Aaliyah looked up at Sampson, said, “Frostburg’s what? An hour and a half from here?”
“Give or take,” Sampson said. “Here’s the best part: I ran Harrow’s name through the Maryland DMV and he’s got a 1988 Chevy pickup. How much do you want to bet his tires are bald?”
Aaliyah grabbed her coat. “Let’s go look.”
“Great minds,” Sampson said, tapping his temple. “I’ve already requisitioned a car.”
CHAPTER
35
THE MINING TRUCK CAUGHT up to us as I power-drifted the sedan through the oncoming switchback, gunning the accelerator instead of braking, trying to get the tires to skip off the ruts and washboard. The ore truck’s massive fender barely brushed my car’s rear bumper.
But I knew we were done for.
Control of the vehicle was wrenched out of my hands and given over to God and physics. The sedan went into a sickening twist that threw the rear end around hard. I got a snap look through the windshield and up into the cab of the mining truck as we spun down the road.
Trees and rocks whirled by as I threw my forearm across Atticus Jones’s chest. The car tires caught on some deeper rut and pitched us up on two wheels. Ava screamed, sure we were flipping. But something about the next rut we hit caused the car to slam back down on all four wheels, and then it was heading straight down the mountain in the wrong lane of the empty road.
“The truck!” Ava screamed. “It’s coming again!”
The ore truck was coming hard in its lane, and I suspected the driver meant to get up alongside of us and then bump us off the road into the woods. We were still going forty miles an hour when I mashed the brakes.
The mining truck shot by us. I hauled hard on the steering wheel, brought our car in behind the big rig, and released the emergency brake. He sped up, trying to outrun me, but by that point I was so infuriated that I would have driven off a cliff, fallen two hundred feet, and risked a fireball just to catch these bastards and find out why they were trying to kill us. I stayed with them the entire way down the mountain and caught up when they reached the T where Pig Lick Road met West Virginia State Highway 20.
There was surprisingly heavy traffic in both directions, other trucks from other mines and school buses and cars, and the ore truck was forced to stop at the sign. I pulled in close behind the rear of the truck where I couldn’t be seen in their mirrors. I threw the car in park, bolted out, and drew the Colt.
I ran to the pas
senger side and sprinted along the flank of the ore truck. The brakes sighed. The truck rolled. I jumped up onto the running board and grabbed a metal handle meant to help passengers access the cab just as the mining truck began to accelerate out onto the highway in a tight curve that almost threw me off.
But when the truck straightened out and began to gain speed, I was still holding on. I tapped the window with the Colt. The passenger was that same guy who’d given me the glowering look at the top of the pass into Hog Hollow.
He’d been laughing then, and he still bore a smirk when he jerked at my tapping and looked over to find me aiming at him at point-blank range. Through the window I caught a subtle shift in his shoulders and suspected him of reaching for the door handle.
I aimed away from his head, just past his nose, closed my eyes to protect them from flying glass, and pulled the trigger. The Colt barked and jumped in my hand. The bullet shattered the window, showering the guy with hailstones of glass and turning the truck’s windshield into a spider’s web.
“The next one’s going through your brain, asshole!” I shouted. “Stop this truck! Now!”
“What the fuck, man, are you insane?” the driver yelled.
“You’re next!” I shouted.
CHAPTER
36
THE DRIVER DOWNSHIFTED AND slammed on the brakes, trying to throw me, but I held tight and kept the Colt aimed at the passenger’s head until we came to a full stop right in the middle of the northbound lane of Route 20.
“You have a phone?” I demanded.
“What?” the driver whined.
“A cell,” I said.
By now the passenger was shaking so hard he looked like he’d wandered into a cold-storage locker soaking wet. “I do.”
“Call 911.”