I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until a buzzing noise sounded next to my head. I rolled over and saw that Dixon had set the alarm on my phone. It was almost ten in the morning.
“Holy shitsnacks!” I leaped up, made speedy ablutions, and tried to stuff myself back into my skirt and shirt but couldn’t get the corset closed properly. Hurriedly, I texted Dixon to come back to the room to tighten me, then sent a wake-up text to Tabby.
Less than half an hour later we were on the road.
“We’re going to push for Paris,” I told Tabby when she loaded her luggage into their little blue car. Sam was busy stowing the video equipment he’d charged up during our brief break. “It should be about ten hours, plus time for stops. We figure twelve hours ought to do it. Will you guys be OK with that?”
“We’ll be dead tired at the end, but yes, that’s all right,” Tabby said, then gave me one of her arm punches. “I think you have a good shot at winning.”
I flashed her a grin and, with my eyes on Sam, asked quietly, “Does that mean you know something about the location of the Essex boys?”
“Only that Anton is with them again, and Roger knows where we are,” she said cryptically, but her eyes were smiling.
I fought back the urge to do a little song and dance right there, instead taking my place behind the wheel while Dixon went around the car, doing his usual pre-setoff check. Sam filmed us waving as we headed out of the parking lot, but he didn’t see me throw up my arms and let out a big “Woo-hoo!”
“What’s that for?” Dixon asked, looking mildly startled. “Was the bed really that good?”
“It felt like baby bottoms and fluffy clouds, but that’s not why I was celebrating. Tabby didn’t say so much, but the Esses are behind us. It’s sunny, we have good roads between here and Paris, and I feel like I could drive for hours and hours!”
“I’m glad to hear all of that.” He gave me a warm smile that I wanted to investigate further, but I was driving, so instead I asked him how he slept.
“Moderately well. I think my body is getting used to the backseat.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m a little stiff but, like you, feel like I can drive without killing us.”
“That’s good, because—”
I never finished that sentence. At the moment I was speaking, we’d left Prague proper and were on the road that would take us near Pilsen, when a sleek black Mercedes passed us. As there were two lanes, I didn’t think anything about it, but the minivan in front of us evidently didn’t see them and made a left turn directly ahead of the Mercedes. The van and Mercedes, locked together, veered off into the barrier with a horrible scream of brakes and tearing metal. They slammed into a sign, sending it first careening into the van, then rebounding back toward us. I had hit the brakes as soon as I’d seen the Mercedes hit the van, but wasn’t able to avoid the sign crashing onto the Flyer’s hood and bouncing up to smash into the windscreen, which shattered into a billion pieces. The Flyer spun out to the side as I wrenched the wheel, while ahead of us the van finally came to a halt on the shoulder. Brakes behind us squealed as traffic came to a stop.
“Holy— Are you all right?” I asked Dixon at the same time he unsnapped his seat belt and asked me, “Are you hurt?”
“No,” I said, looking down at my lap. My lovely skirt was covered with little squares of glass. “Although I’m thankful they used safety glass in the windscreen,because we could have been shish-kebabed by glass otherwise.”
Dixon was out of the car before I finished speaking, running toward the van. A few people behind us pulled over onto the shoulder to see if they could help, but there was a lane left open and many drivers simply crept by and proceeded on their way.
It took me a minute to get my shaking hands under control, but I could see Dixon up at the crumpled wreck of a van, pulling people out. A couple of other people ran to the Mercedes, but from the looks on their faces, I feared the worst. I got out of the car, shook off all the little squares of glass, and hurried over to where two children were sitting on the side of the road, their heads bloody, but apparently all right otherwise. The driver looked like she was in worse shape.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked Dixon when he helped a third child out. “Should I get a blanket? Water?”
“Blankets would probably be good. These kids are pretty shaken up.”
I ran back to the car and fetched our backseat blanket, then wrapped it around two of the children who were sitting together, clutching each other and sobbing. In the distance, sirens began to grow louder. Coming from the other direction, a police car suddenly pulled onto the shoulder and the cop darted across traffic to climb the barrier.
“Can we help?” Tabby asked breathlessly when she and Sam made it through the crawl of traffic. I could see that she’d pulled over behind the Flyer.
“I don’t think so. There’s a cop here now, and it sounds like the EMTs are on their way.” I turned to speak and felt my jaw drop at the sight of the car that slowly made its way past us.
Sanders was at the wheel of the Zust, shaking his head and tsk-ing. He didn’t say anything, just drove on. In the backseat, Anton gave us an apologetic smile.
“What’s—” Tabby turned and saw the back of the Zust. “What the hell? How did they get here? Roger said they were spending the night in Berlin!”
“They left early,” I said. “Probably at the crack of dawn. No doubt they wanted to put more distance between us. Dammit all to hell and back again. Dixon!”
I ran back to Dixon, who was standing with the policeman, speaking in flawless German, telling him what we saw and who we were.
“I hate to interrupt, but our competition just drove past,” I said in his ear. “If you think we need to stay and help out, I won’t complain, but if we aren’t needed, we really should get a move on.”
“We aren’t needed, but we can’t drive without a windscreen,” he said, glancing back at the Flyer. “It’s dangerous.”
“Life is dangerous,” I told him, grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him with me toward the Flyer. Sam, who was filming us, followed. “But a life lived in fear is a life half lived. Come on. We have cheaters to catch up to!”
