Page 102

Story: Hide and Seek

As they squeezed through without a scratch, Andy exhaled. “What worries you?” He couldn’t help another glance back at the Nissan.

What he saw was not encouraging. Far from losing ground, the Nissan was gaining on them. Other vehicles swerved and skidded, blasting their horns in the Nissan’s wake as its driver plowed through with reckless abandon.

“He knows we’ve tracked him down. He knows that we know who he is.”

Traffic thinned as they rapidly approached the Interstate on-ramp, and Quinn was at last able to accelerate, but the Nissan continued to shorten the distance between them.

“Quinn—”

“Got it.”

No way was this clunky sedan going to outrun that sportscar, so what next?

At the last possible second, Quinn swung the steering wheel hard, and they jumped the painted meridian and shot up the on-ramp. Behind them, the Nissan’s fender screeched and scraped along the guardrail, just managing to avoid hitting the concrete barrier. Tires smoking, fishtailing, the Nissan followed them onto the highway.

Quinn floored it, and for a minute or two it looked like they might outrun their pursuit.

But within alarmingly few minutes, the Nissan closed in on them once more.

Quinn, eyes narrowed against the winter sun as he looked from the road to the rearview mirror, muttered, “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”

Despite the dire circumstances, Andy laughed. The whole situation was so crazy, it no longer felt real.

Quinn grinned, spared him a look. “Tell me you’re still not having fun.”

“You’re insane!” But apparently so was Andy, because he laughed again.

He stopped laughing, though, when he held up his cell phone to resume filming the Nissan and saw the driver’s window roll down. It took his disbelieving eyes a second to recognize the small black object pointed in their direction.

“Gun!”Andy ducked instinctively, gripping Quinn’s thigh in warning.

Bang.

Quinn yanked the wheel, and the sedan veered wildly, dizzyingly right. Somehow, they did not spin out of control, but the car was full of wet glass, and the echo of an explosion still rang in Andy’s ears.

“You fuckingamateur…” Quinn punched the accelerator, and the sedan shot forward, darting around the few scattered cars that had not already pulled to the side of the road, horns blaring in outrage and fear.

Frost-laced wind whistled through the sedan’s interior. Andy shook the glass out of his hair, brushed off his shoulders, gingerly sat up, and his heart nearly stopped at the sight of the shattered rear window. Three holes had blasted away almost the entire window.

“Jesus Christ.”

And it wasn’t just the rear window. When he turned to look at Quinn, he saw cobwebs of cracked glass spread from three bullet holes in the front window.

“You okay, Andy?” Quinn demanded. “You’re not hit?”

“Okay. I’m okay.” That was the overstatement of the century. He was anything but fine. In fact, he was in shock.

Though he had only registered one shot, Robie had opened fire on them. Three shots at least. Three shots had hit their car.

Two of the holes had hit the center of the windshield. But one hole was smack in the middle of where Andy’s head had been only seconds earlier.

If he hadn’t ducked, he would have died.

He’d be dead right now.

He’d be a dead body slumped next to Quinn.

Worse, Quinn could be dead.