There was only one way they could have found her.
She stole a quick look at Tom, who crossed his arms over his chest and watched the passing landscape. She tried to keep her breathing even and quiet.
With her exit coming up, Riley didn’t have much time to formulate a plan. She slowed gradually to let the sedan get far enough ahead that they wouldn’t be able to get over fast enough to follow, but they must have been watching her closely. They smoothly dodged cars and switched lanes until they were two cars behind her. Riley debated her options for a few seconds. Stay on or get off? Taillights flashed ahead, so she hit the ramp to Route 234. Maybe she could lose them down there.
“Something wrong?” Tom asked, eyes now narrowed on her. He shifted so his left arm was across the back of the seat, his hand uncomfortably close to Riley’s head, and rested his right hand on the dash. Good placement to grab the wheel…
A bubble of hysteria threatened to make her laugh. She needed metal and a plan. She’d tucked one of Nick’s shotguns from the trunk next to her seat since she wasn’t wearing any metal. She hadn’t wanted anything in direct contact with her skin, afraid she’d unconsciously draw energy and burn herself again. Plus, Tom was supposed to be on her side, dammit.
“No,” she answered his question as calmly as she could. He’d never expect to be shoved out the door, but she couldn’t reach his door handle from here, and even the shotgun probably wouldn’t give her enough strength to succeed, and opening the window and sticking her hand out to use the vehicle’s chassis would be too obvious. He’d be able to yank her away before she could draw enough energy.
But maybe she could do something less physical. She ran through the steps in her head until she knew what to do.
She had to act quickly. Traffic had thinned considerably on this smaller road, and Riley and the sedan were already the only cars on the quiet two-lane. Towering trees dappled the road with shadow. The few houses were mostly large, on giant tracts of property and set way back from the road. There were few streets to turn onto, all residential neighborhoods lined with cars. No room to maneuver, no way to get enough speed to lose them. Besides, the Charger was too distinctive to stay lost for long.
Riley spotted a crossroads up ahead that was open enough for her plan. She reached down next to the seat to grip the shotgun while she hit the accelerator, sucking energy and concentrating hard on using it to pull the door handle on the passenger side. Please work, please work, please work. A click reverberated along the thread of energy, like the vibration of a thread on a spider’s web. Yes!
Riley jerked the wheel left, spinning the car. The door flew open and Macho Tom, who hadn’t bothered wearing a seatbelt, flew out the opening with flailing arms and a shouted curse.
Riley kept the car going in a circle. It lurched almost to a stop, facing the way she’d been going originally. She hit the gas, the vehicle’s momentum slamming the passenger door closed. In the rearview mirror, she saw Tom sit up at the side of the road. The sedan sped by him without even slowing down.
No time for her to even take a breath. She’d slowed so much the sedan closed in on her tail, then suddenly whipped out into the oncoming lane and pulled up next to her. She glanced quickly over but only saw two silhouetted figures, their shapes unlike the men who’d been in Anson’s office. But the prickling was a lot stronger now, with them only a few feet away, so they had to be part of Numina.
The passenger motioned her to pull over.
“Hell, no.” Time to see what Nick’s car was capable of.
She slammed on the accelerator and pulled ahead, letting up for the curves but picking up speed halfway through each of them. The car was heavy and the steering tight, but it handled those curves like a lover. She whooped as she rounded the third turn, the sedan so far behind now she couldn’t see it. But she didn’t let up. She kept going, reducing her speed to a safer level, but still flying toward the ocean and Sam.
“Recalculating route.”
“What?” Riley glanced at the GPS a few times. Fuck. She’d overshot her turn.
“Recalculating route.”
The Charger burned a good quarter mile of pavement before the stupid freaking GPS said “turn around when possible.”
Cursing, Riley slowed and pulled to the right, preparing to make a three-point turn on the narrow road, when flashing lights appeared in her rearview mirror.
Fuck again. The cops.
