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In a town like this, where turns were tight, it could buy him a few yards. He hoped.

They followed the crooked street past mining shacks and old brick structures, the buildings sweeping by in the night like pickets on a fence, the mist coming off the pavement. The rain had stopped. It was a Saturday night, and the revelers were out in force, wandering down the uneven sidewalks and off high curbs, stepping back in horror as the two vehicles, like coupled rail cars, hurtled past.

He saw another offshoot ahead, just before a hard right-angle turn, and made for it. At the last minute, three people broke from the curb and started across it, and this time Max overcorrected, and he hit the brakes, the tail end fishtailing, the truck behind him hitting him another glancing blow. But the smack in the back fender actually helped him make the corner, and he hit the gas coming out of the turn. He glanced in his rearview and saw the truck stopped in the middle of the road. Saw it back and fill, and start back after him. By that time, he was coming up on another right-angle turn and a stop sign. He rolled through it, looking for a place to hide.

Keep going. He pressed on, cataloging every possible escape, even though he knew he was going too fast. Looking for a garage or another side road or…

As he rounded a curve, he saw a building in the middle of the road. It took him a moment to remember this was the split he’d encountered before—the road was a one-way street to the right of the narrow building, and ran the other way to the left.

Instinctively, he hit the gas and went left. No place to turn in—it was all town buildings close together. A car came at him, horn blaring. He missed it. Some people started to cross, saw him, horror on their faces, and jumped backward, the spray of his passing soaking them.

Shower Cap was banging his arm on the side of the car, the spray and wet air blowing through the open window of the LeBaron at him.

Max made it to the next bend. Turn left. Most people turn right, so you turn left. He did. Flatten the arc. He did, and realized he was now almost out of town. He could find some place to go to ground.

Suddenly, he felt headlights pin him from behind. The woman had come the same way down the wrong-way street. He looked in his rearview mirror and there she was, coming up and coming fast. She’d be up his tailpipe in a minute.

Another tight turn ahead. He barely made it.

He saw her overshoot into a small side street diagonal to the road. She’d have to back up to get turned around.

Max hit the gas, for the first time feeling joy. He felt exhilarated. Free.

No place to turn around, but he kept looking. Glancing in the rearview mirror. Only darkness behind him in the road, and lights from the houses on either side. She seemed to be gone. It gave him a breather, a small relief.

But he didn’t trust it. She was like a nightmare. She would be back.

He peered into the rearview mirror, into the side mirrors, and saw he’d been wrong—she was still there. He saw a streetlight’s reflection slide over a big vehicle, white light bouncing off it. She must be going sixty miles an hour.

And then he saw flames.

They licked up between the slats of the monster Silverado’s grille.

He could almost hear the water hiss as spray from the puddles hit.

Reflections scrolled off the windshield. She was almost to him now, her face like a Halloween mask, the rictus of her teeth and the crazy glint in her eyes. And now, in the wavering orange reflection of the flames, he could see the kid’s corpse as it lolled in the shoulder harness, arms jiggling, head flopping. Madness.

More curves coming up. It was terrifying, this bat out of hell on his tail, screeching around corners, moving up, bumper pushing into the old Chrysler LeBaron, but Max knew what the flames meant, and he permitted himself a tight smile.

He mostly worked on motorcycles, but he was a pretty good car mechanic too.

“I can wait you out, bitch,” he muttered at the rearview mirror as he avoided another group of pedestrians.

Then they really were out of town. The road straightened out a little, and she was speeding up on him again. Her grille on fire, her face likewise alight with obsession and hatred and need .

The LeBaron’s tires reeled the road in. The burning truck remained on his bumper. Max muttered, “Now, now, now !”

But nothing happened; the truck remained pinned to his tail.

It had to blow sometime.

Didn’t it?

Had to.

But the damn thing kept coming.

He drove through a series of serpentine curves, knowing he could make them, even though the rain had started up again and made the road slick.

The land dropped precipitously to his left. If he went over, he’d be dead. The LeBaron’s tires screeched as he braked slightly going into the corners, hit the accelerator coming out, the truck right on him. Up ahead he saw a hairpin turn. Mine tailings loomed up across the broken riverbed on the left. Weedy trees whipping by like snakes. Too fast! The gorge was less steep on the left, but he guessed it was at least a one hundred feet down.

Then he heard it.

A terrible grinding noise, the loud bang-bang-bang in rapid succession, like a washing machine full of rocks.

She’d thrown a rod.

The engine block had cracked, and now everything was going to hell—including the steering and the brakes. He watched with deep satisfaction as the truck missed the curve and hit the guardrail, launching out over the canyon below, the fire still streaking behind it like a Starsky & Hutch rerun.

Chapter Thirty-Six

MAX TURNED AROUND and drove back to a scenic pullout. Cut the engine and rolled in. Just sat there, shaking with adrenaline and fear. And satisfaction.

He could hear a muted whump—fire. The bright light flared in his side mirror.

But the fire went out almost as quickly as it had started—doused by the rain.

Not long after that, the rain lessened to a soft patter, then stopped altogether. Typical of thunderstorm cells in the desert.

A few wisps of gray smoke floated into the sky.

Max turned the car around, drove back, and parked above the wreck.

The truck lay far down the steep embankment, partially hidden behind a big juniper bush. Nothing moved.

She had to be dead.

No way she could live through that.

He got out of the car and sat on the guardrail—the part that was still intact. Weedy trees and a snarl of bushes along the roadside and running down the slope concealed much of the land on his side. He just sat and stared at the wreck, watching for movement. But he saw nothing. An hour, watching. Two hours. Nobody on the road, nobody coming by.

He stared at the portion of the burned-out hulk he could see. Stared a hole through it.

Waited some more.

He had to be sure.

WHEN MAX FINALLY returned to his car, he wondered if the cops were looking for him. He’d sped through town, the truck glued to his tailpipe, nearly running down pedestrians—it was possible someone would be able to identify a 1987 Chrysler LeBaron. (Unlikely, since the car was old and obscure and it had been dark and pouring rain, but you never knew.) Max had not heard any sirens. He’d been out in the open for at least two hours, looking down at a truck lying in the gorge. The wreck was a long way from town, and there were plenty of twists and turns to hide it from view.

Max figured if he kept to the back streets of Jerome—if he kept to the speed limit—no one would notice.

He was right.

He glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that it was only eight o’clock at night. There were only a few people and cars on the streets. But Max didn’t see one cop car. He took the back streets. Here he’d left a litter trail of the hijacked and the dead, and yet nothing in this town had changed.