The twin globes of his lights expanded as he punched the gas pedal a third time. She manhandled the wheel, and with a scream of tires the Ford veered into the other lane.
The van accelerated, trying to pull alongside her. If it did, the driver could shoot out the side windows, kill her in a hail of ammunition.
She ground her foot down on the gas pedal, straining for every increment of speed the motor could deliver. The road dipped, descending at a steep grade, and at the bottom of the hill a service station came into view.
An Exxon station, near the interstate’s on-ramp, its illuminated sign bright against the night sky, the service court floodlit, fuel islands gleaming.
Open for business. Had to be.
The van hooked sideways, crunching her rear passenger door, chewing metal like a hungry mouth.
The pavement slid out from under her. The Ford skidded onto the shoulder, plowing up a spray of gravelly earth as the steering wheel jerked and ticked under her hands.
She had almost regained control of the car when the van mashed her again, its fender gnawing at the front door on the passenger side, the door buckling in its frame, the window shattering as the frame bent, and for a wild hysterical moment she was a diver in a shark cage, and a great white was chomping insatiably at the steel bars, crushing them out of shape, forcing its huge head deeper inside Rows of mesquite bushes flew past on her left, branches whacking the windshield, scraping the doors. She was screaming-she couldn’t help it-screaming as the van plowed her sedan off the shoulder into an untended stretch of cacti and weeds.
The car bucked like a skittish horse, her seat lurching wildly forward and back, her hands slapping the horn.
Should have worn your seat belt, a voice in her head admonished irrelevantly. Most accidents occur on trips of less than one mile.
A massive columnar shape materialized in her high beams. Saguaro cactus, huge, multi-armed like Shiva, armored in needles and leather-tough skin.
She had time for one more scream before the Ford slammed head-on into the saguaro at full speed.
26
The windshield exploded. The hood popped open as the Ford’s front end caved in. That hideous grinding noise was the sound of the van punching into the passenger side like a mailed fist.
Erin was conscious of none of it. Her sole awareness was of white, a field of white, endless white, expanding before her, swallowing her up with a lover’s sigh.
The airbag, erupting out of the steering wheel to cushion the collision’s impact.
It caught and held her. Dazed, she lay in its soft folds, a captured insect in a napkin.
A heartbeat later the bag automatically deflated. She fell back against the headrest, blinking at a whirl of stars.
She wasn’t dead. Didn’t think she was even hurt. The airbag had saved her.
Did the van have an airbag?
Her gaze ticked to the rearview mirror.
The van’s front end loomed impossibly close. A zigzag crack bisected the windshield. Behind the glass, movement. Her abductor, pulling himself upright.
He’d been thrown sideways in the crash, but he wasn’t dead, wasn’t even unconscious.
Why couldn’t he have cracked open his head on the dashboard, flown through the windshield, broken his neck? Something, anything, it didn’t matter what, just so he’d been stopped and she could be safe.
No time to dwell on that. He’d survived, and now he was groping on the floor of the van for some item he’d dropped.
The gun, of course.
Couldn’t miss her at this range.
She fumbled at the door handle, wrenched the door ajar, pulled herself out. Light-headedness made her stumble.
Loose desert soil sank under her boots. She staggered forward, slipping and sliding on scattered rocks strewn like ball bearings in her path.
Steam hissed from under the sedan’s folded hood. She nearly fell again, caught herself by grabbing the car’s front panel, then jerked her hands away. Hot.
Behind her, movement in the front seat of the van. He was leaning out the side window, the pistol in his hand.
Down.
She flung herself on hands and knees at the front of the car, then froze, waiting tensely for the pistol’s report.
Nothing happened. She’d ducked in time. He couldn’t hit her with the wreckage of the car blocking his aim.
Gasping, she clambered over the saguaro, prone in the glare of the Ford’s one remaining headlight, its arms outstretched as if in a silent plea. The hundreds of spiny needles encrusting the fallen giant poked and jabbed her, spotting her legs with pinprick dabs of blood.
Then she was half running, half crawling toward the road, afraid to rise fully for fear of making herself a target, afraid to stay on all fours because her progress that way was too slow.
At the edge of the road she dared a backward glance, expecting to see the man with the gun racing after her out of the gloom.
Astonishingly, he was still in the van. She saw him pushing on the driver’s door with no response. The frame must have buckled slightly, wedging the door shut.
He gave up on trying to open it and began to slide over to the passenger side.
For the moment he was distracted, and she was probably out of his range.
Run.
She sprinted across the empty road, toward the Exxon station two hundred yards ahead.
Whoever was in there must have heard the crash. Might be on the phone already, requesting an ambulance.
She didn’t need an ambulance. She needed cops.
“ Help!” Her lungs strained to find the air necessary for a shout. “Police! Call the police!”
When she glanced over her shoulder once more, the van’s passenger door was swinging open.
Where was the attendant? How long did it take to phone 911, anyway? A man on the night shift ought to have a gun behind the counter, ought to be out here now, protecting her.
She reached the asphalt court of the service station. The office was straight ahead, separated from her by two floodlit fuel islands.
One of her boots trod on a cable near the full-service island. Inside the building, a bell rang.
She cut between two of the gas pumps, avoiding a tangle of hoses that threatened to trip her up. As she sprinted for the self-service island, she risked another look over her shoulder.
He was sprinting after her now, the gun in his hand. She glimpsed a flash of metal in the waistband of his pants-another pistol? How many guns did he have?
Across the second island. Glass door ahead, framing a lighted snack shop.
She nearly flew into the door, slammed her palms against the glass at the last second to stop herself, then grabbed the pull-bar and jerked it violently.
The door didn’t open.
Locked.
No, not again, not another locked door.
Her fists hammered the door. The ghost image of her reflection, caught in the glass and staring wild-eyed at her, was a mask of frenzy and terror and despair.
“Let me in, he’s going to kill me, let me in! ”
But no one let her in, and abruptly she realized that no one would.
The station was closed. Despite appearances, it had been shut down for the night.
Through the glass she could see the self-contained world of the snack shop, invitingly safe and friendly. Candy carousels, magazine racks, maps and map books, microwave oven, coffee maker-everything neat and orderly and heartbreakingly normal, but not a human being on duty anywhere.
Nobody had heard the crash, and nobody had called for an ambulance, and nobody would open the door, because nobody was here. The lights had been left on by mistake or activated by some timer mechanism’s glitch.
The reason didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was alone, utterly alone, and her abductor had reached the edge of the service court.