that locked me on to it. Or maybe instinct is just our subconscious noticing something—a driver’s face or a suspect maneuver—that our conscious mind hasn’t caught on to. At first I hesitated to mention it to Rhys.
What if I was imagining this?
I took the Blois/Vendôme exit, just to test them.
They took the same exit. At the next cross street, I U-turned under the motorway.
They followed. Crap.
Rhys inhaled deeply as he sat up, unable to ignore the centrifugal force of my turn. “Is something wrong?”
I turned right, past an anachronistic McDonald’s, and divided my attention between the road ahead of me and the car behind me. “What kind of car has a silver lion on its grill?”
“Rampant?” he asked, rubbing a sleepy hand across his face.
“Yeah.”
“That would be a Peugeot.” Yet another gender stereotype, proven out.
I made another right.
So did they.
I signaled a third right, as if lost—then turned hard left.
They followed. Worse, despite the illusion of activity given by that McDonald’s, I’d somehow driven us into a dark, industrial neighborhood. No, no, no! You’re supposed to stay in a populous area when you’re being tailed.
“Then we’re being followed by a Peugeot,” I said grimly.
Rhys turned in his cramped seat to look—which is when the Peugeot behind us picked up speed, looming increasingly closer in my rearview mirror.
“Ah,” he breathed.
“Yeah. Merde.”
I hit the gas.
Hard.
Chapter 5
“W ould you prefer that I drive?” asked Rhys. The question kind of squeezed out of him. He was pressed firmly back in his seat, only partly by choice.
“No.” I toed the gas pedal to the floor—after all, if the police stopped us it would be a good thing, right? Most tails don’t stick around to talk to the authorities. “Do you think they followed us all the way from Paris?”
“I don’t know. How would I?”
By looking in the rearview mirror once in a while? That wasn’t fair, and I knew it. I had to focus on now.
The Peugeot was gaining on us. It was a larger car than Aunt Bridge’s Citroën. It had more power.
We shot onto a bridge over the Loire—luckily, a regular, two-lane bridge, and not one of those scenic medieval landmarks. For a moment, as we left the upgrade onto the bridge, the Saxo’s tires left the road.
It landed about as smoothly as the jet I’d ridden into Paris earlier today. I managed to hang on to the steering wheel and felt disproportionately proud of myself, which seemed preferable to feeling terrified.
We were leaving the industrial area behind for more open landscape and less chance of police intervention.
Who were these guys?
“Do you know where we’re going?” asked Rhys, his voice not quite as tight. He was trying to stay cool, anyway.
“Away from the damned highway,” I confessed. “And I want to be back on it. You’re wearing your seat belt, right?”
He didn’t sound encouraged when he asked, “Why do you ask?”
The Peugeot had reached our bumper. Now it was starting to pass us—rather, to pace us. I glanced to my right, to see that Rhys did have his harness on, before looking out to my left.
A tinted passenger window slid slowly downward, and a pistol appeared over its top, waving at us to pull over.
I hit the brakes.
The Peugeot whipped past us like the bullet I’d probably just escaped. Or postponed. The Saxo squealed to a reluctant stop with a horrible scream and stench of burnt rubber. My own seat belt yanked me back against my seat, hard enough across my shoulder to leave a bruise.
Rhys coughed out something that sounded like “Oofa coals.” Whatever. Since the Peugeot, ahead of us, was making a 180 turn, I wasn’t ready to ask for a translation.
I shifted the Saxo into Reverse and eased on to the gas. The tires had held. We started to pick up a little speed…but not as much speed as we’d need to outrun that Peugeot.
“I’d prefer we not take the bridge this way,” said Rhys, his Welsh lilt more distinct the more tense he got.
“We won’t,” I said. “Hang on.”
At least the road was relatively deserted—a benefit of late night travel. I’d only practiced this a few times, but the gun had upped the ante, so I ticked off the check list in my head.
Fix on a spot just ahead, like in yoga balance exercises.
Push the pedal to the metal. But not for long. This maneuver was only safe—relatively speaking—at under forty miles per hour. Whatever that was in kilometers.
I then did three things at once. I hit the clutch, threw the car into Drive and yanked the steering wheel to the left.
A brief grinding of gears joined the scream of tires as our back end pivoted left and our nose pivoted right, the weight of the engine carrying us around in a perfect bootleg. Yes!
Before we even came to a stop, I stood on the gas to shoot us forward—the Peugeot still gaining on us. It wasn’t a great improvement from a few minutes ago, but at least we were heading the right direction, nose first. We flew back across the bridge, startling some ducks out from under it. We shot back into the industrial area, but the Peugeot was quickly closing our lead. Instead of images of the gendarmerie finding our bodies buried in a field of picturesque sunflowers, I was now picturing them never finding us. Like Hoffa. But in France.
We weren’t going to outrun these guys.
“So what’s ‘Oofa coals’ mean?” I asked, surprised at how clenched my own words were. The Peugeot’s headlights, in the rearview, drew closer. I couldn’t see driver or passenger, but if I were the latter, I would be preparing to shoot out—
Yup, there was the pistol, aiming at our tires. I swerved, and the only explosion I heard was that sinister pop of gunfire. It doesn’t sound as loud in real life as in the movies.
It’s a lot scarier, though.
Rhys said, “Uffach cols. It means embers of hell.”
The Peugeot pulled around and was flanking us now.
“Hang on!” Again, I stood on the brake pedal, pulling the handbrake simultaneously.
