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“What? Was someone killed?” He stepped back, looking as if he might get back in his car.
“I don’t think so.” She slowed, looked back over her shoulder. There was a crowd around the wounded man. The shotgun-toting man—manager, owner, whatever he was—was staring down the street as if waiting for the black car to return.
“You’re not leaving before the cops get here, are you?” he said, frowning at her. “Everyone should stay. I didn’t see anything, but … hey, are you all right?”
There was no time to do this easy, no way to talk her way into that car.
“Sorry,” she said sincerely, and punched him in the throat—not hard enough to kill, but hard enough to send him to his knees, keys dropping, hands going to his throat as he gasped for breath. She grabbed the keys from the pavement and rolled him to the side, then slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, all in one smooth motion.
She did take care not to run him over as she backed up into the aisle, thinking in one part of her brain that it didn’t do her a damn bit of good to park poised for a quick getaway if she ended up leaving her car behind and stealing one that wasn’t properly situated.
“Sorry,” she said again, glancing in the rearview mirror to watch the man struggle to his feet. He’d be fine. She could have kicked him in the balls, but he hadn’t done anything wrong so she’d chosen the only other option she’d been sure would work. How she knew that … how she’d known to precisely pull the punch so the man would go down without a fight but not suffer permanent damage … not
a clue.
She couldn’t keep this car for very long. The police were already on their way, would be here in minutes, if not seconds, and now they had not only a supposed drive-by shooting but a car theft to investigate. She had to assume the police would enter the parking lot from the main road, so she circled around the building and took a back exit, searching her mind for the best route.
Best for what? Escape. Freedom. Survival.
And then she saw them, the shooters in the black car, circling back as if they intended to have a second chance at her before the cops got there.
And they saw her.
Lizette hit the gas and took the first side street she reached. Coming straight at her, she could see flashing blue lights. Great. She was driving her stolen car right toward the police.
She had the fleeting thought that maybe if she flagged down the cops—no, that might save her for a little while, but she’d end up in the pokey for at least a while, because she’d just punched a guy and stolen his car. She wouldn’t be safe there; she’d be trapped.
At least the cops weren’t actively looking for her yet.
Maybe. Cell phones and radios were faster than any car.
From that second on, Lizzy stopped thinking and acted on instinct. There was a moment of terror as she gunned the engine and bulled into traffic, much the way the black car had earlier. Tires squealed, horns blared at her. A white pickup truck came within a hair of T-boning her. A woman in the car right beside the truck took her hands off the steering wheel and covered her eyes, which wasn’t the most helpful thing she could have done. Thank goodness she also hit the brake.
Anxiously, Lizzy glanced in the rearview mirror. Damn it, it was set for the much taller owner. She reached up, adjusted it, then moved the seat closer to the steering wheel because she could barely reach the gas pedal. Was the black car following? At the moment she couldn’t spot it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there, just that it could be blocked by vehicles between them. Would they risk it, with the cops so close? Maybe, maybe not. How bad did they want her dead? How pissed were they that she wasn’t in a car they could conveniently track even if she did get lucky enough to shake them for a little while?
Lucky, hell. At least she could drive. She’d realized that the day she’d evaded the man from the grocery store parking lot, and again last night, when she’d found joy in speeding along the interstate. If she shook them now, they’d have no way of finding her.
Then what?
She was running for her life; one wrong turn, one miscalculation, and she was dead. At this speed she’d probably take someone with her, maybe several someones. She didn’t want that, didn’t want to hurt anyone, but she had to escape.
There it was, the black car, weaving in and out of traffic the same way she was, though more recklessly. One car they met ran off the road, dust flying.
This wasn’t going to last. By now the cops had a description of the car she was driving, and they could call ahead. They had resources: spikes, a roadblock, helicopters. She hadn’t just carjacked the guy, she was involved in a shooting, and they’d be looking hard for her as well as for the guys in the black car. Once they had overhead eyes on her she was sunk.
Traffic began to clear, making way for her and for the black car.
“So much for making it look random,” she muttered. “Chase me through the outskirts of the city and run me off the road or shoot me after this … no way everyone won’t know you executed me. No way.” Execution? Yes, that’s what this was meant to be. She didn’t know who she was talking to, but whoever it was, she was definitely pissed at them.
She took the next ramp that would dump her on the interstate, two wheels all but leaving the pavement as she made the sharp turn. She was heading into Virginia again. Only a few minutes had passed since she’d peeled out of the parking lot in a stolen car, and she didn’t have much time. No helicopters, please, not yet.
The black car followed her onto the interstate. Their engine was more powerful than hers—which was definitely a V-6, damn its puny little cylinders—and they had no trouble gaining on her. Her foot was pressed to the floor, and they were still gaining. She watched the rearview, gripping the wheel, judging the moment. Closer, closer. The car was coming up beside her, on her left. They were flying down the interstate at over a hundred miles an hour, side by side, the V-6 steady but not giving her a lot of extra power. The man in the passenger seat, hood pushed back down, aimed a black handgun out the open window at her.
She slammed on the brakes, yanked the steering wheel sharply to the side, and spun so she was facing the wrong way on four lanes of interstate. Oh, shit! Nice move. Where the hell had she learned to do that? The black car was stopping, too, but now flashing lights in the distance signaled that cops were on the way.
“Fuck!” she said violently, her vision blurring at all the traffic coming toward her, and she hit the gas. A hundred miles an hour on the interstate was scary. Any speed going the wrong way on the interstate was enough to give even the most hardcore adrenaline junkie a high.
She left the roadway much faster than she wanted to be going, but she had to get off the road or have a head-on with a semi. She sailed off the shoulder, the car taking to the air for a moment before landing on the gently sloping grassy hill and heading for a stand of trees. Shit! Tree, car—the tree always won. She’d really hate to get away from the bad guys and basically kill herself by driving into a fucking tree.
