Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [98]
Even as he said the words he could feel how hollow they were. Everything wasn’t going to be fine.
The headlights glared into his side mirror, the beams bouncing back into his face. He squinted and rolled down the window, pushing the mirror away. A blast of cold air hit his face. He heard the engine behind him rev, and braced himself for another jolt. Instead, the headlights disappeared, and he saw the car pull up next to him. The two-lane road twisted and wound through the Jersey countryside, the solid double yellow line indicating that passing was forbidden. Even at this time of night, he knew, this was suicidal behavior. There was no way for the other driver to see an oncoming car before it was too late.
“Jesus,” he said under his breath. His leg trembling, he rammed his foot down hard on the accelerator. The little Honda jerked and shifted into first gear, spurting ahead of the car next to him.
“Uncle Lee,” Kylie whimpered, “what’s happening?”
“There’s a crazy driver following us,” he replied, trying to sound casual. “Maybe he’s drunk or something.”
This was a route he had driven countless times, from the day he got his license at the age of sixteen, and he knew every twist and turn in the road. He had often joked that he could drive it in his sleep. It was the one advantage he had over his unknown pursuer, and he prayed that it would count for something now. If the other driver managed to pull in front of him, Lee knew, he could almost certainly force Lee to stop. If Lee attempted to pass him, he could force Lee off the road.
He pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The Honda’s engine revved, and the car pulled ahead of his pursuer. The Honda’s engine was small but efficient, and had good pickup speed. Lee offered a silent prayer of thanks to Japanese engineering.
The headlights reappeared behind him once again, and he heard the other car’s engine gun as its headlights got closer. He prayed that the other car was not a more powerful machine than his four-cylinder rental Honda.
The road lay in front of him, a dark, curling ribbon of concrete. Ahead of him loomed McGill’s Hill, curved as the back of a whale, barely visible in the darkness.
He gripped the steering wheel and leaned forward.
“Okay, you bastard,” he muttered, “let’s see how you like this.”
With an abrupt twist of the wheel, he pulled off the road and headed for the stream at the bottom of the hill, his headlights on full beam. The car shuddered and shook as it hit the uneven ground, bumping and jerking along the frozen earth. He could hear Kylie whimpering in the backseat, but he gritted his teeth and drove on at a steady speed. Seeing the frozen stream—shallow enough to be frozen clear through, he knew from experience—he steered the car toward it.
His tires slid onto the frozen stream. The car fishtailed, then righted itself. He pressed the accelerator steadily, in search of what traction was possible with the car’s front-wheel drive.
The sedan continued its pursuit, weaving as its tires hit the ice.
Lee’s headlights picked up the copse of trees at the bottom of the hill, the grove of poplars so dangerous to generations of sledders. The stream was at its deepest point there, and on the other side of the trees was a deep ditch—invisible at night. He gunned the engine and then jerked the wheel all the way to the right, just missing the first tree. With the wheels spinning in the thin layer of snow covering the ground, he turned the car in a tight circle and avoided the ditch.
His pursuer was not so lucky.
Lee heard the crunch of metal as the other car glanced off the first tree. He glanced out of the rearview mirror just in time to see the car land headfirst in the ditch, tires spinning uselessly in the air.
Anxious as he was to know the identity of his pursuer, his instinct to protect his niece was stronger. He knew that if the driver was wearing a seat belt, he might be only mildly injured. He longed to go back for a look at the license plates, but what if their pursuer had a gun? He couldn’t take