“What’s with you two? I had a plan. Jesus.”
We hit the ramp and two seconds later the interstate. “Yes, he had a plan,” Hector said darkly. “Ask him about his well-thought-out, completely nonsuicidal plan.”
“You were a helluva lot nicer to me when you were blackmailing me.” I searched the road ahead of us for sight of the truck.
“That was before you broke me. Charlie lived with you for months and still remembered you as a friend twelve years later. I’m with you one week, and you make me question my own sanity. Damn, there it is!”
And there it was-miles ahead but within reach. Refrigerator trucks didn’t have the speed of a plush, fast Lexus. Within thirty seconds, we were almost on it. With less than half a mile before we’d be technically tailgating it, Hector pulled his gun back out of his jacket pocket. I should’ve noticed the faint sag of the material. I liked to think I had my powers of observation left over from the days when I only read people’s faces and body movements, but either I was fooling myself or my skills were blunted instead of sharpened by knowing that there was a killer out there. Not a good showing for a former con man.
“What are you going to do with that? Shoot through the metal panels or pull up beside the truck and shoot over my head again?” I asked, not yet willing to forgive the scathing dismissal of my ducking plan.
“It’s not a that. It’s a Beretta 92F, identical to the M9 I carried in the Army. It’s dependable. I like dependable in situations like this. And I’m going to try for the tires.” Hector sounded as if I had insulted his best friend.
“Does that work in real life?” Meleah asked. I heard the tinkle of glass she shook off her shirt and out of her russet-streaked hair.
“You’re handling the bomb thing like a pro,” I commented. Unlike the searing anger that had pumped through me. I hadn’t liked bullying directed at me when I was a kid, when I was at Cane Lake, and I liked it less now. I wished I had a baseball bat instead of a pissant pair of weighted gloves for when we caught up to the son of a bitch. “You’re like every doctor I’ve read. You have repression down to an art form.” It was true. They all had boxes in their subconscious, and the face of every patient who died on them went into that box. It made sense. How else would you move on to your next one if the memories of the deceased ones stayed with you every minute of every day?
“I’ll break a few things later when I have more time. Now I’m more worried about catching the man who killed Charlie. Hector, can you actually shoot out the tires of the truck?”
“With my knowledge of physics, you’d think it would be easy-it’s not. If this doesn’t work, I’ll ram it.”
That had me clicking my own seatbelt into place. Ramming didn’t seem a better plan than ducking, the hypocrite. A Lexus was sturdy, but a refrigerator truck made it look like a Tonka toy in comparison.
Before I could point that out to Hector, he leaned forward over the wheel with his eyes narrowed. “Now, what is that?”
Our semi-stolen, semi-borrowed car was eating up the road, and we were only eight or so car lengths behind the truck. I saw what Hector was referring to. There was a black line across both lanes of traffic-it almost looked metallic. The cars in the slow lane were passing over it as the truck blew past them in the fast lane. Whatever it was, it looked and seemed harmless. It did nothing to the cars or the truck. I didn’t know anything about physics or the ease of shooting tires out of a speeding truck, but I did know one thing: if it looks or seems harmless, it never is.
“Son of a bitch.” I grabbed Hector’s shoulder. “Stop! Don’t drive over it!”
Too late, though. We were going too fast, and by the time I said “Don’t,” I heard the blowout of all four tires. The car skidded off the road, hit a ditch, and flipped over onto the roof. There was the peculiar crunch of safety glass fracturing but not shattering, held in one gluey whole, and the crump of metal buckling against unforgiving earth. I couldn’t breathe for a moment, the seatbelt had tightened around my chest, I was hanging upside down, and I was choking from the force of the air bag that had hit me and the billowing clouds of dust that came with it. But I did abruptly remember. I knew what that strip of metal was, and I hadn’t seen it in the mind of one of my clients. It wasn’t the lingering image of one of my readings. No, I’d seen it on TV while slouching on the couch, drinking a beer, and sharing a cheese pizza with Houdini.
