My heart sank as the black Cadillac zoomed past the Barnyard Inn, and Brad prepared to land the helicopter in the parking lot. Now it would be entirely up to me to continue the chase. In my own earthbound vehicle.
Peering out the window during our descent, I counted three police cars and nine sign-toting Fleggers still on site. Then I counted my ex-husband-as a major disappointment. He was leaning up against a familiar white Audi, chatting with a woman I had grown to intensely dislike. Although we were too far away to see the bullet holes, I was sure there were still two in Susan Davies’ shiny car. And I no longer gave a shit about who had put them there.
“Thanks, anyway,” I told Brad as I handed back my headset.
Nathaniel made no move to remove his. In fact, he appeared to have settled in happily for the ride to Elkhart.
“Not a problem,” Brad said. “I do what Mr. Davies tells me to. Within reason.”
When I stepped out of the chopper into churning air, MacArthur jogged toward me across the blacktop.
“The dogs are in a black Cadillac heading east!” I shouted. “And Chester is with the Amish.”
Without replying, he grabbed me by the arm and pulled me along until we were well beyond the helicopter’s wind and noise.
“Kori’s gone,” he said without preamble. “Jeb went to interview her, but she’d checked out.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I told him. “I know about her silver pickup!”
“That’s not hers. Kori drives a black Lincoln, courtesy of Liam.”
“From the sky, does a Lincoln look like a Cadillac?”
I filled MacArthur in on what we’d witnessed along Route 20.
“A Lincoln might look like a Caddy,” he said, “to you and an Amish kid.”
“The pilot was there, too! He didn’t disagree.”
“He doesn’t get paid to.”
“Well, all I know is somebody’s driving Abra and Silverado down Route 20 right now! They just passed the Barnyard Inn, and I’m going to follow them!”
MacArthur reacted in a way I could not have predicted. He doubled over in laughter.
“What the hell is so funny, Mr. Never-Here-When-I-Need-You Bodyguard?!”
“What’s funny, Whiskey, is that you have no training whatsoever in aggressive driving!”
He rolled a whole lot of Rs in that sentence, but I was still annoyed.
“Isn’t aggressive driving something you get ticketed for?” I said.
“I’m talking about competitive and evasive techniques used by professional drivers. I took a course in Glasgow. You’re coming with me!”
With that he grabbed my arm again, and we took off running toward… I didn’t know where. Presumably toward MacArthur’s car. Since I had never actually seen his car, I didn’t have a clue what it looked like.
“What’s up with Jeb and Susan?” I panted. “I thought you were going to question her.”
“I did,” MacArthur replied as we ran.
“Well, there he is, flirting with her again!”
MacArthur braked abruptly, pulling me around to face him.
“I can’t keep your man on a leash, and neither can you. Take a wee spot of advice from Fleggers on this one, and let it go. Now, shall we find Abra?”
Off we went again, dashing past many parked cars, including Susan’s. I refrained from waving at her and Jeb. Or giving them the finger.
“Where the hell are you parked?” I gasped as we left the lot behind us and continued along the side of the exhibit hall, running on grass. I knew that MacArthur had slowed his pace for me. Even so, he was twenty feet ahead.
“Over there,” he said at the exact instant I spotted his vehicle.
“Oh no!” I wailed. “I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle!”
“That is no motorcycle. That is a Harley. You don’t have to know how to ride it. All you have to do is hold on. And wear this.”
He tossed me a Darth Vader-type helmet, then leapt astride the machine as if mounting a stallion. How can I put this? MacArthur took what was left of my breath away.
I would have put the freaking helmet on backwards if he hadn’t stopped me. After that I sat where he told me to sit and put my hands where he told me to put them: around his massive chest. Okay, so that part was pleasant enough. When MacArthur kicked the bike to life, I inhaled the last complete breath I would catch for some miles. I only wished I could have seen the expression on Jeb and Susan’s faces as we roared past. Unfortunately, I was too terrified to open my eyes.
“How fast was the Caddy going?” MacArthur whispered in my ear.
That is, it sounded like he was whispering. Actually, he was speaking through the headset built into my helmet. Since I had a mouthpiece in my helmet, there was no need for me to shout. Except of course from pure terror.
“How the hell should I know how fast it was going? I was in a helicopter!”
“Allow me to rephrase the question,” MacArthur said calmly. “Was the Caddy passing other cars, or were other cars passing the Caddy?”
“The Caddy was the passer!” I yelled.
Through my now slightly open “good” eye, I saw MacArthur touch his helmet. Possibly to turn down the volume dial.…
“One more question,” he said. “Was the driver in complete control of the car? Or did he swerve?”
“No swerving!”
MacArthur touched his helmet again. “Then we have one very cool customer.”
“Or one very reckless one,” I said. “Did you check Kori’s driving record?”
MacArthur didn’t answer. Instead, he commanded me to hold on tight. Tighter. I squeezed my eyes shut again. From the sound and the smell-and the eternity required to get around it-I gathered that we were passing an eighteen-wheeler. By the time we were back to the regular roar of the road, I had forgotten what I wanted to ask him. Hell, I had forgotten my middle name.
If there was a blood clot anywhere in my body, road vibrations had surely jarred it loose by now. Who worried about stroke or heart attack? I was way more afraid of ending up a smear on the pavement.
As we wove in and out of traffic, leaning into what felt like a series of forty-five degree angles to pass every car and truck, I wondered if MacArthur had a death wish. More important, I wondered if I could make him understand that I didn’t. No simple task when I couldn’t gather enough oxygen to speak.
Suddenly I heard and felt a vehicle surging up behind us. When the driver leaned into the horn, I knew we were in trouble. The next instant we were buzzed by a silver pickup passing so close that it literally forced us off the road. The hair on my arms stood at attention.
MacArthur kindly let me scream 'til my throat hurt and my blood pressure slid back to normal.
“Feel better?” he inquired.
By then we were parked on the berm, holding our helmets.
“You sure can ride that thing,” I conceded. “Thanks for stopping.”
His black curls were matted with sweat, and rivulets of perspiration sprang from his hairline.
“I couldn’t risk your life,” he said. “Somebody wants us out of the way.”
“Do you think they were chasing the Caddy, too?” I asked. “Or are both drivers working together?”
“My guess is they’re meeting up somewhere down the road.”
“Why on earth would anyone go to all that trouble to steal my Bad Example?”
“Get real, Whiskey. It’s only Silverado they want. Abra is along by accident.”
He had to be right. I said, “You don’t think they’ll just dump her, do you?”
“They could try,” MacArthur said, grinning.
Abra had a long history of making human life miserable, and not just mine. Most of the criminals she had consorted with ended up wishing they’d never met her.
“What now?” I asked.
“If we were in Magnet Springs, I’d suggest contacting local law enforcement. But here they’re unlikely to know the finer points of dog-napping, so they’d no doubt waste our time.”
My mind was on retrieving Chester and getting back to real estate where I belonged. Not that I was willing to give up on my dog, but I was more willing to get on with my life.
MacArthur said, “We need to find out from the Barnyard Inn what kind of vehicle every show participant drove. That will narrow our field of investigation.”
“We’re still investigating?” I let my disappointment show.
He didn’t notice, though, because he was dialing his cell phone.
“Hello, Jenx!” he boomed. “Could you run a plate for me?”
MacArthur had managed to get the license number of the pickup that almost killed us. I hadn’t even managed to keep my eyes open. Speaking of which, my right eye no longer felt so bad. Nothing like a near-death experience to put minor aches and pains in perspective.
“You forgot to tell Jenx we were almost killed!” I said.
“She knows I only call her if it’s a matter of life and death.”