Your Chariot Awaits (33 page)

With two guys with guns approaching, I'd have liked to have something more potent than an ear to rely on. One man was short and stocky, the other taller and scarecrow bony. Along with the ski masks, both were wearing scruffy jeans, dark T-shirts, and gloves.

“Get out!” the short one yelled. He emphasized the command with a wave of the gun at me through the windshield.

I was inclined to stay put. I could lock all the doors from the driver's seat and we could just sit tight, or maybe I could even prod the limo into action. But before I could find the lock button, Mr. Findley was stepping out. That meant the guys could get in through the back way no matter what I did. Reluctantly I opened my door too. Mr. Findley had his hands up.

“You too,” Short Guy said to me with another jab of the gun.

I slid out of the limo, my high heels squishing into water and mud to my ankles. I put my hands in the air. Not a time to worry about such niceties as drooping trousers, but I had to wonder how securely I'd fastened that pin.

“Gimme your wallet,” Scarecrow Man said to Mr. Findley.

Mr. Findley pulled the wallet out of his pocket and handed it over. I could see a stash of green bills protruding.

Good! With a haul like that, maybe they'd fade into the woods now. This seemed an unlikely place to wait for a rich victim to show up, but here we were, so maybe they knew what they were doing.

“I'll . . . uh . . . get my purse,” I said. I made a move toward the open door, but Short Guy targeted me dead center with his gun.

“You don't do nuthin' until I tell you to.”

I had a brilliant idea, something to speed up their exit. “You can take the limo too! It'll take us hours to walk out of here. You can sell it to”—I searched my mind for the right word, something I'd read somewhere—“to one of those chop shops!” An ugly demise for the limo, but better than what could happen here.

Both men stopped what they were doing to look at the vehicle as if they were considering the idea.

“Great condition,” I said. “Low mileage.”

“Don't be an idiot,” Mr. Findley snapped.

His dismissal of my desperate ploy seemed a little harsh, given our circumstances.

Scarecrow Man looked back at the wallet in his hand and started flipping through it. But he was having a hard time keeping his gun targeted on Mr. Findley and managing the wallet too. He dropped the wallet. Right in the muddy rut.

Mr. Findley exploded. “You stupid idiot!” He fished the wallet out of the dirty water and shook it under Scarecrow Man's nose. “Can't you do anything right?”

My jaw dropped. “Wh-what's going on?” I was shaking in my snappy uniform, but Mr. Findley was just flicking a speck of mud off the gray suit.

“Okay, let's get this over with,” he said. “I don't know how soon the cops may get here.”

“Get w-what over with?”

“I'm sorry this turned out to be necessary, Mrs. McConnell, but that's the way it is. I figure you were just biding your time before you hit me up like Jerry did.”

“I-I have no idea what you're talking about.” I said. Short Guy waved his gun at me again, and I noticed a watch on his wrist. A Rolex.

Connections here, obviously. But it was like trying to thread a needle in a dark room. I just couldn't see what went where.

“There isn't any meeting, is there?” I said to him. “You staged all this.”

“Of course there's a meeting. It just isn't here
.”
He smiled and touched a finger to his jaw. “Oh, dear. I must have misunderstood the directions, and we wound up way out here in the middle of nowhere. And then a couple of ruffians attacked us and demanded money. They shot you when you resisted giving up your purse.” He gave me a how's-that-for-a-story lift of eyebrows.

Me, I was hung up on two words back there: s
hot you.
I tried to swallow, but my throat felt frozen. “But, Mr. Findley, there really isn't any need to, uh,
dispose
of me. Honestly, Jerry never told me anything. I figured he was killed because of something to do with that weird Twenty-first Minutemen group he set up a Web site for. Or maybe an old girlfriend.”

Mr. Findley looked at me, double lines crunched between his eyebrows. “Well, that may be, in which case this unpleasant episode may have been unnecessary. But unfortunately, you do know something now, don't you?”

Yeah, I did. I still didn't know
why
Jerry was killed, but I knew Mr. Findley was behind it.

“Maybe we ought to, you know, give you a little flesh wound or something,” Short-Guy-with-Rolex suggested to Mr. Findley. He fingered the gun like a kid eager to start playing a video game. “Make the whole thing look authentic when the cops get here. Like you tried to protect her or something.”

