steadied. There was a terrible burning just above his shoulder and he could feel a wet, pulsing heat along his scalp where bleeding continued—wounds left behind by Josiah’s shotgun butt. The pain in his skull was lost between the headache that had been building all morning and the impact of the gun.
He was a hundred yards from Josiah Bradford’s truck when the tires spun and it pulled down the gravel drive and toward the road with Claire inside. Eric stopped moving and screamed at them to stop, but the truck flashed through the trees and was gone from sight for a moment. Then it appeared again, marked by a shriek of tires as Josiah made a left turn out onto the road and sped south. Eric stood in the field and screamed until the truck was gone.
The wind blew up in a sudden commanding gust and pushed him sideways, and that got him moving again. The air temperature seemed to have dropped ten degrees, and it was as dark in the field now as it had been in the trees.
Up ahead he could see two vehicles remained—a white sedan and a twisted black mess that had once been Kellen’s Porsche. It was upside down now, demolished, but the white car was upright and looked functional. He ran toward it. Made it to within thirty feet before his eyes took in the splash of red across the hood and then dropped to the grass below it. What he saw there took his legs. He stumbled and fell, landing on his hands and knees in the mud.
There was a body in front of the white car. A huddled, blood-soaked mass.
He got up and moved forward, unable to take a breath, the world seeming to go still and silent around him despite the raging wind. There was so much blood. So much…
It was Josiah’s partner. Edgar Hastings’s grandson. He’d been shot in the left side of his torso, had a massive, ragged hole blown out of him. It looked nothing like a gunshot wound. More like something chopped away with an axe. After he’d gotten close enough for recognition, Eric stumbled away from the body as if it could stand up and hurt him.
There had been only one shot. Right? He felt sure of that, and now he was sure of what that shot had accomplished. But Claire wasn’t here, which meant that she was in the truck with Josiah Bradford—a man who’d just murdered his own friend.
“No,” he said aloud. “Damn it, no.”
He circled around the body and came to the white car, jerked the door open, and looked inside. No key in the ignition. Who had driven it here? Josiah was gone in the truck, so that probably meant the dead man, Danny, had driven this car.
No time to hesitate. He had to move fast, just do it without thinking.
He crossed to the body and knelt beside it, felt bile rise in the back of his throat, squeezed his eyes shut and reached with one of his shaking hands toward the blood-soaked jeans. He felt for the pocket, almost shouting when his fingers touched warm, wet blood, and pushed his hand inside.
The keys were there.
Forty minutes after the first tornado of the day touched down near Orangeville, the third made contact in Martin County, at the point where the Lost River emptied into the east fork of the White River. The funnel cloud tore into the riverbank and then blew northeast, cutting a straight line across the Lost River’s snaking course, as if it intended to follow it all the way upstream. Then the storm ran into the hollows of the Hoosier National Forest, two natural wonders colliding, and lost its strength in the uneven wooded terrain. It was as if, one spotter said, the forest had swallowed it.
Anne had been focused on the storm reports, listening to the arrival of this third tornado and quite certain that it would not be the last, that the valley was in the midst of a cluster outbreak now, when the Orange County dispatcher cut in on her.
“Ma’am? Mrs. McKinney? Detective Brewer thinks he has the truck.”
“He does?”
“A white Ford Ranger? That sound right? It’s a little pickup truck?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it came up to Josiah Bradford’s house and then pulled a U-turn. The officer is following it now. He’s got the lights and siren on but the driver isn’t responding.”
“That’s it,” Anne said excitedly. “That’s him. Tell him to be careful. There’s dynamite in that truck!”
“He’s been advised.”
“Is there anyone else in the truck?”
“He can’t tell.”
“She should be with him. She should be inside.”
“I understand that. I’ve advised to exercise caution.”
“I don’t know if that’s a strong enough word,” Anne said. “It’s going to be hard to stop that truck without…”
Her words trailed off. She didn’t want to voice the possibility.
“I understand,” the dispatcher said.
Josiah barely pulled the U-turn off. The right-side wheels slid off the pavement and into the grass but the four-wheel drive spun him free and then he was moving again, away from the cop.
Maybe this guy was intending to stop Josiah just to ask what he knew about the house. Maybe he was just going to offer a warning about the storm…
The siren came on then, and such thoughts disappeared. The cop was in pursuit, had gone into it immediately, and that meant he was reacting to the sight of Josiah’s truck, and not simply to his behavior.
He was going to have to think fast now, damn it, because his little Ranger was not going to outrun that Crown Vic. If the dumb son of a bitch started shooting at him or tried to force a collision, he’d be in for one hell of a surprise when the truck blew a mile into the sky. Only problem with that, Josiah’s load was intended for another target, and he was going to get it there. It was the last task he had, and he could not fail.
That was going to require some time, though, time he couldn’t buy as long as this damn cop stayed in pursuit. He dropped his hand to the stock of the shotgun, considering his options. He couldn’t fire the shotgun from the moving truck with any accuracy and he wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t blow the dynamite. Far as he knew, the stuff required a direct electrical charge to safely detonate, but he figured a fire would do the rest. You didn’t set dynamite on fire and expect it to quietly burn out. Gunfire might do the job, too, and Josiah wasn’t ready to blow this truck up just yet. Had a few miles to go first.
He needed time. That was all he needed—a little bit of time.
He took the truck up to seventy, and now he was aware that the cop was trying to speak to him through the cruiser’s loudspeaker. Dumbass didn’t even turn his siren off for the attempt, and even if he had, the wind would have washed the words away. It was blowing
The cruiser was keeping pace and not attempting to close the gap, which was surprising. Probably the cop was on the radio right now, explaining the situation and asking for advice. How much did he know? Odds were, a description of the truck had been issued after the detective was murdered on this road, but there was a chance— however slim—that the damned old lady had somehow found a way to contact help from her basement. And if that was the case, this guy knew Josiah had a hostage.
Yes, he would. Protect and serve, that was the motto, that was the promise, and the dumb bastard would have to obey the oath, wouldn’t he? He’d have to attempt to protect and serve the dead bitch that Josiah was about to pitch out onto the road.
He lifted the shotgun clear, steering with his left hand, and set it across his lap, the barrel pointed at Claire Shaw’s terrified face. He grinned as he leaned across her body and fumbled for the door handle.
