A tenth of a mile from the crest of the hill, Abby said, “Hang on,” as if Shannon Beckley could do anything to prepare, and then she jammed her foot on the brake and spun the wheel through her fingers, passing it as rapidly as possible, like paying out rope, left hand to right hand, feeding it, feeding it, feeding it as the world spun around them.
I needed the hand brake, she thought, but she was wrong. They hadn’t been going fast enough, and the hill worked in her favor. Physics came to her rescue as she shifted from brake to gas and pounded the pedal again. All around them was the sound of shrieking rubber as the tires negotiated with, pleaded with, and finally begged for mercy from the pavement.
The pavement was benevolent.
It granted the skid. The Jeep didn’t roll.
Beside them, the Challenger smoked by in a roaring blur.
Abby was already accelerating back downhill by then.
She chanced a glance in the mirror only when she was sure the Jeep was running straight. The fishhook had been a simple stunt — awkward and lumbering by any pro’s standard, actually — but it had been enough. The kid had had a choice: try to match it or ride by and gather himself. He’d opted for the latter.
Dax was executing a three-point turn to counter. In a Challenger Hellcat, he was executing a three-point turn to catch up to a Jeep. Abby wanted to laugh. We can do this once more, she thought, or twice more, however long it takes, back and forth, but he’s not getting a clear shot. Not as long as I have the wheel.
She actually might have laughed if she hadn’t looked ahead and seen the headlight from the train.
It was running northwest to southeast, cutting through Hammel and across the bridge on its dawn run, out of the night and toward the sunrise.
Up at the top of the hill, where the Challenger was executing its awkward turn, bells were clanging and guard arms lowering to block traffic on Ames Road. The train would soon take over that task. The train would block them above, the river already blocked them below, and Abby and Shannon would be sealed in the middle with Dax and his gun.
Abby brought the Jeep to a stop, twisted, and looked at Shannon Beckley. She’d clambered off the floor and back into the seat. Blood from the cut sheeted down her cheek, but her eyes were bright above it. Abby looked down at the handcuff that chained Shannon to the vehicle. Only one of them could walk away from this.
I’ll take the phone, she thought, I’ll take the phone and I’ll make him negotiate. Just like with the man named Gerry.
The man he’d killed.
The negotiating hour was past.
She looked down the hill. Ahead of her, there was only the parking lot, the river, and the railroad bridge.
And, now, the train.
She looked back at Shannon Beckley, expecting to see Shannon staring ahead. But she was staring right at Abby. Scared, yes, but still with a fighter’s eyes.
“I have to try,” Abby said.
Shannon nodded.
Abby started to say, It might not work, but stopped herself. That was obvious.
Behind them, Dax had the Challenger straightened out and was facing her once again.
Abby let her foot off the brake and started downhill. The wheel slipped in her bloody hands and pulled left, but she caught it and brought it back. Behind, the Hellcat roared with delight and gained speed effortlessly, a thoroughbred running behind a nag. Abby didn’t look in the mirror to see how fast Dax was pushing it. Her eyes were only on the bridge and the train. The train was slowing, navigating the last bend ahead of the bridge, and its whistle cried out a shrill warning, and the bells tolled their monotonous lecture of caution.
She fed the wheel back through her blood-slicked palms, bringing the car to the right when the road curved left, toward the parking lot. She pounded the gas as they banged over the curb and off the road and then headed for the short but steep embankment that led up to the train tracks. The Jeep climbed easily, and at the top of the embankment was the first of Abby’s final tests — if she got hung up on the tracks, it was over.
The front end scraped rock and steel as the Jeep clawed up onto the berm, and she managed to negotiate the turn, praying for clearance. She had just enough. The Jeep was able to straddle the rails, leaving the tires resting on the banked gravel and dirt on either side.
Behind and below her, Dax brought the Hellcat around in a slow, growling circle, like a pacing tiger. She knew what he was assessing — the Jeep sat high, able to clear the rails, and its wheelbase was wide enough to straddle them. The Challenger sat low, a bullet hovering just off the pavement. It would hang up on the tracks, leaving it stranded.
Dax didn’t seem inclined to try pursuit. The car idled; the door didn’t open; no gunfire came.
He watched and waited.
He thinks I’ve trapped myself, Abby realized.
And maybe she had. Squeezed from multiple sides now, she could go in only one direction: straight toward the train.
She kept expecting a gunshot but none came, and she realized why — he didn’t think she’d try it. His brake lights no longer glowed, which meant he’d put the Challenger in park — he was that confident that Abby was done.
She looked away from him and fixed her eyes ahead, staring down the length of the railroad bridge, where, just on the other side, the huge locomotive was negotiating its last turn and entering the straightaway of the bridge. How far off? A hundred yards? Maybe less. It couldn’t be more. If it was more...
I’ve just got to run it as fast as I can, that’s all there is to it, she thought. When it came down to the last lap, when the rubber was worn and the fuel lines were gasping for fumes, there was no math involved, no calculations, no time.
You finished or you didn’t. That was all.
Abby put her foot on the gas.
62
She was doing forty when she reached the bridge and she knew that she had to get up to at least sixty, maybe seventy, to give them any chance. But she also had to hold the car straight, and the gravel banks were built to keep the rails in place, not provide tire traction. It was a bone-rattling ride and one that made acceleration painfully slow.
The train was some thirty yards away from the bridge now. Thirty yards of opportunity remained for her to decide if it was a mistake and bail out. Ditch the Jeep, and then Abby could run, even if Shannon could not. With the diesel locomotive’s headlight piercing the fractured windshield and the train’s whistle screaming, it was easy to believe bailing was the right move.
Behind and below them, though, Dax waited.
He thinks I’m choosing my own way to die, Abby realized.
She kept her foot on the gas.
In front of her, the train straightened out until the diesel locomotive was facing her head-on. In the backseat, Shannon Beckley moaned from behind the tape. Abby was aware of a flicker of open grass to her right, a place where she could ditch the Jeep without falling into the river below.
Last chance to get out... take it.
She tightened her grip on the wheel. The last chance fell behind. Then they were on the bridge, and out of options.
A brightening sky above and a dark river below. A whistle shrilling, a headlight pounding into her eyes. The bridge seemed to evaporate into a tunnel, and though she wanted to check the speedometer to see whether she’d gotten up to seventy, she couldn’t take her eyes off that light.