“Her body and the fact that I was robbed will be sufficient to show that we were attacked by ruthless killers who stole my wallet. Don't start trying to improve on the plan,” Mr. Findley snapped. “And if you use any of the credit cards in that wallet, you're dead too.”

I wasn't worried about Mr. Findley's credit cards or the life expectancy of these two guys. I was stuck again, this time on
her body.
Which was
my
body. Sometimes, like bear traps, words just snap and grab you.

“We're wasting time here,” Mr. Findley said impatiently. He handed his wallet back to Scarecrow Man. “You've got to be long gone when the cops get here. Do it.”

Short Guy gave me a sideways glance. “We killed the guy at the limo for you.”

Surprisingly, in spite of that admission and his eagerness to give Mr. Findley a flesh wound, I sensed Short Guy was a little squeamish about shooting me.

“And a sloppy job you did of it. If you'd done her”—Mr. Findley jerked his head at me—“we wouldn't be having this complication now.”

I felt a peculiar moment of relief. Jerry had turned out to be a sleazy guy, but at least he hadn't clobbered me. These guys had done it.

“You're so good at all this, you do this one,” Scarecrow Man challenged. He held the gun out to Mr. Findley. “Or come up with a whole lot bigger payoff.”

Okay, maybe squeamishness gave him too much credit. What he really wanted was a pay hike. Killers probably didn't get retirement benefits. If the money was good enough, I was dead meat.

“You're the ones who broke into my house, aren't you?” I said, trying to buy some time. “You stole my diamond earrings. And my mother's watch.”

“Not one of our more upscale jobs,” Scarecrow Man muttered. “I've seen better stuff at a yard sale. How about it, Emeril?” he added. “You gonna up the ante?”

Mr. Findley didn't appear pleased at what he apparently considered overfamiliarity. He looked as if he were about to stomp the guy's bones into the mud, but finally he said, “Okay, give me the gloves and the gun. I'll do it. No, the gloves
first
, stupid.”

While they were fumbling with gloves and gun, I saw a narrow window of opportunity. I jumped into the limo, slammed the door, and punched the lock button as if I were running for my life. Which I was. I turned the key, shoved the gearshift into drive, and rammed the gas pedal to the floor. The tires spun uselessly again. No, no, no! Down, down we went . . . another minute and the limo'd be buried to the hubcaps.

You watching this, God? Help!

The spinning tires suddenly grabbed hold, and the limo shot forward. We roared up the steep hill on the other side of the mudhole, around a bend, down the other side and through more muddy ruts. Branches whapped the windshield like the arms of a green octopus. I automatically ducked.

Where was I going? What did it matter? Anywhere was better than where I'd been. The road must come out some-where. Maybe the forks joined back in here, or maybe the road went on through to Bogg's Junction.

An opening in the trees up ahead. I careened into it and braked. An old log landing, where logs had once been gathered for loading onto trucks, now a gathering spot for drinkers and shooters. Blackened chunks of wood, remains of an old campfire, jumbled within a circle of rocks. Beer cans and bottles, scattered and broken. A weathered target punctured with bullet holes. Several piles of dumped yard rubbish and old boards.

I scanned the forested edge of the rough circle of clearing, then frantically scanned it again. My heart plummeted like an anchor plunging to the bottom of Vigland Bay. Only one road led into the clearing, the one I was on. No other road led out of it.

Trapped.

For a moment I speculated hopefully on how the two men had arrived. On foot, from what I'd seen, but they must have a vehicle stashed close by, and a planned escape route. Was there another road nearby? Could I crash the limo through to it?

Not likely, since I had no idea where the road might be.

I could get out and make a run for it on foot. Maybe hide out in the woods until the cops arrived.

If
Mr. Findley had even called the cops . . .

Yes, I decided, he'd called them. They were a crucial element of his plan. They were supposed to arrive to find me dead, Mr. Findley robbed and terrified. With no reason for any of it ever to be connected to Jerry's murder.

Of course, there was the flash drive hidden back in my sofa. Maybe it would eventually be found and the information retrieved. I still didn't know what could be on it to incriminate Mr. Findley, but justice might catch up with these guys someday.