She waited until they got close, making sure it was a real cop and not the sedan with a flashy light. It was real, dammit, and she pulled over as far as she could. The cop pulled in behind her, half out into the street to provide a bit of safety for the officer. Riley leaned to check the glove box for the registration, gasping when the door opened to reveal a pearl-handled pistol lying inside. She grabbed the envelope underneath it and slammed it closed again, her heart pounding.
“Calm down, Riley.” She checked the mirror. The cop hadn’t gotten out yet. She took a deep breath and scanned the interior of the car for anything else incriminating, and pushed the shotgun deeper under the seat, out of sight.
Driver’s license. They’d want that, too. She pulled it out of her back pocket and straightened, forcing herself to sit still and breathe. By the time the officer—a female with her hair pulled up in a tight twist and her uniform without a wrinkle—reached the side of the car, Riley had managed to calm down. She didn’t smile when she rolled down her window and handed over the license and registration.
The cop checked her face, eyed her hands on the wheel, and peered around the inside of the car. “Do you know how fast you were going, ma’am?”
“Not exactly,” Riley answered, not even considering lying. “But I know it was too fast.”
The cop’s eyebrow went up, but she kept jotting information on her ticket pad. “Why were you going so fast?”
“It’s going to sound insane.” Riley slid her hands up to the top of the wheel, then back to ten and two. “Um…there was a gray sedan following me. Did you see it?” She hoped like hell the cop hadn’t seen her dump Tom. She’d be arrested and a sitting duck in some little regional jail. Well, at least there’d be easy access to the metal bars there.
“No, ma’am. You were the only car on the road.”
So the cop had been sitting around the third turn, after Riley had pulled well away from the sedan.
“Well, they followed me off the highway, pulled up next to me, and tried to get me to pull over. They scared me, so I sped up instead. This car has some muscle,” she finished, sure she’d said exactly the wrong thing.
But the cop’s lips quirked a bit. “Yes, it’s a beefy one.” She slid the license and registration card under the clip on her pad holder. “It’s not yours?”
“No, it’s a friend’s. He had to fly east, and I offered to drive the car for him so he didn’t have to leave it behind.”
“Behind where?”
“We started in Atlanta.”
The officer peered in at Riley. “You been resting?”
“Yes, I stayed in a hotel last night.” Okay, some lying wouldn’t hurt.
“Good.” She tapped the holder. “I’ll be right back.” She returned to her car, and Riley watched in the side mirror, then the rear when the cop climbed into the cruiser. She was anxiously watching still, chewing the cuticle on her thumb, when the gray car eased around the last curve and stopped well behind them. She glared as it backed up a little, then did the three-point turn Riley had planned and zoomed away.
“Yeah, you better get your ass out of here.” Speeding fine notwithstanding, maybe getting stopped had been the best thing. The minutes ticked by. A few other cars passed, three in a row, then a truck, but no gray sedan. Finally the cop returned and handed Riley her cards.
“I’m issuing you a citation for failure to obey posted traffic signs.” She scribbled something on her pad, initialed it, and ripped off the ticket to hand to Riley. “I suggest you use more caution from here on. My colleagues will be po
sted in various areas,” she added.
Riley smiled her thanks. “Is it okay if I turn around here? I missed my turn.”
The cop motioned ahead. “It’s safer to drive down about a quarter mile to the Dew Drop Inn and turn there. Good coffee, too.”
“Thank you.” She waited until the officer was back in her car before opening the glove compartment, tossing the Nick’s registration back in, and quickly shutting it. Then she put her license back and stuck the citation in her pocket. The cop hadn’t moved, but Riley couldn’t tell if she was watching her, talking to her dispatcher, or making notes in her log or whatever. Riley put the car in gear and pulled out, hoping the cop would follow her for a while. That would ensure the people in the sedan would keep their distance. But almost immediately, the cruiser did a U-turn, probably to go back to the speed trap.
“Safer to go forward, my ass,” Riley muttered. Fine. She’d take the cop up on her suggestion and stop for coffee and crowds.
