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Mattie held on for dear life as Burkhart got them closer and closer. She heard herself tell Niklas that she would not die trying to find Chris’s killer.
For a second, north of Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse, Mattie thought Burkhart would eventually reel in the Maserati.
But then the killer did something absolutely crazy. The rain let up enough for her to see the Maserati speeding up as it passed the exit for the village of Bad Homburg. The car flew over an underpass with Burkhart still gaining ground. Then the killer must have hit his emergency brake just shy of the on-ramp for vehicles leaving Autobahn 661 for the northbound A5. On the slick pavement, the Maserati drifted and turned 160 degrees, and then it roared down the entryway to the autobahn.
Mattie’s eyes widened and she gasped as they shot past the lane. “He’s going the wrong way!”
CHAPTER 75
FRIENDS, FELLOW BERLINERS, accelerating straight into traffic feeding off the 661 is the best move I think I’ve ever made.
It’s remarkable how easy it is to get vehicles to turn out of your way when you’re hurtling right at them, fully prepared to die.
A Lancia swerves right off my front fender, catches the guardrail, and does a cartwheel. The driver’s face was so terrified I start laughing. This has to be the most fun I’ve had in years.
Better yet, I glance in the rearview mirror and see the red BMW that’s been after me has failed to make the radical move that I did. Do the unexpected, my friends. It always pays off.
At the far end of the on-ramp, I downshift, throw the car through a one-hundred-eighty-degree turn, and hit the gas.
The road to Bad Homburg is miraculously clear ahead. I keep looking in my rearview mirror as I pass through the town, but I still don’t see the red BMW. They missed the turn. The next exit was five miles away. They’re not coming anytime soon.
Still, I know that the Maserati is a car that’s easy to recognize, one that I will have to lose as soon as possible.
Ten minutes later, I pull the car deep into a wooded lane inside the Hochtaunus Nature Park northwest of Bad Homburg. Do you know it?
It doesn’t matter.
Just know that I have no time to lose. There will be police swarming the area soon and I have some distance to cover.
I park the car in the darkest spot I can find, wipe down the steering wheel and the door, and get out, heading due northeast into the sopping-wet forest.
As I walk, I tear off the skullcap, the nose prosthesis, and the moustache. I find a stream and use mud and cold water to strip the makeup from my face. I ditch the blue windbreaker and continue on in the rain, my mind a whirl.
I keep seeing the look on the driver’s face before he flipped.
I can’t help it, my friends.
I stop out there alone in the woods, throw up my fists, punch them at the weeping sky, and start to laugh.
Soon, I’m hysterical and I’ve fallen to my knees.
I’ve done it. Two more to go and I’ve done it. No one will ever know who I am or what I’ve done.
Some may suspect.
Others may offer conjecture.
But as I get to my feet, and continue to make my way northeast toward the train station in the hamlet of Friedrichsdorf, I’m more certain than ever before that the person I was will never be linked to the person I have become.
CHAPTER 76
“WHERE DID YOU last see him!” Burkhart shouted as they roared north toward the next exit.
Mattie was craned around in her seat, still shocked by the move.
“Engel?” Burkhart demanded.
Mattie blinked and pointed. “He went off the road back there.”