Long after I was dead.

Mr. Findley and his goons would probably be here in another minute. Now what? Cower inside the limo? They could shoot the door locks open.

Only one way out,
I realized.
Back the way I'd come.
I swallowed and eased the limo into a turn while dodging the piles of trash. This was no time to get stuck or puncture a tire. I had a straight shot at the old road now.

Cousin Larry said the limo's windows were bulletproof.

Were they?

36

O
ld logging debris crunched under the tires. A beer bottle popped. A deep rut threw the limo sideways and almost yanked the steering wheel out of my sweaty hands. I let go of the wheel one hand at a time and swiped each palm across the uniform so I could get a better grip.

Here we go, God. You with me?

I locked my hands on the wheel and roared full blast into the green tunnel of the narrow road. An octopus branch whammed the windshield. Caught vines dangled down a side window. I spotted shadowy figures in the road ahead. Guns pointing at me. No turning back now. I stomped down on the gas pedal as if I were trying to annihilate an oversized cockroach.

The first bullet didn't hit the limo. I saw it take off a tree limb alongside the road. Good! Maybe they were all really lousy shots, the kind of guys who never could win teddy bears for their girlfriends at carnivals.

But the next one was a bull's-eye.
Wham!
It smashed dead-on into the windshield in front of my face. I automatically ducked behind the steering wheel. Matt was right. Bullets didn't bounce off like Ping-Pong balls. The driver's side of the windshield blossomed into a crisscrossed tangle that looked like splintered ice. But the maze of cracks held. No bullet blasted through!

The hit slowed me down. I couldn't see the road through the web of cracks. My next thought was,
Okay, so I hit something
while I'm careening along blindly. Maybe it'll be one of those goons.
But even if it were a solid tree trunk I wouldn't be in a much worse situation than I was now.

I leaned over to the right, peered around the central spider-web of cracks, and hit the gas pedal again. More shots, a gaunt-let of them. Something thudded on the roof. Falling branch? The windshield in front of me took another direct hit. The web of cracks expanded. Could enough shots in one place break through?

I saw Short Guy's face through a side window as I hurtled past him, so close I could have reached out and ripped off his ski mask. But he didn't have a gun now; he'd passed it along to Mr. Findley, and all he could do was slam a fist into the side window. Which, I was pleased to see when I glanced back in the rearview mirror, left him holding his arm and howling in pain. Fistproof as well as bulletproof!

But a few feet farther on, Scarecrow Guy was on the far side, and he did have one of their two-gun arsenal. I saw a flash as he fired. The passenger's side window took the hit and turned into a kaleidoscope of ragged cracks . . . but again no bullet burst through.

Thank You, God! Thank You for Uncle Ned and his paranoia!

Pudgy Mr. Findley hadn't been able to keep up with his goons and was a hundred feet behind them. I ducked down to peer under the labyrinth of cracks in the windshield and spotted him standing dead center in the beam of the headlights.

He had a gun.

I had a limo.

I'd never played a game of chicken in my life. I didn't want to play one now. But it looked as if I hadn't much choice.

The gun blazed. He wasn't deadly accurate, but the right side of the windshield formed a new jigsaw puzzle of cracks. I shot back with what I had, a blast of the horn, and kept going.

Mr. Findley stood his ground in the middle of the road. More shots. I couldn't tell if he was hitting anything, although the headlight beams looked lopsided now, and I could feel an odd lurch in the limo.

But the limo's powerful engine gobbled up the space between us, and at the last minute Mr. Findley threw up his hands and jumped aside. The last I saw of him was a gray blob tangled in blackberry bushes alongside the road. I guessed that meant I was the winner, although I didn't feel too victorious. Something pinged into the limo from behind, but I didn't stop to check.

Thank You, God. Thank You for bringing me through that.

I roared on down the road, rocketing over stones, barreling through mudholes, hoping for the best with my limited vision. Without the seat belt fastened, I was a loose cannon in the seat, bouncing up, down, and sideways. Past the forks, on down the gravel road. The limo felt strange, sluggish, and hard to steer, but I didn't slow down. I had no idea where the goons had stashed a vehicle. They could be coming right behind me.