Peter went after him, shouting, “Lewis, take the car and meet me.”
Lewis sprinted around the rear of the SUV to the driver’s door. “June, come on.”
He pulled the back door open as he passed. She dove inside as he threw the big SUV into drive, stomped on the gas, and bounced overthe parking strip to the street, the motion slamming the door shut behind her. She crawled forward to the front passenger seat as they flew into the darkness, the wipers slapping fast but the rain still too heavy for decent visibility. Then he doused the headlights, making the night even darker.
He braked hard, turned left, goosed it, then turned left again, rounding the block. Past the next intersection was a set of streamlined taillights, receding. Lewis ghosted forward at speed, flicking on his headlights. Peter stood panting at the curb, hands on his knees.
Lewis slowed just long enough for him to pop the back door and slide inside. Then Lewis put his foot down again and began to pick up speed.
The taillights were a block ahead, then a block and a half. Despite his acceleration, Lewis was losing ground. The speedometer was at sixty, then seventy, the big SUV bucking wildly as the road camber changed at the intersections. With cars parked on both sides, it was essentially a one-lane road.
Peter reached into the cargo bay, came back with a pair of antique-looking assault rifles, and handed one over the seat to her. She said, “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” She was good with a pistol, but was not a fan of heavy hardware.
“Hopefully nothing.” Peter leaned forward and his fingers found the controls for the sunroof. As the glass peeled back, he stood up in the back seat with his upper body out of the car, the rifle raised. His voice filtered down from the night. “Where’d he go?”
“Turned left,” Lewis said. “Hold on.”
June grabbed Peter’s leg as Lewis braked hard, shedding enough speed to make the turn without fishtailing or plowing into a parked car. Between Peter’s body and their speed, not much rain fell through the open sunroof. She saw the taillights two blocks ahead, angling left onto Twenty-Fourth NW without slowing.
Lewis jammed the accelerator to the floor and the Tahoe leapt to follow. Twenty-Fourth NW was two lanes with a third in the center, and he made the turn without braking, the heavy SUV sliding on the wet pavement. The only other moving vehicle was the same set of taillights, now at least six blocks ahead, appearing and disappearing as the wipers slapped across the windshield, struggling to clear the rain.
The speedometer was at eighty, then ninety. The other driver was still adding distance. Peter called down, “Lewis, punch it.”
“I am,” Lewis called back. “This thing is a boat. That car up there is a rocket.”
Eight blocks ahead, or ten, the brake lights flashed bright for a moment, then the taillights vanished around a corner. A stoplight was coming up fast. Lewis braked hard to follow, Peter still banging around in the open sunroof. June unbuckled her belt and knelt on the seat with one arm around his waist to help stabilize him. If they wrecked at this speed, they’d both be dead.
Lewis cranked the wheel and the Tahoe slewed sideways, Lewis correcting for the skid. They were on Eighty-Fifth now, a two-lane flanked by single-family houses and older apartments and parked cars.
Lewis hit the gas and the engine roared. They were at the crest of a gentle hill. Ahead, June saw only empty road. “Lewis,” she said.
Lewis growled and bared his teeth at the windshield, then took his foot off the accelerator and the big SUV began to slow.
Peter dropped down and reached forward to close the sunroof. His face and coat were wet but his pants were mostly dry. “Whatever that car was, we never had a chance of catching it.”
“No,” Lewis said. At the next intersection he made a U-turn, then began to head back the way they’d come. “How’d he find the house?”
June thought of the burner phone in her pocket and cursed. Now she knew why Google Maps was the only app loaded. She hadn’t thought to check it. Now she opened it to Location Sharing and sawthat the app was sharing location data with another number. But that number wasn’t reciprocating. She cursed again, turned off sharing, deleted the app, then threw the phone down, disgusted with herself.
“It’s my fault.” She should have known better.
They drove in silence toward Stella’s little bungalow. The rain unrelenting. All of them knowing the house was no longer safe.
June really didn’t want to sleep in the Tahoe. “I’ll start looking for hotels.”
“No need,” Lewis said. “I already got a spot.”
June elbowed him. “What, you’re too good for us?”
He flashed her that tilted grin. “Habit from the bad old days. Always have a backup. Your place gets blown, you got another hole to hide in.”
“I don’t like to think of it as hiding,” June said.
Lewis snorted. “I bet you don’t.”
Peter leaned forward into the gap between the front seats. “That’s twice that guy has run from me.”
Lewis nodded. “First time, at KT’s place, he wasn’t there for you and Ellie. He was looking for that tape. You startled him, he ran. I get that. Second time, he’d locked in on the burner. The only people who could have it were the cops and you, and the cops wouldn’t have taken it to that little house in Ballard. So he was targeting you specifically. But why not go inside?”
