Brian Freeman - The Cold Nowhere

If he saw her, if he thought she was a cop, he didn’t run. Coming up behind the car, she saw that it was a Dodge Avenger, not a Charger, and it was blue, not black.

‘Guppo, you sure that was a black Charger?’ she called into the radio. ‘I’m behind a blue Avenger up here.’

‘I’m sure,’ he radioed back. ‘That’s not him.’

Maggie spun around the Avenger and continued until she reached the T intersection at Central Entrance. She eyed the slow-moving traffic in both directions, but she didn’t spot the sports car. From the northwest, two patrol cars sped toward her. She didn’t see Guppo from the other direction.

‘Guppo, tell me you’ve got something. We’ve got nothing up here.’

‘Ditto, sorry.’

‘Keep coming my way, I’ll head toward you. Let’s get the other cars patrolling the side streets west and east of 53, in case he turned off before he reached the Hill.’

‘Roger.’

She turned right and wove between the cars inching along the slick road. Half a mile eastward, she spotted Guppo’s patrol approaching from the opposite direction, and she pounded the wheel in frustration.

They’d lost him.

She flashed her brights at Guppo.

‘What now?’ he radioed.

‘Check the mall. Maybe he’s switching cars. I’ll start running the streets to the north.’

She watched his car fade into the snow in her mirror. They were shooting blind. When she reached the light at Arlington Road, she turned left. In the opposite direction, Arlington was one of only a few roads that intersected Highway 53, so the driver of the Charger could have used it as a shortcut to Central Entrance.

On Arlington, she crawled. The farther she traveled, the more deserted the road became, heavily wooded on both sides. Twice she spotted tail lights and followed them quickly until she confirmed that they weren’t the car she was hunting.

Her radio crackled to life again.

‘We just got a 911 call on a cell phone. A dark sports car burnt through the red light at Arlington and Arrowhead. Could be our guy.’

‘Which direction?’

‘North on Arlington toward Rice Lake.’

‘I’m on Arlington now,’ Maggie told Guppo. ‘Back me up, and see if we have anybody in Rice Lake Township who can come down from the north.’

‘I’m five minutes behind you, on my way.’

Maggie accelerated northward. The land north of Arrowhead was largely rural, and there were few roads cutting through the undeveloped land on which to escape. Unfortunately, the lack of roads also made it difficult to box him in from other directions. She also knew that in a battle of horsepower between the Charger and the Avalanche, the Charger would win. Her best option was to find him, tail him, and not spook him.

She drove crazy-fast, as fast as she could make the Avalanche go, feeling as if she were hydroplaning on a river of wet snow. The flat, straight road headed into nothingness. She passed two crossroads leading west toward the airport, but she bet that he would have chosen a faster route if the airport was his destination. Instead, she stayed on the same northbound course, and as the road crested a shallow hill, she spotted twin red lights at the extreme end of her sightline.

It was him. It had to be him.

‘I may have our guy,’ she radioed Guppo.

‘Where are you?’

‘Passing Norton Road, he’s maybe half a mile ahead of me.’

She was doing eighty, and if he looked in his mirror, he’d spot her bearing down. She eased off on the accelerator, closing the gap slowly. They neared the stop sign at Martin Road, and she saw brake lights flash. She turned off her lights, trying to make him think she’d pulled off the road. He stayed where he was, not moving, and she drifted to a stop, playing a game of cat and mouse across a quarter mile of pavement. In the storm, without lights, she hoped she was invisible.

Suddenly, ahead of her, she heard the blistering roar of an engine. The rubber squeal of the Charger’s tires cut through the storm, and the car swung into a hard right turn, accelerating wildly.

‘Damn, he spotted me!’

Maggie turned her lights back on and jammed the accelerator. At the intersection, she turned the wheel so hard that her wheels left the ground and then thudded back to the pavement. The car ahead of her was greased lightning; it was already disappearing. Her chassis quivered around her like a rocket, but even at extreme speed, the Charger widened the gap. A mile later, its tail lights winked out into the darkness.

‘I lost him, I lost him — oh, shit! ’

Through the fog at the end of her headlights, she saw a dark shadow. It could have been a deer; it could have been a child. Instinctively, her foot slammed to the brake, and like a dancer, the Avalanche swirled on the sheet of snow. It spun in a tilt-a-whirl circle, once, twice, three times, and then the right-side wheels of the truck skidded onto the shoulder and spilled into the shallow gully. The truck toppled onto its side, and kept toppling, over and over, rattling Maggie’s body with the shudder of each impact. Windows broke; glass flew across her skin; snow and dirt spat through the interior of the truck. She felt the world spin, and by the time it stopped spinning, it was black.

She was upside down.

When Maggie opened her eyes, she saw a face as round as Charlie Brown’s staring in through the broken window. It was Sergeant Max Guppo, squatting beside the overturned Avalanche. He yanked open the driver’s door, which groaned as he fought against bent metal.

‘I thought you were dead,’ he said.

‘If you’re an angel, heaven has a lot of work to do,’ she mumbled in reply.

Before he could say anything, Maggie unhooked her safety belt and dropped six inches to the roof beneath her. ‘Ouch.’

‘You shouldn’t move,’ he said. ‘You could be hurt.’

‘Oh, I’m fine. This thing’s a tank. Help me out of here.’

Guppo slid his beefy forearms under her shoulders and slid her out of the truck. Her legs wobbled as she stood, but she propped herself on his shoulder and waited for the dizziness to pass. With a huge breath, Guppo pushed himself up beside her. He didn’t squat easily, and he had an even harder time un-squatting. She heard an unmistakable sound behind him, and a foul aroma overwhelmed the cold night air.

‘Oh, hell, Guppo, what is that? Are you kidding me?’

‘Sorry. Chili cheese fries. You sure you’re okay?’

‘Quit babying me.’

‘You’re bleeding,’ he said, pointing at her face.

‘So get me a frickin’ Band-Aid. Come on, we have to find this guy.’

‘You should go to a hospital. Stride will kill me if he finds out I didn’t get you an ambulance.’

Maggie grabbed a fistful of Guppo’s shirt and pulled him closer. ‘Now listen to me very carefully. Fuck Lieutenant Jonathan Stride!’

‘I think you have a concussion.’

‘I don’t. Let’s go.’

‘Yeah, except where do we go? He’s gone.’

‘He was on this road for a reason. Maybe he’s hiding out near here. We start checking houses one by one, and we get as many cars out here as we can to do the same thing. We wake people up, we don’t take any shit about how late it is. Okay?’

‘You’re pretty crabby.’

‘Yeah. I’m pretty crabby. My truck is totaled, and I feel like somebody’s been using me as a punching bag.’

Maggie turned too quickly and felt dizzy again. Guppo grabbed her before she fell. She shook him off and scrambled up the embankment to his patrol car, which was parked on the shoulder. Looking down, she saw her Avalanche, wheels in the air, its frame twisted. Her insurance guy was not going to be happy with her. Again.