats. Her groping hand closed over the wheel and wrenched it hard to the left.

Scream of tires.

The van skidding.

Trees blurring past the windshield.

Rattle of branches, shatter of glass. Forked fingers thrust through a side window, then whipped away.

The van careened into the middle of the road, still speeding at sixty, slammed by every rut and pothole, the shocks creaking like old mattress springs.

She had to get Tyler’s boot off the accelerator.

Grunting with strain, she squeezed into the front compartment. Her wounded leg pulsed with angry flare-ups of pain. The bandage might have come loose; she thought she was bleeding again.

The driver’s seat bucked and wobbled, the frame shattered. Roughly she jostled it, the open handcuff dangling from the locked cuff on her right wrist, a bauble on a charm bracelet, coruscating in the dashboard’s light.

With a gasp of effort she shoved the broken seat all the way back, then crowded next to Tyler and pried him from the wheel, silencing the horn.

Even in death, he wouldn’t let up on the gas. The speedometer crawled toward seventy.

She kicked his right leg until his boot lifted off the pedal.

The road curved again. She knew this spot. Intersection with Skylark Drive.

Kneeling on the edge of the driver’s seat, grappling with the wheel, she steered through a shrieking turn.

The van barreled north on Skylark. Toward the Kent estate.

She tried to find the brake, and then Tyler inclined sideways, his head in her chest, the blood-matted ponytail bristling on her chin like a wet paintbrush.

Get him out of the seat, out of the seat.

Reaching across the body, she threw open the door. Snatched the Glock from his slack fingers, jammed it in her waistband, pushed him away, and another sharp curve flashed out of nowhere.

She grabbed the wheel, swinging the van to the right.

Inertia tugged Tyler through the doorway. As he was sliding out, she remembered his ammo pouch. She fumbled at it, hoping to grab a spare magazine-too late.

Tyler fell, bouncing and flopping on the road, then rolled away in a confusion of limbs.

She twisted upright and saw the double yellow line whip into another switchback coil.

Spin of the wheel, the van slewing, a cloud of gravel pelting the chassis, and then the road straightened and she pumped the brake pedal.

The speedometer dipped to fifty. She kept it there. Still a reckless speed, but she couldn’t afford caution, not now.

Momentarily she took her hand off the wheel to check Tyler’s Glock.

Empty.

Lilith’s ammo pouch might contain a spare mag, but there wasn’t time to stop the van and climb into the back.

No medals for quitters.

She would go in unarmed.