The Dew Drop Inn appeared on the left a few minutes later, a ramshackle clapboard diner with a half-full parking lot. Riley drove around to the side and behind some cars parked in the center of the lot. The Charger wasn’t hidden from the street, but they might pass without seeing it. She eyed the empty road, hoping she could get inside before the sedan drove by and spotted her.
Since the building blocked her view down the road, she climbed out, locked the door, and jogged up to the entrance, slipping quickly inside the cozy little diner, and releasing her held breath.
“Hello, sweetheart!” The man in front of her had wild white hair and sparkling blue eyes, and he wore a threadbare cardigan over baggy khakis as comfortably as his broad grin. “Early lunch today?”
“Um, just coffee, I think. And maybe—is that peach pie?” She indicated the pie safe on the counter.
The old man beamed. “It certainly is, fresh made this morning. I’d be double-dee-lighted to serve you some.” He waved at the woman behind the counter and led Riley to a booth halfway back in the main dining area. The little place seemed to be a warren of rooms, and she thought about asking if she could be seated in one of the other areas, but they could take her by surprise back there. Here, at least, she could sit facing the front windows and see the road and entrance to the parking lot.
She thanked the white-haired man—who’d introduced himself as Curtis, the owner of the Dew Drop—when he set down her pie and filled her mug with coffee. He was chatty and seemed about to join her, something she normally wouldn’t have minded, but right now she just wanted to lurk without distraction. Luckily someone called him over to their table and he sat with them, instead, leaving Riley to slowly eat her pie and keep an eagle eye out the window.
Half an hour later, she hadn’t spotted the gray sedan, and she couldn’t nurse her coffee anymore. She paid at the cash register before returning to the car. She reprogrammed the GPS, pulled out onto the empty road, and relaxed as she approached her turn.
She’d driven a scant quarter mile when her pursuers pulled up beside her again, so suddenly she didn’t know where they came from. The passenger, no longer in silhouette, motioned again for her to pull over. He was younger and more refined than she’d expected. With sandy blond hair hanging over his forehead, he had the look of a trust-fund kid.
She drove faster. This time they were ready and surged up the road with her, pulling alongside quickly and veering right, bumping the Charger and pushing her toward the shoulder.
“Fuck!” She struggled with the wheel, losing speed. Metal screeched as they hit her again, the sedan scraping up the side of Nick’s car before she shot ahead.
The reprieve wasn’t going to last long. Time to suck it up and use the big rolling hunk of metal she had at her disposal. She unrolled her window halfway and slapped her hand on the roof. The connection was instantaneous, the energy just waiting for her to direct it, and to her relief, it was cool and exciting rather than hot and frightening.
But how could she use it? The car chasing her was bigger than anything she’d tried to move with her mind before, and she wasn’t sure she could do telekinesis through the window, on the move, even with something small.
The sedan surged up beside her again. This time Riley slowed to let them get ahead of her, then took her hand off the wheel, held her palm out toward the car, and concentrated on shoving it off the road. It veered, the back end fishtailing slightly, before the driver corrected. She had to grab the wheel again when the Charger swerved. Her sweaty palm slid along the roof, but she refused to let go of her power source or change her contact to the door, where her arm could be more easily crushed between vehicles.
The road lay straight ahead for a while. She braked and tried again, pushing harder at the sedan, and this time managed to get it to skid off to the far shoulder before the driver righted them. She floored it and pulled her hand inside. The sudden ebb of power made her dizzy. She gripped the wheel and blinked hard, shaking her head to clear it.
“In…one mile…bear right…and then…turn left,” the GPS told her.
