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Another vehicle trailed them on the highway.

'That pickup's been back there since we left,' Mark murmured. 'I spotted the lights when we turned at the cemetery.'

'Do you have any idea who it is?'

He shook his head. It was unusual to see other vehicles on the island roads at night during the off season, and there were only a handful of other residents living year-round in the remote lane past Schoolhouse

Beach. He slowed, drawing the truck closer, until the lights were immediately behind them like giant white eyes. The vehicle made no move to pass.

Hilary squinted into the blinding brightness. 'I can't see the driver or the plate.'

Mark tapped the brakes and slowed until the Camry was barely doing twenty miles an hour. The pick-up matched their speed and stayed on their tail, crowding their rear bumper.

'Hold on,' Mark said.

He shoved down the accelerator. The Camry leaped forward, but the engine of the pickup growled too. The road was dead straight in this part of the island, and Mark accelerated to sixty and then seventy miles an hour before the speed felt unsafe. Despite the burst of speed, the pick-up closed on them again, and as it did, the driver switched on his brights, throwing a dazzling light through their rear window. Next to her, Mark blocked his eyes and pushed the mirror aside.

He braked.

The pick-up accelerated. Mark barely had time to shout a warning before Hilary felt a bone-rattling impact as the truck hammered into the rear of the Camry. Her head was thrown back, snapping against the seat. The Camry swerved, fishtailing as Mark struggled to keep control. The car veered from shoulder to shoulder, weaving close to the gullies on both sides. Finally, the Camry slowed, and Mark shunted the car on to the right-side shoulder, kicking up dark clouds of gravel and leaves.

The pickup flew past them. Hilary barely saw the shape of the truck; she couldn't pick out its color or see the driver. Ahead of them, she watched its tail lights grow distant.

Mark breathed fast. His face was beet red, his body knotted up with fury.

'This ends now,' he said.

'Mark, don't.'

- He didn't listen to her. He gunned the engine and chased the pickup. Hilary clung to the door and bit her lip until she thought she tasted blood in her mouth. She saw the red lights of the truck a mile ahead of them, and Mark gained on the other vehicle a tenth of a mile at a time. The chassis of the Camry rattled. The border of the forest was a wavy blur.

'Slow down!' she shouted. 'For God's sake, Mark, you'll get us both killed.'

Mark's hands remained locked around the steering wheel, and his eyes were riveted on the road. The car's engine howled in her ears. Wind sang in the seams of the windows. They were half a mile behind the pickup when the tail lights winked out in a single instant. Mark slowed sharply, but he was still going forty miles an hour as the straightaway ended in a rightward curve. The car yawed left. He yanked down on the wheel. Hilary was afraid they would roll, but the tires grabbed the pavement, and he accelerated safely out of the turn.

That was when she saw a huge dark shape immediately ahead of them. The pickup truck was parked sideways, blocking the road at the end of their headlight beams.

There was no time to stop.

'Oh, no,' she gasped.

* * *

Chapter Twenty

Cab drove through the deserted streets of the town of Fish Creek and parked outside the guest house near the harbor. It was a quaint village of candle shops and cafes on the west coast of the peninsula, choked with tourists in August, but quiet on a midweek evening in March. He'd rented a two-story apartment. The smell of the bay was sweet as he got out of his Corvette, but he didn't linger in the freezing air. He let himself inside and climbed the stairs to the main level of the apartment, which had a full kitchen, a fireplace, and a balcony that looked out on the water.

He was paying for it himself. He didn't apologize for the luxuries he'd known his whole life.