Chapter 39
Tires squealed as Brooke made a hard left, then stepped on the gas.
We followed in the Macan.
The faded two-lane blacktop sloped up the hill. The landscape was barren. Telephone poles lined the roadway. Ahead, a trailer home sat in a desolate lot. Beyond that, there was nothing. This was the kind of road where you could really open it up. And Brooke did just that.
Still, she couldn't pull away from us. The Porsche was a beast. Jack kept honking the horn and flashing the lights.
I kept looking through the rear window to see if the beige truck followed.
Sure enough, they made the turn, and I may have grumbled a few obscenities.
Jack crossed the double yellow's and pulled alongside Brooke. At well over a hundred miles an hour, this was crazy. With my window rolled down, I shouted at her, my badge glimmering in the mid-morning sun. "Roll down the window!”
Brooke didn’t look at me. She just kept staring at the road ahead, her foot mashed to the floorboard.
I kept shouting.
Finally, she rolled down the window. "What do you want?”
"I'm trying to keep you safe. Autumn’s dead.”
I hated to break it like that, but I needed to get her attention.
Her face went long, and her eyes misted.
"We need to get you somewhere safe.”
Brooke slowed and took a hard right.
We missed the turn.
Jack slammed the brakes, backed up, then turned onto the crossroad. We were on the other side of the hill, out of view of the beige truck.
We caught up with Brooke as she barreled down the highway. She took another left at the next crossroad, then stepped on it again.
I was glad we had filled the tank earlier. This could go on for a long time, and one of us would run out of gas first.
We raced down the lonely road into the high desert. Miles and miles of absolutely nothing with hazy mountains in the distance. Bright sun and blue sky. I was pretty sure we had lost the beige truck.
We caught up to Brooke.
Jack crossed the double yellows again and pulled alongside her. I shouted, "I'm not going to hurt you. If I was going to hurt you, I would have done so by now.”
An 18-wheeler approached, honking his horn, flashing his lights. It was a lot bigger than we were, and it closed in quickly.
Jack sped up and swerved back into our lane in front of Brooke, just in the nick of time.
The 18-wheeler rumbled past, its horn warbling.
Brooke slowed, then stopped in the middle of the highway.
Jack pulled to the shoulder.
We both looked through the rear window, waiting for her to make her next move.
After a beat, she drove forward and pulled behind the Porsche.
I hopped out with my badge in hand and approached with my hands in the air. I stopped at the back of the Porsche, waiting for her to do something. Jack kept an eye on the highway in case the goons showed up.
Brooke climbed out of the car with a pistol in hand. She kept it aimed at the ground. "Tell me who you are and exactly what you want."
"It's a long, complicated story."
"What happened to Autumn?”
I told her everything I knew. "We need to get you somewhere safe.”
"I felt pretty safe until you two showed up."
"That was an illusion. The two men in the coffee shop… They're looking for you.”
"Who are they?”
"I was hoping you could tell me.”
She said nothing.
“Jonathan Edwards was shot. Charles McGinnis was killed during a break-in. Michelle Morgan went missing. Adam Baxter, who also worked at Meridian with you, is missing. This is all connected to RSS. The parent company of your employer.”
"Former employer. I don't work there anymore.”
"You want to tell me what this is all about?”