He was doing eighty, but he couldn’t see the truck. He supposed they might have cut their lights. “Penny, can you see the truck?”
“It’s in and out.”
“Emory, pass Penny your Remington so she can try to shoot their tires when I get us close enough. I want these morons alive.” The Remington bolt-action was Emory’s pride and joy, but he didn’t argue since Penny could outshoot anyone in the department.
In that instant, a bullet slammed into the corner of the windshield, spiderwebbing the glass.
“Son of a bitch!” Emory yelled.
“Penny, pull back in!” Dix shouted as he slowed and swerved.
“Give me the rifle already, Emory. It’s time for some payback!”
“Dammit, Penny, be careful.”
She laughed, and checked that she had five live rounds. Penny was a lioness, Dix thought, no fear at all, and he sped up to get closer. He saw the truck, speeding as well, keeping the distance between them about constant. Penny fired once, twice, all five rounds, quick and controlled, into the dense falling snow. Dix could barely make out the truck, but in that moment he saw a flash of light, low, near the back left tire.
He yelled to Penny, “I think you hit something, maybe a rear light.”
“Yeah, I think so, too,” Penny said as she jammed five more rounds Emory handed her into the Remington. “Hey, Emory, nice gun. This barrel is heavier than my mother-in-law.”
Claus yelled, “There’s a guy leaning out the passenger window. Watch out, Penny!” Penny had already pulled back in. They heard six rapid rounds, and the sound of two bullets pinging against their right fender and the front grill. Penny hung herself out the window again, fired another five rounds quickly. “We’ve got to get closer, Sheriff. I can’t see well enough to hit a tire.”
He was doing eighty in a near blizzard, and pressed the accelerator to ninety. He heard Claus shouting to Penny and firing his Glock out the driver’s-side rear window to give her cover or at least to distract the guys in the truck.
Penny fired again after Emory fed her more rounds, slowly this time so she wouldn’t drop them with her cold hands.
There was a ferocious roar. The flash he’d seen earlier flared up like a night beacon, a huge circle of blinding white reflected blue in the thick, spearing snow. Dix heard Penny cry out, saw Emory jerk her back in. A bullet had hit her just as the truck blew. The world froze, shrank to a pinpoint in the next second as he watched flames whip up through the thick swirling snow, orange as the prisoner overalls in the Loudoun County lockup, rip twenty, thirty feet into the sky, red and orange, thick black plumes of smoke rising all around them.
Dix was already pressing on the brake when the truck exploded in a deafening roar that sounded like the thunder of drums. They drove right through the fireball with debris flying at them. A slice of black metal scraped along the top of the cruiser, without breaking through the roof. A foot lower and it could have killed all of them.
Dix kept pressing the brake, trying to hold it steady until the cruiser slid into a slow skid. Dix prayed as he lifted his foot off the brake and steered into the skid, and slowly, finally, straightened the cruiser again.
“Sheriff! Ohmigod!”
Dix thought his heart would stop. A flaming tire was rolling toward them at a manic speed. Dix spun the wheel to the right and the tire crashed into their rear end, slammed them forward, then sharply to the left.
“Everyone, hang on!”
They ripped through the guardrail still moving fast and plowed into a field filled with snow. Small bits of ash rained down around them.
The cruiser came to a stop ten feet from the guardrail on fairly level ground, luckily well away from the thick stand of oak trees on the side of the road. A snowbank a good four feet deep stopped them dead. Penny was slumped in the front seat, Claus’s arms holding her back from the windshield. Her head was bleeding.
Dix felt a moment of dizziness, shook it off. He pulled off Penny’s wool cap and pressed it hard against the wound at the side of her head. “Let’s get her to the road. The cruiser’s done. Claus, call nine-one-one.”
They pulled Penny carefully from the front seat and Emory carried her back to the highway as tenderly as he carried his baby daughter.
They saw sparks flying from a live wire that suddenly leaped toward them, coiling and uncoiling wildly. The wire suddenly snapped at Claus, nearly got his leg before he jumped back. They watched the wire finally settle into the snow, sparks still leaping out of the end of it. Dix said, “Everyone okay?”
“Just shook up a bit, Sheriff,” Emory said as he leaned over Penny, checking her pupils. “But Penny, her head’s still bleeding and she’s unconscious. I don’t like how she looks at all.”
Claus cocked his head. “I hear sirens. We’ll have help real soon.” He looked at the flaming truck. “
Nope, it sure don’t look good for the bad guys.”
CHAPTER 9
MADONNA WATCHED THE sheriff hug his boys against him. They had been terrified for him, but they were boys and they were trying as hard as they could not to show it. They were silent, but they clutched their father so hard he must have had trouble breathing. She knew they weren’t talking because they were afraid if they did, they’d cry. As for her, she felt helpless, useless as a eunuch on his wedding night, and hated it.
Dix spoke quietly to his sons, telling them he was very proud of them, and he thanked them for watching over Madonna, which made her smile for a moment.
Finally, Rob pulled away. He stared up at his father. “There’s blood on your face.”
“It’s not mine, don’t worry.”
“You scared the shit out of us!” Rob drew back his fist and slammed it against his father’s arm.
“Don’t cuss,” Dix said automatically. He rubbed his arm, grinned down at his boy. “Not bad. You’re going to lay me flat in a couple of years. You guys give Madonna any grief?”
“Nah,” Rafer said, taking a bit longer than his older brother to pull himself together. “She made cocoa and we told her the story about old man Steeter’s house, how he used to steal little kids and hold them prisoner. She said she couldn’t tell us any stories because she doesn’t remember any.”
Dix raised his eyebrows. “That story would certainly make her feel better tonight, made her wish she’d made up a story for you.”
Rob said, “Madonna wants to see the house, see if there are any secret passageways.”
Dix said to her, “Old Mr. Steeter died some ten years ago, left his big old Victorian house to a nephew who never came to claim it, lots of legalities preventing anyone from buying it and fixing it up. The kids around here make a big deal out of it.”
Madonna said, “It would be fun to explore if you swear no kid-ghosts would come out after us. You want a cup of cocoa, Sheriff?”
“That’d be great.” Dix stripped off his coat and gloves, excused himself to wash the blood off his face in the downstairs bathroom. When he came into the kitchen, he sprawled down in one of the kitchen chairs, Rob and Rafe closed in beside him.
“You’re going to tell us all about it, Dad?”
“Did you get those guys who shot at Madonna? Where’d the blood come from?”
“It was pretty hairy, Rafe. We had a car chase on the interstate. Penny must have hit their gas tank because their truck blew up. The bad guys didn’t make it. That was Deputy Penny’s blood on my face. She took a head wound, she’s in the hospital, resting comfortably. She’s going to be all right. The fire department is bringing in the remains of the truck.”
He’d given the boys enough to satisfy their blood lust, Madonna thought, but not enough to make it too real for them. But still, even those bare facts were terrifying.
“Did those guys get burned up?” Rafe asked.
“Yes, Rafe, they did.” Blown up and burned up, Dix thought, can’t get more gone than that. Rob said, “Did Penny have to get stitches in her head?”
“Yeah, about ten, all set real pretty by Dr. Oliphant.” Dix shook his head at Rafe, who looked disappointed, then yawned real big.
Dix said, “It’s going to be light in a couple of hours. Let’s see if we can’t get some sleep, okay?”
