accelerator, and the battered car laid strips of rubber to match the van's.
The window on Didi's side was broken out, freezing wind shrieking into the car as the speedometer's needle passed sixty. Laura took the curve at sixty-five, skidding over into the left-hand lane. No taillights ahead, but another sharp curve lay in wait. Laura's foot didn't move toward the brake. She battled the car around the curve, went off onto the shoulder and almost into the woods before she got the car back up onto the road again. Laura glanced at the speedometer the needle was moving past seventy. Didi was jammed back into her seat, her red hair flying in the wind, her face strained with terror in the dashboard's green glow.
A third curve almost threw the BMW into the trees, but Laura held tight to the shuddering steering wheel. Then there was a long straightaway ahead, and two white lights on it. Laura wiped her bleeding nose with her forearm and let the car wind up, the engine roaring and the speedometer showing eighty. But the van was going fast, too, black smoke billowing from its crumpled exhaust pipe. On both sides of the road the barren trees swept past in a dark blur. Laura got up close enough to read the numbers on the Georgia tag, and then the taillights flashed; Mary was cutting her speed, going into another wicked right-hand curve. Laura had to hit the brakes, too, and she faded back as the tires bit into the curve, wrenched them right, left, and then led them into another straightaway. Now Mary was standing on the accelerator, the van shooting forward with a fishtailing slipslide that made the breath freeze in Laura's lungs. If the van went off the road, David could be killed. She realized she couldn't ram the van, force it off onto the shoulder, or fire a bullet at a tire. Any of those things might cause Mary Terror to lose control of the wheel. A bullet aimed at a tire might go through the van's body, or hit the gas tank. David would die in the flaming wreckage as surely as by one of Mary Terror's bullets. Laura cut her speed, began to let the van pull away. The speedometer's needle dropped: through seventy-five… seventy… sixty-five… sixty. Mary kept the speed up at seventy and the van was moving away, dark smoke billowing behind. Laura saw a sign on the right: I-94, 6 MI.
The highway west, she thought.
The automatic's barrel pressed against Laura's right temple.
Didi had picked the gun up from beside her. 'Stop the car,' Didi said.
Laura kept driving, the speed now at a constant sixty.
'Stop the car!' Didi repeated. 'I'm getting out!'
Laura didn't answer, her attention focused on the road and the van ahead. Mary Terror would take the interstate because it was the fastest route to California.
'I SAID STOP THE CAR!' Didi shouted over the wind's racket.
'No,' Laura said.
Didi sat there, stunned and helpless with the gun in her hand.
Laura's nostrils were jamming up with blood. She blew her nose into her hand, enduring a savage pain that shot through her cheekbones, and then she wiped the scarlet mess onto her jeans. 'I'm not going to lose Mary.'
Didi's emotions ripped like a ragged flag. 'I'LL KILL YOU IF YOU DON'T STOP THE CAR!' she screamed. 'I'LL BLOW YOUR DAMNED BRAINS OUT!'
Laura didn't let up on the pedal. 'You're not a killer anymore,' she said without even glancing in Didi's direction. 'That's all over. Besides, do you want to go back to your house and try to explain to the police why Edward Fordyce is lying dead in the woods?'
'Stop the car, I said.' Didi's voice was weaker.
'Where are you going to go if I do?'
'I'll find somewhere! Don't you worry about me!'
Laura's head was pounding fiercely, the blood beginning to thicken in her nostrils. She had to breathe through her mouth to get any air. Bitch knocked the shit out of me, she thought. 'I need you,' she said.
'I've already ruined my life for you!'
'Then you don't have anything else to lose. I need you to help me get my baby back. I'm going to keep following Mary Terror all the way to California. All the way to hell if I have to.'
'You're crazy! She'll kill the kid before she'll let you take him!'
'We'll see about that,' Laura said.
Didi was about to demand to be let out again when a pair of headlights blazed in the rearview mirror. Didi looked back, saw a car gaining fast on them. 'Christ!' she said. 'I think it's the cops!' She lowered the gun from Laura's temple.
