“Are you thinking what I’m thinking, that it’s Rico Suave behind the wheel?” Although she appeared outwardly calm, he detected a note of panic in her voice.
“We’re of like mind.” Pulling into the left lane, he accelerated past the pickup truck. He then passed four more vehicles, tucking in behind a mustard-yellow SUV. As expected, the Audi stayed put, the driver careful not to show his hand. On a heavily congested expansion bridge, he could follow at a distance, secure in the knowledge that they had nowhere to run.
“Once we get off this bridge, you do plan on losing him, don’t you?”
Suspecting that would be a tricky feat to manage on an unfamiliar roadway, he made no reply. Instead, keeping one hand on the wheel, he rummaged in his anorak pocket for two crumpled bills to pay the toll. Up ahead, a neat line of booths materialized on the horizon, two lanes of traffic suddenly branching into six. He veered away from the garish SUV, heading for the tollbooth on the far left.
Beside him, Edie groaned, having spotted the Audi in her side-view mirror.
“Guess who just broke away from the pack.”
“Remain calm.”
Slowing the Yaris to a crawl, he made his way to the tollbooth, coming to a complete stop once they were abreast of the uniformed attendant. He shoved his arm through the open window, handing two dollars to the overly plump female. About to put his foot back on the gas pedal, he instead leaned his head out the window.
“May I please have a receipt?”
“Are you crazy?” Edie hissed. “He’s right behind us!”
“As I am well aware.” Turning away from his agitated passenger, he directed his attention to the moonfaced attendant. “Thank you so much.”
Slowly, in no apparent hurry to leave the toll plaza, he drove away from the booth, remaining in the extreme left lane. Up ahead, the six lanes funneled back into two. Whereupon he had a choice: continue straight onto the high-speed expressway or take the far-right exit.
“Oh, I get it. You don’t want Rico to know that we know that he’s right behind us.”
He glanced into the rearview mirror, the driver of the Audi in the process of handing a bill to the attendant. “Let’s hope the bastard falls for the charade because”—he slammed his foot onto the accelerator, cutting in front of a boxy minivan, then a sporty red coupe, and finally the mattress-laden pickup—“we’re taking the next exit.”
The sudden burst of fuel catapulted the Yaris to forty miles per hour, tires squealing as he jerked the steering wheel to the right, barely managing to stay on the roadway as they veered onto the sharply curved exit ramp. According to the green sign that they’d just passed under, they were headed toward Jamestown, a seaside village on the southern end of the island. He sped through the stop sign at the end of the exit ramp.
Edie twisted in her seat to peer out the back window. “Punch it! Pedal to the metal! He’s right behind us!”
“Damn! The bastard has quick reflexes,” he muttered, remembering how the beautiful young man bested him at the House of the Temple. Their pursuer, driving a far more powerful vehicle, had no difficulty keeping pace.
He glanced at the speedometer: 75 mph. A safe enough speed on an expressway. A more precarious speed on a narrow two-lane coastal byway.
“Any idea how fast this old girl will go?”
Staring at the wobbling speedometer — as though by such action she could telepathically dictate a speedier progression — Edie groaned, “Not fast enough.”
He spared another glance into the rearview mirror, wondering how long they could maintain this high-speed chase. “Can you — Shag it!” he exclaimed a half second later when, just ahead of them, a truck suddenly veered onto the roadway from a side street. Still cursing, he slammed on the brakes, the Yaris fishtailing from side to side. A short ton broom sweeping the roadway clear of debris.
Beside him, Edie did a fair imitation of a crash dummy, her upper body propelled forward before the constraints of the nylon shoulder harness jerked her back into place.
No time to inquire how she fared, he stomped down on the accelerator as he swerved into the opposite lane, entreating the powers that be to grant them safe passage. At seventy-five miles per hour, they’d never survive a head-on smashup.
“Godspeed is suddenly taking on a whole new meaning,” Edie rasped, her right hand cinched around the door handle, the left clutching the armrest.
Safely passing the truck, he peered into the rearview mirror, verifying what he already suspected; that the Audi had also successfully navigated around the slow-moving obstacle.
“It appears that we’re about to have an unexpected visitor,” he informed Edie, the Audi zooming toward them, still in the left lane. He wound down the driver’s-side window. “Quick! Hand me your mobile phone!”
“By the time the state troopers get here, we’ll be roadside fatalities. In case you haven’t noticed, his is bigger. Meaning he can easily ram us off the road.”
“Just hand me the blasted mobile!” he impolitely ordered, thinking Edie’s truculence strangely misplaced.
She passed her iPhone just as the Audi came parallel to them. Snatching the device in his right hand, he held it like he would a pistol. Then, his left arm rigidly positioned at a ninety-degree angle from his body — hopefully obscuring the fact that he wielded a mobile phone rather than a loaded weapon — he took aim at the parallel vehicle.
The illusion worked, the driver of the Audi hitting the brakes as he repositioned his vehicle directly behind them.
Admittedly relieved, he returned the iPhone.
Beside him, Edie insistently jabbed her finger in the air. “Look! Up ahead on the right! It’s a golf course!”
“Perfect.” He abruptly swerved to the right, the back end of the Yaris fanning, first to the left, then to the right, as they made the turn. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he watched as the sleek Audi followed on their heels.
Passing the clubhouse, he headed straight for the green turf.
Mercifully, the course was closed for the season, the links deserted. Overhead an osprey and an eagle glided through the air, casting their shadows onto the green-way, the two birds of prey vying for the same quarry.
“Oh God! He’s gaining on us!” Edie worriedly exclaimed as they sped along the fairway.
Caedmon peered into his side mirror. Repeating the move he’d made on the two-lane highway, the Audi pulled up beside them. This time, however, the driver used the much sturdier vehicle like a battering ram.
The Yaris shook on its flimsy metal frame, knocked in the direction of the towering pines that rimmed the fairway.
Caedmon slammed on the brakes. Rubber tires dug into the thick grass, leaving pulpy furrows in its wake.
Just as he hoped, the Audi sped ahead of them, the driver, finally, thrown off his stride by the unexpected maneuver. Caedmon jammed his foot on the gas pedal. The fourteen-inch tires spun on the turf before they were spasmodically propelled forward.
They crested a green rise.
Only to be met by a glassy pond on the opposite bank.
“Bugger!” Beginning to think the golf course a less-than-inspired idea, he barely managed to escape the watery snare.
“The Audi is right behind us!” Edie informed him.
“These nine holes may prove our undoing. Brace for impact,” he ordered, sighting an ominous granite outcropping on the edge of the green.
To Caedmon’s surprise, his copilot did the exact opposite, releasing the clasp on her seat belt. Twisting in her seat, Edie snatched an overnight bag from the foot well.
He heard the metallic rrrhh of a zipper.
“Come on! Come on!” she muttered, frantically rummaging through the duffel. “There’s got to be something in here that I can — Yes!” She unfurled a folded bath towel. Then she unwound the passenger’s-side window and heaved her upper body through the opening.