Link motioned with the shotgun for them to leave by the back door. It was such a small but unmistakable movement of the long barrel that the opportunity to jump him was here and gone in an instant, before Westerley could respond.
Beth was gripping Westerley’s right arm now. Squeezing hard. That didn’t help the sore elbow.
Link gave her a shove, and her hand fell away from Westerley. Link’s effort made the shotgun barrel momentarily drop. Beth was fumbling nervously with the chain lock on the back door, momentarily diverting Link’s attention from Westerley.
This time Westerley seized his opportunity. There was nothing to lose by rolling the dice. Link had come into the house to kill them. Now they were only alive because they had temporary value as hostages.
Westerley dived for the kitchen chair, where his holstered nine-millimeter dangled from its black leather belt draped over the chair’s wooden back. The belt came free even though the chair toppled. Westerley rolled, trying to be as difficult a target as possible while he wrestled the heavy Glock handgun from its holster. He was vaguely aware of Beth screaming, of Link shouting something at him, but it all seemed to be happening dreamlike and at a distance.
He was in a pocket of time and place that moved slowly as he slid the gun from its holster and began raising his arm to take aim at Link.
Westerley’s arm was still throbbing where he’d banged his elbow against the floor in the bedroom. His heart plunged as he realized he was raising the Glock slower than Link was swinging the shotgun around to point at him. Westerley fired a shot, but he was too eager and the bullet went into the floor. The arc of the shotgun barrel was as inexorable as fate.
There was an explosion and a blast of light. Something like a train crashed into Westerley’s chest and right shoulder. The floor hit him in the back, and he was staring up at the ceiling and kitchen light fixture. The ceiling wouldn’t stay still; it was like the underside of a floating rectangular object in a heavy sea. Westerley turned his head to the side and watched Link Evans get the back door to outside open and shove Beth through it ahead of him. He didn’t bother glancing back at Westerley as he rushed out into the night.
Westerley suddenly realized that his head, which he’d raised slightly so he could watch Link and Beth leave, was incredibly heavy. He let himself go limp, and the back of his head struck the floor. The kitchen, which had been dim to begin with, was now completely black.
Westerley understood why Link Evans hadn’t bothered glancing back at him as he was leaving. Link had already mentally subtracted Westerley from equation of what was happening this dreadful night. For that matter, probably so had Beth.
They think I’m dead or dying.
I think they’re right.
Quinn was ahead of Pearl when he heard the roar of the SUV’s big engine. The vehicle skidded around in the gravel in reverse until it was pointed down the driveway. Quinn dropped to one knee, holding his vintage police special with both hands and aiming carefully. He was aware of Pearl doing the same beside him, on his right side and back about a yard.
The SUV’s knobby tires threw gravel as it sped down the driveway and past them. A few small pieces of rock struck Quinn’s right cheek, stinging and causing him to squint.
It didn’t matter anyway. The angle was bad. There’d only been a second or two when Quinn or Pearl had even a difficult shot at Link Evans, who was on the far side of the SUV and crouched low behind the steering wheel. Beth Evans was in the passenger seat, between them and her husband. If they had managed to fire over her and hit Link, his frantic return fire with the twelve-gauge might have struck Beth. She was sitting forward, braced with both hands on the dashboard so hard that her elbows were locked. Not having her seat belt buckled was the least of her concerns.
The SUV had passed Quinn and Pearl so fast it left only what seemed a still photo in their minds: the speed- blurred vehicle, the driver bent over the steering wheel, the rigid figure of Beth, her mouth open wide in a silent scream. A study in speed and desperation.
Quinn remained kneeling but deftly switched positions and got off three shots at the SUV’s rear tires. He heard Pearl’s Glock bark twice. She was also trying to hit a tire, lying on her stomach in the dirt and gravel, keeping down so her bullets would follow a low trajectory.
The SUV didn’t seem affected by their gunfire. When it was near the end of the driveway, brake lights flared, as Link slowed to turn onto the state road.
Quinn and Pearl were already up and racing toward the parked Taurus.
Not that they’d be able to catch Westerley’s SUV, which doubtless had the police package and could outrun any rental.
They piled into the car. Quinn drove down the rutted driveway. Pearl dropped her gun and had to bend down and retrieve it where it was bouncing around on the floor. As she straightened up, she bumped her head painfully on the dashboard.
Quinn made a right turn out of the driveway, behind the SUV.
Once on the county road, it became obvious that the rental didn’t have the horses to catch the SUV. Quinn could see its taillights ahead like amused red eyes watching the Taurus recede.
The SUV took a curve and disappeared, then reappeared up ahead when Quinn followed in the Taurus. He lost control when the rental car’s tires broke contact with the road, and the car might as well have been on ice. Quinn wrestled with the steering wheel and mashed his foot down hard on the accelerator, powering out of the skid and causing the car to swerve from one side of the road to the other. Pearl had slid forward and was out of her seat.
He stole a glance over at her. “Put on your damned seat belt, Pearl!”
She scooted back into the seat, tucked her Glock beneath a thigh, and managed to buckle up. When she looked over at Quinn, she saw that he hadn’t fastened his seat belt.
Finally he regained full control. Beside him, Pearl was bone white, but she said nothing.
The state road straightened out where it began its approach to the Interstate highway, but the SUV’s twin red eyes were farther ahead and pulling away. Quinn kept the accelerator pedal flat to the floor, and the Taurus’s speed began to edge up. They were doing over ninety now. They couldn’t catch the SUV, but they might manage to stay reasonably close.
Red and blue flashing lights appeared up ahead. Something coming in the opposite direction. And coming fast.
Quinn figured that would be the state police, speeding toward the Evans house.
Quinn began flashing the Taurus’s headlights.
The state cops caught on fast. They had to. Westerley’s SUV passed them going the other way at over a hundred miles an hour. As Quinn watched, two state patrol cruisers made sweeping U-turns and gave chase.
Another showcase of dancing red and blue lights exited the ramp from the interstate. Another highway patrol cruiser. It was headed directly for the oncoming SUV. The two vehicles would pass or collide within the next twenty seconds.
The patrol car suddenly went into a skid and stopped so that it formed a roadblock in the narrow county road. To get around it in the SUV, Evans would have to leave the pavement.
As they neared the scene, Quinn sized up what was happening. He saw the uniformed highway patrol cop jump out of the cruiser, leaving it with its lights on and angled across the center line, and dash from the car toward the side of the road as Westerley’s SUV approached.
The SUV’s brake lights flared and it slowed. Quinn and Pearl were closing fast. Then the SUV built up speed, and Quinn knew Link Evans was going to try driving around the roadblock.
Link sped toward the parked highway patrol car. He left the pavement to drive around the cruiser, and chose the side of the road where the uniformed patrolman had run to take cover and wait.
Bad choice.
As Quinn and Pearl watched, the SUV veered off the road and around the parked cruiser. Quinn saw what appeared to be muzzle flashes, and the SUV made it back onto the road but was swerving drastically. What looked like chunks of tire flew into the night.
The other state patrol cars, and Quinn and Pearl in the Taurus, were closing fast when the SUV left the road on the opposite side.
