Sam glanced at him in silence, his face rigid with fear.
Ben grinned. “You know, it’s not that bad. Once you accept that you never have traction and that you just have to keep adding small inputs to the controls to modify your direction, it’s not that hard.”
Sam gripped the dashboard. “If you say so.”
The river veered to the right, sharply. A large boulder glared at them straight ahead, like impending and unforgiving doom.
Ben turned early, accelerating hard, and sending the Camaro into a sideways drift.
Ten feet from the boulder, the tires found a small amount of purchase and the car continued in the new direction.
Sam turned right around in the passenger seat. There was a loud crash behind them. It sounded like metal twisting. Sam grinned. “They didn’t make it!”
“Both of them?”
“Just the first one. I don’t know where the second car got to… wait!” Sam swallowed. “It’s still going. One down, one to go!”
“I don’t plan to let it catch up.”
The river straightened and Ben increased his speed.
Sam watched him. His eyes lit up, not with fear, but with curiosity.
Ben made a slight grin. “What?”
“How are you doing this?”
“What? I’m driving a car. I’ve driven a car my entire adult life. What’s so special about it?”
“You’re driving better than most professional rally car drivers. Seriously, how are you doing this?”
Ben gave a little shrug. “Like I said when we met, I have fast reflexes. Always have.”
Up ahead, the river looked like it widened again. Then Sam realized it didn’t widen. It became the main lake. Ben changed down the gears quickly. It put the car into a slide. He tapped the brake and corrected, but still couldn’t change his forward momentum. He was going too fast. Ben hit the brake hard, but instead of correcting the situation, the Camaro slid out coming to a complete stop nearly a hundred feet out into the lake facing back toward the ice river.
He revved the engine.
Beneath them, the ice started to creak.
His mind returned to the Camaro’s 3,310-pound curb weight and wondered how much Devil’s Lake could take this late in the season.
Up ahead, the driver of the Ford Pickup spotted them. Like a predator recognizing its trapped prey, he fixated on them, accelerating at full speed.
Ben waited.
In the distance, he saw the incoming driver’s face alive with triumph.
When it was too late for the driver to change his mind, Ben released the brake, and took off, driving hard toward the lake’s edge.
It took a second for the pickup driver to realize his mistake. In an instant, his face turned from triumph to abject fear. He tried to brake, but all it did was send the truck into an unrecoverable slide — coming to a stop just shy of the cracking ice.
The weakened ice held for a few seconds, and then, unable to support the heavier truck, finally gave way to gravity. The heavier front end was the first to fall through the ice. The occupants quickly opened the doors and jumped out. A moment later, the entire slab broke and the truck fell through.
Ben glanced at the image in his rear-view mirror and laughed. “Now I’m definitely having fun!”
He spotted a boat ramp leading to a road paved with blacktop, and took it. The road came out onto US Highway 2. Ben kicked it up to fourth and let the Camaro run free.
Next stop. Minot, North Dakota — where he would finally get answers.
Chapter Forty-Nine
The Camaro entered the city a little before four a.m.
They approached a grain elevator ahead of them. A line of trees ran along their left, and the open fields of snow stretched all the way to the horizon on their right. They were on the outskirts of town, but somehow Sam had forgotten how sparse the place really was. It would be a stretch to say that the population was over fifty thousand. For a guy used to the East Coast, that could be a fraction of the population in a single neighborhood.
It was four a.m. exactly by the time they reached Aliana Wolfgang’s house. This time of the year, the gray of dawn hadn’t yet reached them, and the sky was still a velvety black. Sam made Ben park around the corner in the off chance someone predicted their destination, and then the two of them walked around the back.
It was a grand stone masonry house. The place was there for show more than purpose or pleasure. Sam had always felt it seemed like a poor fit for Aliana. She agreed. But it was her family home and after her dad died, she felt no desire to change it. Besides, sometimes she entertained large numbers of corporate guests.
Ben asked, “How long has it been since you’ve seen this girl?”
“A couple years,” Sam replied, without missing a stride.
“Really? And you’re just going to show up at her house at this time in the morning?”
“We couldn’t risk tipping off your mate, Devereaux! She’ll be fine. We’re pretty close.”
Ben arched a dark eyebrow. “So close you haven’t seen her for two years… how do you know her?”
Sam turned his palms up. “We used to date for a while.”
“This just gets better and better.” Ben stopped walking, his cheeks creased with a well-formed grin. “Why’d you break up — and don’t give me any of this ‘it’s complicated’ crap.”
“I won’t,” Sam met his eye. “It’s not complicated. We liked each other, but our lives didn’t add up. She’s got a company here, I have a company that works on the oceans — just about as far from here as you can possibly get — and she didn’t like the life I lead.”
“And what life is that?”
“A dangerous one.” Sam gave him a rueful grin. “Case in point, I’ve been held hostage for the past seventy-something hours.”
“Hey, I said you could go more than two days ago.”
Sam grinned. “See, more to the point, sometimes I can be stupid.”
Ben shivered in the icy cold.
Sam said, “Come on, let’s go knock on the door before we freeze to death.”
He gave the door three loud knocks. Nothing gentle. Aliana was a deep sleeper — when she did make time to sleep — and he was kidding when he said they were at risk of freezing.
There was no response.
Ben looked at him and said nothing, his eyes giving him that look that said, told you, you should have called first.
Sam wouldn’t have it. He knocked again, even louder.
The front porch light came on.
A moment later he heard Aliana’s voice. “Good God! Sam Reilly, what the hell are you doing on my doorstep at this time in the morning?”
The door opened.
Sam looked at her, once the woman of his dreams. Their eyes met and held for a second. Sam said nothing. A sudden chill blew across his heart. She was intelligent, tall, lithe, and achingly beautiful in plaid pajamas and thick woolen dressing gown.
Sam grinned. “Would it surprise you to know that this isn’t a social visit?”
Aliana sighed. “Come in, it’s freezing!”
He threw his arms around her, embracing her with affection, where once there had been raw desire. She backed away after a moment.
Sam introduced Ben.
Aliana’s eyes narrowed slightly, “You want to tell me what trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, Sam?”
“Would you believe me if I told you this time it wasn’t my fault?”
She folded her hands across her lap. “No.”
Over the course of the next thirty minutes and a warm cup of coffee, Sam went through what had happened, how he’d gotten there, and why he needed her help.
Aliana looked at him, her face registering a mixture of pleasure and incredulity.
Unable to take the wait any longer, Sam asked, “What are you thinking?”