Pied Piper

CHAPTER 79

LaMoia drove east on I-90, well over the speed limit, maintaining a decent lead on the surveillance cars that trailed behind him. He cringed as the rain lessened to sheets of gray mist, for he feared the Nissan would be seen to have taken the place of the Taurus, at which point the surveillance net was certain to collapse upon him en force.

Dividing his attention between the road ahead of him and the cars behind, he thought for a moment about the road of life he traveled, and how little time he spent thinking about the future. His affair with Sheila Hill had awakened him to wanting more than raw physical relations, and he considered putting some distance between that relationship and his next, to solidify his notion of John LaMoia. In the past, it had been one bed to the next, one pretty face to the next in a long chain of women that rarely went broken by more than a week or two. The damn kidnapping case was getting to him, he decided at last. He wanted children. A family. A future outside of himself. He was, for the first time in his adult life, tired of John LaMoia. He didn’t like himself.

The red flashing lights appeared in his rearview mirror simultaneously, one vehicle directly behind him, the other partially blocking the highway’s center lane. It felt as if they had gained on him in a matter of seconds, pedal to the floor. He stretched it out for half a mile, letting them sweat whether or not they faced a high-speed chase. Then he signaled and pulled over.

He thought the signal a nice touch. Just wait, he thought, until they find out who they’ve pulled over. He wanted to see their faces. He could hardly wait.