Riley’s heart rate sped up even more. She was so close to safety, to Sam. But she didn’t want to lead these yahoos to Quinn and risk interrupting the transfer. She thought briefly of the pistol in the glove box, but she’d never used one before and had no idea if it was even loaded. If she could get far enough ahead, maybe the turn onto Route 1 would help her lose them…
She was almost out of time. She’d crossed the line into Rhode Island and was in Westerly now, the road dense with homes. The sedan was back on the road and gaining. Okay, she had to admit it. Without full concentration, the car was too heavy for her. So she needed to move something else. She scanned the side of the road ahead of her. A dead tree stood among those bursting with new leaves. Riley put her hand back on the roof, balanced the steering wheel with her knee, and aimed the other at the tree, imagining grabbing it and ripping a huge branch off. There was a satisfying crack as she drove under it, and she watched in the rearview mirror as a shower of dry branches clattered down behind her. Most hit the ground in front of the sedan. The biggest one bounced up onto its hood, then banged up and over the roof as the sedan bumped over the ones on the ground.
But they were still right behind her.
She squealed through the intersection of 234 and Route 1, the light flashing to yellow above her. Riley blinked as she sped. Were the trees blurring because she was going so fast, or was something wrong with her vision? It seemed harder to breathe now, too.
And the sedan had made the light.
God, what if she didn’t get out of this? What if they stopped her?
“Turn right…in…one mile…and then…merge right.”
That wasn’t going to work. This was too residential, had too much traffic. She slammed on the brakes at the flash of taillights ahead of her and wracked her brain to remember the map of the area she’d studied last night. GPS was great, but she didn’t like not knowing what she was looking for.
A sign for Route 2 flashed by, and a couple hundred feet later, she turned left. She couldn’t lead these guys to the others. For all she knew, they only wanted her as bait for bigger fish. She had to find a spot where she could confront them and stop them once and for all.
The GPS stopped recalculating and flashed instructions on the screen. “In…eight hundred yards…take the exit ramp…right.” That was Route 78, and meant she was only minutes away from Chloe’s place. Her brain fuzzed. Thinking grew harder. She zoomed up the ramp onto the blessedly empty highway. Thank God for the off season.
The two cars hurtled down the two-lane highway bisected by a solid median and surrounded by forest on both sides. Half a mile along, she decided things weren’t going to get any better than this. She held her breath and wrapped her hands tightly around the steering wheel to yank it to the left, slamming on the brakes at the same time. The car spun so its back end was perched on the edge of the ditch at the side of the road and blocking the lane with just a narrow gap between the fro
nt end and the concrete barrier.
Riley slid across the front seat and pushed out the passenger door, coughing in the swirling dust kicked up by the tires. Her feet skidded on the gravel, and she scrambled to reach the right front fender and face the sedan over the hood. Blessed strength flooded her when she pressed her left hand hard to the metal. Her vision cleared, and the dust settled enough for her to breathe.
A car raced straight at her. Sunlight glinted off it, though, so she wasn’t positive it was the right vehicle. She couldn’t risk injuring some innocent driver—there could even be kids in the car. She squinted, too many seconds ticking by, until she recognized the dip in the car’s hood.
She pulled hard at the energy and aimed it at the back end of the sedan. It rushed through her, dry liquid surging over all her cells. She gasped, her body rocking forward behind the force of the energy as it left her.
It hit the car just right.
This time when the driver tried to correct the swerve, he sent it into a spin. It screamed across the road, the rear quarter panel heading straight for the Charger. Holy shit, it was going to hit! Riley had no time to run, no time to panic. She closed her eyes and pushed, the sound of squealing tires filling her ears, her arm shaking as the car resisted. It smacked into the side of the Charger. The vehicle rocked, knocking Riley to the gravel. Her head bounced off the stones and sent the bright sky above her into an explosion of stars.
She didn’t hear car doors opening, but when the stars cleared two figures loomed over her. The prickling increased, as uncomfortable as a hand or foot that had fallen asleep. Riley tried to shut it off, but it only prickled faster.
Trust-Fund Guy reached down with a bloody hand. Riley swatted it away, but the other guy—this one bigger, brawnier, with a purpling goose egg already rising on his forehead—grabbed her upper arm and hauled her to her feet. Pain burst in her low back, her neck, her head. Her feet shuffled. She was too weak to pick them up and walk properly.
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