4th of July - James Patterson [74]
I wasn’t crazy. I had a tail.
Was it a scare tactic?
Or was the shooter inside that car, waiting for an opportunity for a clear hit?
The end of 92 intersected with Skyline, and at the near right-hand corner was a rest stop with five picnic tables and a gravel parking lot.
I didn’t signal for a turn, just hauled right on my steering wheel. I wanted to get off the road, let that Taurus pass me so that I could see his face, get his plate number. Get out of his sights.
But instead of gripping the road as my Explorer would have done, the Bonneville fishtailed across the gravel, sending me back out onto 92, across the double yellow line and into the stream of oncoming traffic.
The Taurus must have passed me, but I never saw it.
I was hanging on to the wheel of my spinning car when the lights on the dashboard freaked out.
My power steering and brakes were gone, the alternator was dead, the engine was heating up, and I was skidding around in the middle of the roadway.
I pumped the brakes, and a black pickup truck swerved to avoid creaming me broadside. The driver leaned on his horn and yelled obscenities out his window, but I was so glad he’d missed me, I wanted to kiss him.
By the time I skidded to a stop on the roadside, a cloud of dust billowed around me and I couldn’t see beyond the windshield.
I got out of the Bonneville and leaned against it. My legs were rubbery and my hands shaking.
For now, the chase was over.
But I knew it wasn’t really over.
Someone had me in his crosshairs, and I had no idea who it was or why.
Chapter 115
I PHONED THE MAN in the Moon Garage on my cell phone and got Keith’s answering machine.
“Keith, I’m in a little jam. It’s Lindsay. Please pick up.”
When Keith answered, I gave him my coordinates. Twenty minutes felt like an hour before he pulled up in his jouncing tow truck. He hooked up the Bonneville for her ignominious return home, and I climbed up into the passenger side of the cab.
“It’s a luxury car, Lindsay,” Keith chastised me. “You’re not supposed to do loop-de-loops with this thing. It’s more than twenty years old, for God’s sake.”
“I know, I know.”
Long silence.
“Nice blouse.”
“Thank you.”
“No, really,” he said, making me laugh. “You should wear more stuff like that.”
Back at the garage, Keith flipped open the Bonneville’s hood.
“Ha. Your fan belt snapped,” he said.
“Ha. I know that.”
“Did you know that in a pinch you could fix this with a length of panty hose?”
“Yes, I did. But, strange as it may seem, I didn’t have any tights in my roadside emergency kit.”
“I have an idea. Why don’t I buy this car back from you? Give you a hundred bucks more than you paid me.”
“I’ll think about it. No.”
Keith laughed and said he’d drive me home and I had to accept his offer. Since he was going to find out anyway, I told Keith what I hadn’t told my girlfriends, hadn’t even told Joe yet.
I told him about the gunfire the night before.
“And now you think someone’s following you? Why don’t you go home, Lindsay? Seriously.”
“Because I can’t turn this murder case loose. Not now. Especially since someone threw a dozen rounds at my sister’s house.”
Keith gave me a sorry look, tugged on the bill of his Giants cap, handily negotiated the turns in the road.
“Anyone ever call you stubborn?”
“Sure. It’s considered a good trait in a cop.”
I understood what he was getting at. I no longer knew whether I was being intrepid or stupid.
But I wasn’t yet ready to make the call.
Chapter 116
WHEN KEITH AND I pulled up in front of Cat’s house, the driveway was full: the Explorer, a patrol car, a glazer’s truck bearing the legend “We Do Windows,” and a big metallic-blue van with Disaster Master decals on the doors.
I thanked Keith for the lift and, with Martha trotting behind me, I went inside the house, where I found a big man with a little mustache and a horseshoe of dark hair around his head, vacuuming the sofa. He turned off his power vac and “Uncle Chris” and I exchanged introductions.
“Buncha snoopy reporters showed up,” he said. “I told them you moved