Identity Crisis(113)

She pressed down a little harder on the accelerator. She’d been doing it gradually since they’d left the apartment so he wouldn’t notice. She had the advantage of growing up near here. It meant she knew the place like the back of her hand. She knew where they were and had a pretty good idea of where they were heading. That meant she knew exactly what to do and where. Dee and Harris and she used to put Harris’s old beater of a pick-up through its paces out here. The place was hilly, pocked with scrub evergreens struggling on the edge of survival. The main road was paved, but narrow and old, but from it muddied gouges of trails used by motorbikes and four-wheelers snaked off over the rutted hills in all directions. It was also bisected by several disused logging roads. Not far up the road, there was one spot that had just what she needed for her plan to work. She pressed just a little harder on the gas, and Edge whooped.

‘Goodness, Bird Woman, you really do know how to fly, don’t you?’

‘You said you wanted to see what she could do,’ Kendra said. ‘I’ve had her long enough to know. Best gift I ever received.’ And at the moment, she meant that with all her heart.

‘This route should put you out ahead of them,’ Wade yelled into Garrett’s BlackBerry, which lay on his seat with the speakerphone on. ‘But just barely, so you’ll have to haul ass. You in the Jeep?’

‘I am,’ Garrett said. ‘Just get me there.’

‘You need to make a right just ahead. It’s an old logging road, and not much of one, but it’ll do the trick.’

‘I see it,’ Garrett said, sliding into the sharp corner and banking hard to make the turn, barely managing it without turning the Jeep over. The rain had let up for the moment, so it didn’t affect the visibility. He sped down the road, bouncing and jostling against the seatbelt ‘How am I doing?’ he shouted at the device.

‘You’re fine. You’re all right, just don’t slow down.’

The words were barely out of Wade’s mouth before he hit the first major mud puddle. Water splashed in waves all around him. He cursed and turned on the wipers. ‘Christ, Wade, it’s a muddy mess up here.’ The Jeep slid dangerously to one side, and he felt the back wheel on the driver’s side sink.

‘Can you drive off the road, on the side?’ Wade yelled.

But the wheel dropped with a sickening lurch, and the tire spun.

‘No! Goddamn it, no!’ Garrett cursed and downshifted. The engine groaned and the wheel spun, slinging mud out in a high arc behind the vehicle.

‘Garrett, you’ve got to go. Now!’ Wade yelled. The sound of his voice was drowned out by the revving of the engine as Garrett threw the Jeep into reverse and eased off the gas, struggling like hell to control the panic rising in his chest.

But the Jeep wouldn’t budge.

Ignoring Wade’s rising panic on the speaker phone, Garrett undid the safety belt and practically threw himself from the driver’s seat, frantically looking around in the scrub and deadfall until he found what he needed. He made a mad squelch and lurch of a dash for several limbs about the size of his arm, blow-down from the wind that had accompanied the rain in the early hours. There were plenty of needles still on the branches. Slipping and sliding in the mud, he lunged for them, tugged them with all his strength until they were free from the undergrowth. Then he nearly lost his balance as he slid back to the rear of the Jeep, shoving and stuffing and cramming the branches down into the hole that the spinning of the tire had created, angling just right to create traction. Dear God, it had to work! It just had to! Back in the seat, he belted in and ignored Wade, who was still yelling, along with everyone else in the dungeon. Then he carefully reversed only slightly. It took every ounce of patience to go slow and easy, just enough for the limbs to settle into the hole. Then, even though every nerve in his body was screaming for him to hurry, he eased the Jeep back in gear and carefully, gently pressed on the accelerator. The Jeep jerked hard and sank dishearteningly into the mud with the tire spinning. But, just when Garrett was ready to jump out of the Jeep and run for it, it inched forward, spun, and then juddered and jostled up out of the rut.

‘I’m out! I’m out,’ he yelled above the roar of the engine. But hope was short-lived as he looked up at the road in front of him to see nothing but a sea of mud. ‘Wade, we’ve got to go cross country. The road’s a mud bath.’

‘All right.’ Wade’s voice was tight, his words clipped. Garrett could hear him frantically typing on the keyboard. ‘I’ve got the contour map. It’s not too steep or rocky. If you can get through the woods, you can get there, and still join the road just ahead of the Mustang.’