“Hell.” Cab’s quiet exclamation held more understanding than a whole speech could have.
“Yeah. Hell.” Steel leaned back, wondering at the sudden pain that filled his chest. He’d been here before—in danger, chasing someone determined to hurt him or someone else. Why did this feel so damn raw?
“Wish I’d known.”
“Too many people knew already.”
Cab just nodded. “Don’t even want to touch the fact we’re chasing down Eric.”
“Did you have any idea?”
Cab simply shot him another look, and Steel knew what he wanted to say: Did Steel think for a minute Cab would work with a man he suspected of killing teenage girls?
“He hid it well,” Steel said. “Had a lot of resources at his fingertips to help.”
“I’m running through everything I ever said to the man,” Cab admitted. “Everything he ever said to me. I’m going to hate myself when this is done.”
Steel pulled out his phone when it buzzed in his pocket. It was Jed. “Jed? What’s going on?”
“Route 90. Heading east. Red Ford F-250. Eric’s still got Liz.”
“Wait—you’re chasing them? What happened?” He turned to Cab. “Route 90. Now!”
“Stella tried to get her. Eric saw her coming. Now we’re in pursuit.”
“Who’s driving? Stella?”
“Virginia. Stella’s got the pistol.”
Shit. “They’re going after Eric,” Steel told Cab. He related what Jed had said.
Cab pressed his foot on the gas lever. “Call it in.” He jutted his chin toward the radio.
Steel did so, balancing the radio and phone. “Stay back, you hear me?” he told Jed. “Wait for us.”
“You ever try telling Virginia what to do?” Jed asked waspishly.
Steel knew what he meant. Still.
“Go faster,” he told Cab.
“Be careful, Virginia!” Stella cried as the old woman took a curve in the roadway too fast and all of them slammed to the right.
“He’s getting away—shoot him!” Virginia yelled back. “I should be the one with the gun.”
“I should be the one with the gun,” Jed contradicted from the back seat. “I’m the damn deputy here.”
“You haven’t been a deputy in thirty years.” Virginia took another sharp turn, getting a little closer to the vehicle ahead of them.
“We have to get closer,” Stella told them. “Where’s Cab?” She clung to the door handle, trying not to let Virginia’s driving kill her before she could save her stepsister. Her heart was beating hard, but her hands were steady, and she felt as clear in her thinking as if she’d drunk a shot of espresso. She was going to save Liz. There was no other possible outcome to this scenario.
“It’s my fault,” Lily muttered from beside Jed, hugging her knees to her chest. “It’s my fault Sue died. It’s my fault Liz is going to die.”
Part of Stella wanted to comfort Lily, tell her no one was responsible for Eric’s deranged actions but Eric. But there’d be time for that later. Right now they needed information. “Why?”
“I’m the one who introduced Sue and Lara to him,” Lily explained. “I was friends with Rena. She invited me to party with her and Eric once. Told me to bring some friends along. I did.”
Stella remembered Eric telling her he had “options” and shuddered.
“When Rena died, he started texting me. Telling me he was so sad—I tried to comfort him. I—I wanted him to like me. But he chose Sue instead. When she died, too…” Her voice broke into a sob.
“I’m going to flank them,” Virginia announced, pulling Stella’s attention away from Lily. The truck lurched forward.
Stella took in the curving road ahead. “You can’t. If someone comes around one of those curves, we’re dead.”
“I’ve been driving twice as long as you’ve been alive,” Virginia said. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
She swerved into the other lane. Jed swore when his head hit the window beside him. Stella, clinging to the trouble bar, realized things were about to come to a head. If she didn’t do something, someone would definitely die.
“Just get close. Don’t go beside them—leave room to drop back if you need to,” she ordered Virginia. To her surprise, the woman did as she was told, holding the car in the far lane just behind Eric’s truck, drafting him as if they were birds in a flock of geese.
“Go for his tire,” Jed instructed Stella. She nodded. Exactly what she meant to do.
She rolled down the window all the way, braced her wrist on the sill, then decided that wasn’t her best call. The truck was lurching and bumping on the country road. She lifted her wrist, braced it with her left hand, remembered to breathe.
Took aim.
Her first shot missed. Eric swerved but got his Ford back under control and lurched ahead with a burst of speed.
“Catch up to him!” Jed ordered Virginia.
“I’m catching up,” she snapped back.
Stella ignored both of them and steadied her wrist again. She needed to make this shot. She couldn’t see Liz in the vehicle. Knew she must be wild with fear.
She took aim again. Heard the echo of her father, who’d taught her to shoot so many years ago. Remember to breathe. Take your time. When you’re ready, make the shot.
She pulled the trigger.
Eric’s vehicle swerved again, and its back tires skidded off the road, one of them flapping badly. The difference in terrain between road and shoulder caught the truck and whipped it around. The vehicle spun straight into the ditch, where it came to rest at an angle, back wheels in the ground, nose to the sky.
Virginia slammed her feet on the brakes, swerved around them until the truck screeched to a halt, executed a quick three-point turn and parked on the opposite side of the road, facing Eric’s Ford.
“Everyone get down and stay down,” Stella said as she quickly climbed out, holding the pistol ahead of her, ready to shoot again. She heard another door open and looked back to see Jed climbing out, too.
“Give me that pistol.”
“Get back in the truck!”
When shots rang out, Jed gave a cry of pain. Stella ducked and scooted behind the shelter of the
