Killers - Blake Crouch [19]
“Neither are you.”
“What if I asked you to buckle me in?”
“How about instead you roll down my window?”
“Your window?”
“Did I stutter?”
“Only one good hand. Gotta stop steering to reach the button.”
Lucy eased her left hand over and grasped the wheel.
“I got it,” she said. “This is what they call a leap of faith.”
“Car behind us is getting closer.”
Lucy lowered her voice. “Donaldson, do you believe there are defining moments in our lives? When a choice can be the beginning of something, or the end?”
“I guess.”
“Roll my fucking window down.”
Donaldson brought his hand across his lap and pressed the button, lowering the passenger side window. The night air rushed in at them, clawing under Donaldson’s facial bandage and making it flap.
“Now what?” he asked.
Lucy leaned up and kissed his bandage, then pulled back and threw the scalpel out the window.
It made the briefest spark where it struck the pavement.
Donaldson hit the button again, and the window ascended back to the top of the door.
Lucy held the wheel steady.
“You know what?” he said. “I remember the names of those crabs.”
“What?” she asked.
“George and Ringo. Ringo ate George, the little bastard.”
“I never liked singing drummers.”
“It all worked out in the end. I poured gas on him, set him on fire.”
The engine stuttered, cylinders misfiring, and then caught again.
“You think that car behind us is a cop, D?”
“No. He’d have punched on his lights already. Called for backup. Like I said, could just be some fella on his way home.”
“You really believe that?”
“No,” Donaldson said.
“So what do you want to do?”
The car chugged once more, and then died.
Without the noise of the engine, they could hear the sound of the tires rolling over tiny rocks, the wind rushing against the windshield.
“Got any weapons on you?” Donaldson asked.
Lucy stared at him, hesitating.
“What?” he asked. “After your whole ‘kill together, die alone’ speech, you still don’t want to tell me?”
“All I’ve got left is a pair of scissors. I had the chance to take a Glock, but I didn’t.”
“Don’t fuck with me, Lucy. This isn’t the time.”
The car continued to coast.
Donaldson glanced at the speedometer.
Fifty miles per hour.
Forty-five.
Forty.
The car behind them closed the gap.
“I’m not fucking with you, D. I didn’t take the gun, because I didn’t want to accidentally kill you and spare you all the pain I had in store. I’m sorry. Frisk me now if you don’t believe me.”
Donaldson grunted something noncommittal.
The headlights were riding their back bumper now.
“There!” Lucy said. “There’s a dirt driveway.”
She pointed out her window, and Donaldson squinted to see through the darkness.
“Is that a barn?” she asked.
“Can’t tell. But it’s better than being out in the open.”
Donaldson nudged the Honda onto the shoulder and made a quick right. The tires sank into dirt, then caught, carrying them fifty yards down the road toward the building, gradually slowing until all momentum ceased.
The car that had been following them crept past and then stopped twenty yards ahead. It was a black sedan. Its taillights burned for a minute more, and then went dark.
“What would someone who isn’t in law enforcement want with us?” Lucy asked.
“Why don’t you hop out and ask?”
“What are they waiting for?”
“I don’t know.”
Whoever was in the black sedan stayed put.
“You have any weapons, D?”
“I figured the gun would be enough.”
“So what do we do? Can you sneak up on him, maybe?”
Donaldson shook his head, flipping on the interior light. “Check out my legs.”
Lucy looked down. The bandages had sloughed off in bloody strips.
Wait. Those weren’t bandages.
That was his skin.
“Grafts. Prick named Lanz told me to limit my movement, or they wouldn’t take hold. Guess he wasn’t kidding.”
“Cool. Is this, ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours?’ I’ll play.”
Lucy pulled a pair of surgical scissors out of her scrubs and snipped a tiny cut into the bandage of her right leg. She pulled back a piece of black foam while Donaldson