Laura watched the car coming. The damned thing was absolutely flying, doing over eighty. No siren or blue lights yet, but Laura's heart had jammed in her throat. She didn't know what to do: hit the accelerator or the brakes? And then the car was upon them, its headlights glowing like white suns in the rearview mirror. Laura jerked the BMW to the right as the car veered alongside them and screamed past. It was a big, dark blue or black Buick, maybe six or seven years old but immaculate, and the winds of its passage almost whirled the BMW off the road. The Buick tore on, swerved into the lane ahead of Laura, and kept going. It had a Michigan tag and a sticker that said WHEN GUNS ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY OUTLAWS WILL HAVE GUNS on the rear bumper.
In the van, Mary Terror saw the new arrival coming. Drummer was still crying, his bassinet having overturned on one of the curves. Pigs, she thought. Here come the fucking pigs. Edward's blood was sticky on her face, bits of his skull and brains spattered on her clothes. She cocked her Colt and rolled down her window, and she eased up on the accelerator as the big car left its lane and started to pull around her.
'Come on,' she said into the wind. 'Come on, little piggie!'
The car pulled up alongside her and hung there, both of them doing about seventy on the backwoods road. Mary saw no police or FBI markings, and she couldn't see the driver's face either. But suddenly the car whipped to the right, and there was a crash of metal as it slammed against the van. The wheel shuddered. Mary shouted a curse and the van veered toward the right shoulder. She fought its weight, the dark woods reaching out to embrace her and Drummer. Mary got the van back up onto the road again, and again the big car slammed into her side, trying to butt her off the pavement like an enraged bull. The car hit her a third time, and sparks flew into the air as pieces of metal ground together. The van was shoved sideways, the wheel trying to tear itself out of Mary's grip. She looked to her left, saw the passenger's window going down, a smooth electric slide. The car pulled up, its driver almost even with her. There was a loud crack, a flare of fire, and something metal clattered in the back of the van.
Bullet, Mary realized. Handgun. Son of a bitch was shooting at her.
It dawned on her, quite suddenly, that whoever was in the big Buick was the bastard who'd killed Edward. This wasn't exactly pig procedure. The fucker was trying to kill her, that much was certain.
She hit the accelerator again, whipping past a sign that read I-94, 2 MI. The Buick stayed abreast. Another crack and fire flare, and she heard the whine of the slug ricocheting inside the van. The Buick remained with her, touching eighty miles an hour. Mary held on to the wheel with one hand and fired a shot at the car. The bullet didn't hit, but the Buick backed off a few yards. Then it lunged forward and crashed into the van's side again, shoving the van toward the shoulder. Mary fired once more, trying to hit the Buick's engine. The van's tires slipped on loose gravel, the vehicle's rear end fishtailing. Two seconds passed in which Mary thought the van was going over, but then the tires found pavement again and the scream died behind Mary's teeth. The Buick, its right side battered and scraped, started to pull up even with her. Mary's foot was already on the floor, the van at the limit of its power. The Buick was coming, its long, scarred snout easing up. Mary dropped the Colt, reached into her shoulder bag, and brought out the Compact Magnum.
Before she could get off a shot, the BMW that had come up from behind veered into the left lane and slammed into the Buick's rear fender. The collision jarred the finger that was squeezing a pistol's trigger, and the bullet whacked into the van's side seven inches behind Mary Terror's skull.
Mary fired downward with the Magnum, the noise explosive and the kick thrumming through her forearm and shoulder. The Buick's right front tire popped, and as the driver stomped on the brake Laura jerked the BMW's wheel to the right and cleared the Buick by half a foot, pulling her front fender right up behind the speeding van. The Buick, its tire shredding to pieces, went across the left lane and down a knoll into a copse of trees and bushes.
'Back off! Back off!' Didi was shouting, and Laura hit her brakes just as Mary did the same. Fenders clanged together like swords. Laura veered to the left, saw the interstate's ramp just ahead. And then Mary Terror was swinging the van up onto it, black smoke gouting from the exhaust. I-94 WEST, the sign said. Mary swerved off the ramp onto the highway, reached down, and righted Drummer's bassinet. He was still wailing, but he would have to
