When they left the restaurant, there was no sign of the plainclothes officer who had been tailing him. Lee figured his shift had ended and the cop who was supposed to relieve him hadn't shown up. He should have called it in, but he was glad to be alone for a change. He drove along the dark country lanes in rural New Jersey as Kylie slept in the backseat. He had promised his mother to bring her back that night so she could go to a school fair the next day. It was a long drive to make at night, but he didn't mind. It gave him a chance to think.
The dark sedan was upon him before he registered what was happening. It seemed to come out of nowhere, its headlights on full high beams, so close behind his car that they reflected into his rearview mirror, blinding him. At first he thought it was his surveillance protection, catching up to him, but when the driver remained close, high beams on full, he realized it wasn't a cop behind him.
"Christ, what is it with these people?" he muttered as he adjusted the mirror.
His first thought was to pull over and let the car pass him, but that thought was shaken out of his head when he felt the jolt. The sickening realization came instantly: the other car had hit him.
There was no doubt in his mind that it was intentional.
His hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, squeezing it hard as sweat oozed from his palms.
"Oh, God," he said under his breath. "Goddamn it." This time it was more of a prayer than a curse.
The car hit him again-harder this time. He heard the crunch as the bumpers met, metal against metal.
In the backseat, Kylie stirred and woke.
"Uncle Lee? Are we there yet?"
He took a deep breath and tried to will the panic out of his voice.
"No, honey-go back to sleep."
Another bump, this time sending his car into the opposite lane, so that he had to fight to control it.
Kylie's voice came from the backseat, wide awake now, sounding as panicked as he felt. "Uncle Lee, what's going on?"
He had no idea what to say to her, how to explain that there was someone trying to kill them both.
"Go back to sleep, okay? Everything's going to be fine."
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 that chance. He turned the Honda in a tight circle and headed back to the road. A wave of nausea threatened to overcome him as he pulled back onto the road, but he took deep gulps of the icy air coming in through his still open window and sped off into the night.
Kylie had grown very quiet in the backseat, so when he had gone a mile or two, he looked back at her to see if she was all right. She sat staring at him without speaking, her hands clutching the stuffed dinosaur he had bought for her earlier.
"Kylie? Are you okay?" he said.
"What happened to the other car?" she asked. "He hit the tree. Is he going to be all right?"
"I don't know, honey, but I'm going to call the police as soon as I can so they can go rescue him."
"Why did you go off the road like that?"
Because he was trying to kill us.
"Well, I just wanted him to stop following us."
"Why was he following us?"
"I think he must have been drunk or something."
Kylie began to cry. "But what if he died?"
"Don't worry, Kylie-it's going to be all right. The police will take care of him. Everything's going to be all right."
But the more he said the words, the less he believed them. Someone was after him, and he suspected that whoever it was, they wanted him off the case-very, very badly.