I watched my side mirror, searching for the tail, and saw none. “Maybe you lost him already.”
“Nope.” His tone grim, he studied the rearview mirror. “Grayish pickup, think Nissan, older model.”
“Holy shit, there he is. Speeding up.”
“Yeah. He’s gonna make damn sure he keeps us in sight.”
The pickup accelerated, passing across lanes, weaving in and out of cars. Magnus also increased our speed, the right and left turns he made accomplished nothing. The little truck stayed right where it was behind us. Within moments, another sedan joined the chase.
“We have two now,” I said, my stomach in knots. “We’re not shaking them.”
“Yeah, I see that. We can’t have a high-speed chase here, too many might get hurt. Including us.”
“Head for the mountains.”
Magnus shot me a quick glance. “That’s in the opposite direction we need to go in.”
“We have to get rid of these yahoos,” I said, grim. “We may not want witnesses for what I think I’ll need to do.”
“Do I want to hear this?”
“Probably not. There. Get on the freeway, head west.”
Magnus obeyed me, spinning a hard left, skidding across the intersection, annoying drivers who used their horns liberally. The two pursuers also made the turn, without crashing, unfortunately, and followed as Magnus entered the broad four-laned freeway.
“I better not exceed the speed limit,” he muttered. “We really don’t want to attract the cops.”
“If we could trust they aren’t Arnaud’s people, I’d say run straight to a cop.” I looked over my shoulder at the pair who drove side by side directly behind us. “They’d take off in a hurry.”
“Haven’t they called for support yet?”
“Hey, let’s not be too eager to involve others,” I said. “Those two are bad enough.”
“They can’t follow us all the way to Washington,” he snapped.
“We’ll get rid of them.”
We only managed a few miles before two more joined the fun. “There they are,” I said. “Black SUVs. Your pop spends his money rather foolishly, doesn’t he?”
“He always liked extravagance,” Magnus commented. “Fancy black vehicles make him appear big and bad. You know?”
“Yep.” I turned to look forward, mentally planning three steps ahead, trying to recall where some of the mountain highways went. “Isn’t the Highway Seven a twister?”
“Yeah. Heads for the ski resort.”
“Take that when we reach it. It’s a few miles away.”
“What do they hope to accomplish back there?” Magnus demanded. “Tag along until we run out of gas?”
“That might be their objective, yeah,” I answered, watching the four vehicles. “Unless they’re thinking to shoot at us.”
“With all these other cars around, drivers ready to film their license plates, call the cops? If they wanted to start shooting, they’d have done it by now.”
“But they’re following us without doing anything,” I complained. “That’s not making sense.”
“What they’re planning makes sense to them,” he answered. “Whatever that plan might be.”
“I hate it when you’re logical.”
