Блейк Крауч: Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, No. 5. Whole No. 813, May 2009

He’d be wrong about that last part. I was teaching myself how to pray.

Though the fog was cooperating well enough to keep my speed down, I drove like a real granny, checking each turn in the road with Weibold, who of course was in the backseat, couldn’t see jack, and by his own nature had to think every question over. What a team. I kept having to give the geek credit, and though neither of us had any idea of what to do, I was very grateful not to be alone with Halliday/Holloway. No, I had to keep thinking of him as Holloway or I’d make the one slip that would hand the whole script over to him.

We were coming into town, and a real live traffic signal loomed up vaguely in the gloom ahead. It was red in my direction, and a hulking SUV was entering the intersection cautiously from my right. I did what any sensible person would do in the circumstances. I hit the gas.

Just as Holloway said, “What are you—” the SUV hit my poor Honda on the right side just ahead of his door, unfortunately. I had been hoping for them to hit my passenger.

I wailed with real dismay, “Oh, shit, where did they come from?” I left the keys in the ignition, half hoping Holloway would steal my car. But that would be unfair to Weibold.

Both vehicles were still in the intersection, not that there was any traffic that would have to maneuver around them. A red-faced, overweight fellow was trundling over, and I grabbed my purse just like in the real world and walked over to talk to him.

He started out calm. “My direction was green,” he said, the upset making his voice quaver. “Are you stupid? I have the right of way.” Then, his voice rising to a roar, he asked, “Where in the hell did you think you were going, missy? I have my little boy in that car!” The kid inside, about two, looked just fine in his little kid seat, strapped in and whining to be set free to get a better view of the excitement.

“It’s this fog. I’m sorry,” I said, walking around my car to the far side of his, pretending to note the nonexistent damage to the behemoth as he continued to assert his rights. I fished my driver’s license and insurance card out along with my P.I. identification but let him run on, trying to sidle out of earshot around the front of the SUV. Damned Holloway was out of the car but standing next to it, not moving. Weibold was wisely doing nothing in the rear seat.

I couldn’t say anything in front of Holloway, but I got out a piece of paper and pretended to write my information for the SUV guy. Actually, what I wrote was, “Crash was on purpose! Hostages! Call police. Federal fugitive Levi Halliday.”

“Read the note,” I suggested.

But the guy stuffed it in his pocket and kept getting more belligerent. “I don’t care what your insurance company says to my insurance company,” he said with all his neck veins puffing out. “I live here in Quarry. You’re some idiot out-of-towner who doesn’t know how to drive. We’re going to see what my good friend Sheriff Yates has to say about this.” He produced a cell phone. “Don’t you dare leave the scene.”

My mind was speeding ahead, wondering if some trigger-happy Yates — or Holloway, more likely, since I had to assume he was armed — would start shooting and hit that kid, or one of us. I wanted to play along and hope for a turn of events, but Holloway must have seen what was happening. He leaned into the driver’s seat, slammed the seat back, and said something to the professor, who flipped the front passenger seatback forward and got out.

“Nobody’s hurt,” Holloway barked, startling everyone. He lifted his chin in the direction of the backseat and said to me, “Get in. We’re going.”

The SUV guy said, “Like hell you are! I told you, I’m—”

We got in, Holloway fired up the Honda, and off we sped, to the extent that my old car could speed. It’s not bad out of the hole, and we must have been most of the way through the little town by the time the guy could react. I hoped that a sedentary lifestyle hadn’t taken its toll and that he’d be faster on his feet than he looked.

Holloway was saying, “We’re going to that place that my daughter’s at. We ain’t got time for that back there. You,” he said to the professor. “Keep your hands where I can see them, and don’t move. You either. See this?” I took that as permission to peek around the headrest. He purposely pulled his jacket aside to show us a small revolver tucked into his belt. I knew we were deep in the deep and kept waiting to hear help coming behind us, but there was nothing. The fog had started to lift, giving maybe fifty yards’ visibility. Even if the other driver saw the note, who knew whether he’d call 911 or play the hero and follow? I hoped not, thinking of that little kid.

“Where’s the house at?”

Weibold said, “I’m not familiar, actually—”

“We’ll come back later,” Holloway said.

When I sneaked a look behind us, I saw only the thinning signs of civilization as we cleared the outskirts of town, where the yards got bigger and the houses farther apart. But as I turned back, I saw something Weibold must have left on the backseat. It was medium tan, the same color as my upholstery, or Holloway would have seen it too when the dome light came on for the seat-swap. About five inches in diameter, wedged partway between the seat and back, and hard as a rock. As a matter of fact, it was a rock, and it fit right into my hand. At that moment, I loved the professor for being a geologist with a pragmatic side.

As Holloway turned right onto a small dirt road, I slid my hand over unobtrusively at the exact time Weibold provided a distraction by learnedly and politely demanding to know where we were going.

“Shut up,” Holloway replied. He turned his head slightly to the right to say something to me, and I simultaneously said, “I’m not sure, but I think we passed the street back—” and slammed the rock into Holloway’s temple. It was a stupid thing to do, and it could have gotten us killed, but it might also have been crazy intuition in the presence of evil. He travels fastest who travels alone , right? Holloway had just taken a turn that in the lifting fog you could easily see led straight to open desert, and I somehow knew that before he went back to town, he was going to lighten his load as soon as he was in a place where nobody would hear shots.

As the primitive rock connected, Holloway let out an involuntary cry, and my little car bucked as the steering wheel went solo on the bumpy road. He let go of the wheel because Weibold was trying to get his gun out of his waistband. I tried to get my balance enough to hit Holloway again, and managed to glance one off the top of his head. There was a lot of blood that ran into his eyes — or so I later understood — and as his hands flew to his head, Weibold pulled the trigger while the pistol was still in Holloway’s belt. The sound was huge, like an added physical impact as the car jolted off the road and thudded to a stop in a ditch. The engine died. Holloway’s mouth moved, and I could see blood between his teeth, like something from a horror film, but there was no sound.

Weibold was also mouthing something, the gun now in both his hands, and even though Holloway was blinded by his own blood, he made a move to get it. Weibold fired again, and Holloway slowly slumped against the driver’s-side window. His chest was heaving, so he wasn’t dead. I watched a trickle of blood travel down the window and all of a sudden I had to get out.

I must have said something, because Weibold, his hands shaking, managed to slide out, still holding the gun, and open the door. I found the little flipper to let myself out of the backseat. It was slippery in my hand. I had blood on my hand.

Weibold kept the stubby barrel trained on Holloway, the dome light shining down on the gory tableau. The headlights were aimed into the desert night. I ran in the opposite direction, doubled over with my arms around my middle, making for the main road to get help.