I’d seen it on an episode of goddamn Cops.
15
“Remotely deployable spike strips,” I repeated, sitting on the bank of the deep ditch and rubbing my chest. A seatbelt can save your life, but it hurts like a bitch. “Don’t tell me you didn’t use them in the Army.”
“I spent most of my time in military intelligence as a glorified gofer. I had the Mensa-level IQ, but I didn’t have Stanford and Cal Tech on my curriculum vitae yet. I enlisted to pay for that, but yes, we have spike strips, just not ‘remotely deployable spike strips.’”
The thing had been flat and smooth until we drove over it and the guy in the truck triggered the spikes to open. He had planned his escape in case the explosion didn’t work. This guy was good, sneaky, and better at distractions than the former con man I was.
“It’s the Army. The food could double as concrete for housing developments. The remote ones are news to me.” Hector had ripped free a strip of his sleeve and was wiping a trickle of blood from Meleah’s forehead. It wasn’t from the wreck; her seatbelt example saved us all. No, her blood was from the flying glass in the explosion. Although Meleah was better trained to take care of it herself, Hector was finally stepping up to the plate. Meleah might not need that crowbar after all.
Not that newfound love was going to do him any good. Police sirens were wailing like an F8 tornado warning, and the flashing lights were moving fast toward us. We would be off to jail and facing everyone’s dream come true: a body-cavity search and a neckless cell mate wrapped in three hundred pounds of steroid-rage-enhanced muscle.
“You had to steal a car,” I grumbled. “I hope they find Jimmy Hoffa up there when they snap on the gloves and bend you over at the station.”
“You misjudge the situation. Our project is funded by the government-the kind of government the majority of the country knows nothing about-the ones who do know are living in a bunker with tinfoil hats.”
He’d made a call before wiping at the blood on Meleah’s copper-brown skin. Maybe he was calling in the X- Files guys to back us up, vouch for us. I crossed my fingers. I could take care of myself, but I’d rather not have to bruise my foot or both fists doing it. I’d spent my teenage years kicking ass to survive. I didn’t miss it. Sometimes it was necessary, but I’d take cheese pizza with my dog over inflicting blood and broken bones. Maybe I’d gotten lazy when I hit the big three-O, or I’d simply had enough violence in my life.
“Fine. You get us out of this, and I’ll tell you what women really think about men. Not Cosmo shit, either. The real deal. It’ll help your dating life”-I finished under my breath-“or ruin it completely.”
Meleah heard the last part. The woman had the ears of a bat. “Shhh,” she said with annoyance. “It would give him a stroke. Men aren’t meant to know. You’re not meant to know.”
“And don’t you think I wish I didn’t? It’s a burden no guy should have to bear or live up to.” A state police car braked beside us. It hadn’t come to a complete halt before one cop had jumped out, screaming with gun pointed. “Ah, shit.”
Hector started to stand up and reason with him. Mensa, my ass. The one person you don’t ever try to reason with is a state cop on an adrenaline high. He spends most of his day giving tickets and reading gun magazines. When something exciting comes along-like a Denny’s explosion and people fleeing the scene in a carjacked Lexus- he or she is going to make the most of it. Not obeying commands while trying to talk your way out of it-especially while stepping toward the cop-that’s only going to get you pepper-sprayed, Tasered, or shot.
I snagged Hector’s arm and pulled him down beside me.
“Monkey see, monkey do.” I grunted at him. I rolled on my stomach in the dirt and laced my fingers at the small of my back. Meleah was doing the same. Luckily, Hector’s gun had flown out the window, ripped from his hand, when the car started to roll, or Hector would already be pepper-sprayed, Tasered, and shot.
Hector landed in the dirt and copied my position. “It’ll be all right. I made the call. They’ll pull us out.”
I was roughly handcuffed. “I hope so. Since it was self-defense, my juvenile files aren’t sealed. All I need is
