He needed time. That was all he needed—a little bit of time.
He took the truck up to seventy, and now he was aware that the cop was trying to speak to him through the cruiser’s loudspeaker. Dumbass didn’t even turn his siren off for the attempt, and even if he had, the wind would have washed the words away. It was blowing fierce now, the sky gone coal black, sporadic lightning flashes making the world beneath carry an odd green glow.
The cruiser was keeping pace and not attempting to close the gap, which was surprising. Probably the cop was on the radio right now, explaining the situation and asking for advice. How much did he know? Odds were, a description of the truck had been issued after the detective was murdered on this road, but there was a chance—however slim—that the damned old lady had somehow found a way to contact help from her basement. And if that was the case, this guy knew Josiah had a hostage.
There you go, Campbell whispered, and Josiah caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror again, shadowed but eyes aglow. He’ll stop for her. He’ll have to.
Yes, he would. Protect and serve, that was the motto, that was the promise, and the dumb bastard would have to obey the oath, wouldn’t he? He’d have to attempt to protect and serve the dead bitch that Josiah was about to pitch out onto the road.
He lifted the shotgun clear, steering with his left hand, and set it across his lap, the barrel pointed at Claire Shaw’s terrified face. He grinned as he leaned across her body and fumbled for the door handle.
“You were going to die sometime today,” he said. “A shame it has to be so early.”
The Orange County dispatcher had patched Anne through directly to the police officer who’d sighted Josiah Bradford’s truck, a state cop named Roger Brewer. He wanted to confirm that it was the right vehicle and understand the situation from her as best he could, he said.
She listened as he described the truck and said, “Yes, yes, that’s it,” and then began to warn him, as she’d warned the dispatcher, about the dynamite. She hadn’t gotten ten words out when he cut in and said, “Shit, something’s happening,” and there was a half-second pause before he said “Shit!” again and then Anne heard the scream of tires searching for traction, followed by the muffled sound of impact and a shattering of metal and glass.
“What happened? What happened?”
“He threw something out onto the road,” the officer said. “Dispatch, we’re going to need more cars. He just threw… I think he threw a body out into the road.”
60
THE DEAD MAN’S CAR started on the third try, groaning to life on the spark of a nearly exhausted battery. Eric, dropping the gearshift into drive, had the sudden, stupid thought: It’s the Fargo car. White Cutlass Ciera. You saw that movie with Claire and predicted it would be nominated for a bunch of Oscars…
He had to back up to get around the body. He made a wide pass to stay clear of it, and he did not look down. The splash of blood across the white hood trembled against the engine’s vibrations.
Trees bordered the gravel lane on each side, and only when he came out to the road did he have a clear look at the sky. The black clouds seemed to be drifting away from the center in all directions, isolating a pale circle. The wind that had blown so violently as he’d run through the field just minutes ago had died off completely, and ahead of him the fields looked strangely peaceful.
It can’t happen again, he thought, staring up at the separating clouds. You can’t have two of them in the same place.
He swung out into the road, turned left, in the direction Josiah Bradford’s truck had gone, and hit the gas. If another tornado actually did form, it was good that Kellen was still down in the gulf. The gulf had already saved them once.
He had the car up to fifty and was fumbling for the windshield wipers, wanting the crimson smear of drying blood off the glass, when another vehicle appeared down the road. He didn’t take his foot off the gas right away, but then the distance closed to the point that he could see it clearly: a white Ford Ranger with dents in the hood and a snarl of fence wire mashed into the front grille and dragging along under the car.
Josiah.
He was coming back.
Stop him, he thought, you have to stop him. But the Ranger was flying along, had to be doing seventy at least, and Claire was inside. If Eric swung the car across the road to block the truck and took the impact broadside, they’d probably all be killed. And that was discounting the potential explosion.
Indecision froze him. He slowed the car down to twenty, then ten, hands tight on the wheel, a hundred potential maneuvers floating through his head, all of them dismissed as too risky. The truck was in motion, and the only way to stop an object that wanted to stay in motion was with impact. Simple rules of physics that would be simple rules of disaster today.