He glanced at his navigation system. The road she was on had a stop sign at every intersection-that would slow her down. He was on the main drag, which had two traffic lights back in the business district, such as it was, but the rest of the way the stop signs were all on the intersecting streets. He’d be at the gas station a couple of minutes before she reached it.
When he got there, he pulled in front of the air hose station and got out, so no matter which side of the gas pumps she chose, he could move around and keep the truck between them. She might have a full tank and not need to stop, which was okay; she wouldn’t be able to get so far ahead of him that he’d lose her, not in the couple of seconds it would take him to get back in the truck.
He spotted her, coming toward him at a measured speed, not so fast she’d get pulled over but not poking along, either. He moved as she came closer, keeping the truck cab so it always partially blocked her view of him, in case she happened to glance his way.
She didn’t pull in. She stopped at the intersection, looked both ways, and went straight across, heading west toward Colorado.
Good girl, he thought approvingly. She’d already filled the tank, instead of leaving something that important for the last minute. He went around the truck and climbed into the cab, and pulled back onto the highway just a hundred yards behind her.
15
DREA LOOKED IN HER REARVIEW MIRROR TO MAKE CERTAIN no one was coming up behind her, and saw the man getting into the pickup truck. Her heart gave a huge lurch, then skipped several beats. The road swam before her eyes as blood drained from her head. He was too far away for her to see his face, but she’d seen the way he moved, all grace and lethal power. She’d seen the way he held his head, the set of his shoulders, and she knew, knew in a way she couldn’t explain but that went all the way to the bone.
That pickup. She’d seen that pickup before, or one very similar, and she couldn’t stretch coincidence that far. It was the same color and make as the truck that had gone by just after Mrs. Pearson had pulled into the dollar store parking lot. It was him, and he’d been watching her even then. Somehow he’d figured out what she was doing and who to follow, and knowing that terrified her. He was too good at what he did; how could she possibly get away from him?
She had just enough control that she didn’t jam the gas pedal all the way to the floorboard, but she steadily increased the power until the speedometer needle edged toward ninety and the front end began shimmying, then she eased off just a little. Her only hope was to get far enough ahead of him that she could take a side road or hide behind some structure, but she wouldn’t be able to do that if the car fell apart.
The geography of Kansas didn’t help. The land wasn’t completely flat, but as good as. There was no way-
She was breathing too fast again, her heart pounding so hard and so rapidly she could barely think. She couldn’t let him get to her like this; she had to be on her toes, she had to think, and she couldn’t let herself panic.
She fought her nerves, fought her instinctive reaction, and forced herself to ease up on the gas pedal until the car had slowed to a far more reasonable speed. She couldn’t outrun him; she’d be stupid to even try. The pickup was a full-size truck, with a more powerful engine than the six-cylinder she was driving. He was sitting higher, too, so he’d be able to see her for quite a distance, and she couldn’t pull far enough ahead of him that she was out of sight for even a few seconds.
The question was, would he try to catch her now, when the countryside was so wide open that any other vehicle at a distance might be able to see him, or they might pass a farmer in his fields at any time? Or would he be content to shadow her and wait until nightfall provided him with cover?
He’d have to pull even with her to have a decent shot. He could force her off the road, but, contrary to the movies, cars didn’t usually explode and burn when they crashed, and the combination of seat belts and air bags meant the people inside often survived. Of course, if he forced her off the road and her car was so damaged it was undrivable, then he could take his shot at his own leisure, but unless she hit a power pole or something, being run off the road wasn’t going to accomplish much; she’d tear up a field of wheat, but that would be about the extent of the damage.
In her favor was the fact that he didn’t know if she was armed. She wasn’t, damn it, because guns hadn’t been part of her arsenal. Sex and guile were her weapons, along with makeup and perfume, but he didn’t-couldn’t-know if she’d acquired a gun in the past eight days and he’d have to use caution.
She glanced at her fuel gauge, and wondered what his gas mileage was. Her six-cylinder got pretty good mileage, certainly better than his big engine would get. Maybe she could go farther than he could on a tank of gas. If he ran out of gas-no, fat chance he’d let that happen. But if he had to stop for gas, she’d have a chance to get away, to turn off the road and hide, take some other route to Denver.
He’d know that, though. If he began getting low on gas, he’d be forced to make a move. Maybe she could stop at a gas station, run inside, and ask for help. Hell, she had a cell phone; she could call 911 and say she was being followed by a strange man.
Except…except she didn’t want to draw a cop’s attention, and a cop would pull both of them over. The license plates on this car weren’t kosher. She’d stolen two million dollars, and even though the cash wasn’t in her possession, she sure as hell didn’t want her name on the cop computer network. Not only that, he was behind her; he could simply say he had no idea who she was; all he was doing was driving down the highway. She didn’t even know his name, so she couldn’t claim he was an ex-boyfriend or whatever.
She checked the rearview again. He was still there, closer than he had been before. He wasn’t gaining fast, but he was gaining.
Had he realized yet that she’d made him? She hadn’t taken any evasive actions, but unless she pulled over, ran into the wheat, and crawled on all fours for the next fifty miles, her options in evasion were limited.
Still, she wasn’t going to give up. She was in a moving vehicle and so was he, so the odds of him getting off an accurate shot were very low. She knew from listening to Rafael and his men talk when they were watching some action movie on television how improbable things like that were. Just to see if they’d known what they were talking about, she’d done some research on it and found that, in this instance, they were right. Even the best snipers in the world had to shoot from a fixed position, or luck mattered more than skill.
Unless he tried to run her off the road, she was safe enough for the moment. If he started closing on her fast, then she’d know he had decided to make his move. She couldn’t let herself panic, because if she did then it was all over. So long as she kept her head, she had a chance.
SHE’D MADE HIM. He knew it as soon as he saw the car gaining speed like a rabbit running from a hound. He also knew the exact moment she reined in her galloping panic and began thinking again, because she let off on the gas and slowed to around sixty.
He was content to lie back and keep her in sight. The miles spun by beneath their tires, and after about an hour they crossed the state line into Colorado, but this part of the state was damn near as flat as Kansas and she didn’t have any opportunity to shake him. He watched the clock, and he watched his fuel gauge. The truck had a bigger gas tank than her car, but it also guzzled gas at a faster clip, so it was a toss-up which of them would need gas first.