No Return (14 page)

He eased the Triumph into the right lane and increased his speed.

The coupe pulled in front of him again.

“Come on,” Wes said.

He could feel Anna glancing over his shoulder.

Instead of once more trying to get around the coupe, Wes decided to be rid of it completely. At the next block he turned right, then drove rapidly down to the stop sign and turned left, heading once more toward Inyokern Road.

He was nearly at the end of the block when the coupe raced into the next intersection, sliding sideways as it turned toward him.

“Wes, be careful!” Anna yelled.

As soon as the coupe had finished the turn, its engine roared and the vehicle all but leapt toward them.

Stopping wasn’t an option. The only thing Wes could do to avoid being struck was to veer into the open field to his right.

“Grab on tight!” he shouted, then took the bike off the road.

The Triumph jumped and bounced on the uneven ground so much that Wes thought for a second he was going to lose it. But by some miracle he was able to maintain control and get them back onto the asphalt.

Behind them tires squealed loudly.

Wes glanced quickly over his shoulder and saw the coupe spinning back around so it could make another run at them.

“Who
is
that?” Anna asked.

Wes had no idea, and he was too busy figuring out what to do next to answer her.

He took a hard right, and accelerated as fast as possible.

The coupe turned onto the road behind them. A glance back told Wes the car wasn’t going fast enough to close the gap between them, but it wasn’t letting up, either.

Wes had worked on enough true-crime shows to know exactly what he needed to do.
Don’t stop until you get to the police station
. That meant getting down to China Lake Boulevard and heading back across town.

But at Norma Street he hit a Ridgecrest traffic jam—five cars all traveling in the lane he wanted to get into. He angled the bike sharply to the right and jumped it up onto the sidewalk. Anna squeezed him tightly, but remained silent.

The nearest car was pacing him, while the car behind it was in tailgate mode. The only space available was a small gap in front of the car beside him. Wes increased his speed, then flew off the short curb and shot into the opening. The trailing car honked several times, but before the horn cut out, the Triumph was already in the middle lane and speeding away.

Wes could see the coupe in his mirror. It had waited until all the cars had passed, and was in the process of pulling onto the street. Wes scanned the street signs, trying to remember which road went all the way through to China Lake Boulevard.

Perdew Avenue? Maybe … Yes. Yes, it does
. But by the time he remembered, he was already too far into the intersection to make the turn.

Graaf?

Possibly.

Reeves?
Yes. Definitely Reeves.

“We’re turning,” he said, unsure if Anna could hear him.

He didn’t slow the bike until the absolute last possible moment, and then only enough so that he wouldn’t lose control. Leaning into the turn, he cut in front of an oncoming minivan, and poured on the speed again as the bike entered the new street.

The coupe had to stop to let the minivan pass, buying them a few extra seconds.

Even then, Anna’s cry, “He’s still behind us!” came sooner than he had hoped.

If they could only get to China Lake Boulevard, they should be okay. It was the main drag. It had more traffic. Wes could weave the Triumph in and around the other cars, easily losing the coupe.

They just needed to get there.

“Wes!”

The panic in Anna’s voice was enough to make him look back. A vehicle had just come barreling out of the cross street they’d just passed. It was an SUV, dark like the coupe, with tinted windows. But it didn’t turn after them. Instead it continued down the road it was on, and disappeared.

He kept the Triumph in the middle of the road, his eyes on the boulevard ahead.

They were only two blocks away when the SUV made a second appearance, this time racing out of the street ahead of them. But instead of continuing, it screeched to a stop in the middle of the road, directly in the bike’s path.

Wes angled the Triumph so he could go around the back of the truck, but as soon as he made the adjustment, the SUV’s reverse lights flashed on, and it moved once more into his way.

Wes released the accelerator and applied the breaks. “Hold on!”

At the last second, he shifted the handlebars and threw his weight so the back of the bike skidded around.

The smell of rubber burning on asphalt.

The whine of the engine.

Then—

Half thud, half crunch as the Triumph smacked sideways into the SUV.

Wes threw his right leg out to keep momentum from throwing them to the ground. One of the SUV’s doors started to open, so he twisted the accelerator, hoping the bike had suffered no serious damage. The Triumph responded immediately, zipping forward past the SUV.

Wes raced to Ward, then took that to China Lake Boulevard.

As they were finally heading south on the boulevard, he shouted, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Anna called back.

“Can you tell if they’re still behind us?”

He could feel her moving around for a moment, then, “I don’t see them.”

“Okay,” Wes said.

But he didn’t feel any relief until they pulled in to the police station parking lot.

“SOMEONE
CHASED
YOU?”

Wes and Anna had been handed over to a plainclothes detective named Andrews. He looked to be about Wes’s age, and was obviously having a hard time believing their story.

“Yes,” Wes said. “From Downs all the way to China Lake Boulevard.”

Andrews glanced at his notes. “Two cars.”

“At first it was only the coupe,” Anna chimed in. “The SUV didn’t show up until the end.”

“That’s the car you ran into?”

“Yes,” Wes said. “If nothing else, the rear half on the driver’s side should be pretty scratched up.”

“You didn’t get a look at the driver?”

“The windows were tinted.”

“What about the make?” the detective asked. “Or a license number? For either car?”

“I was a little busy trying to get away,” Wes said. He rubbed his left shoulder. It had taken the brunt of the collision. Though the rear fender of the bike had also been bent a little.
Sorry, Dad
. Anna had continued to say that she was okay, but he was pretty sure she was just trying to keep him from worrying.

“There’s got to be someone who saw everything,” Wes added. “We passed several cars.”

Andrews picked up Wes’s driver’s license from the table. “Mr. Stewart, you do realize that you’re not licensed to drive a motorcycle, don’t you?”

Wes looked at the detective, his eyes narrowing. “Yes. I realize that. I plan on taking care of that next week. But that has nothing to do with what happened to us tonight.”

“We’ll have someone check it out,” Andrews said finally, continuing to study the license a moment longer before finally handing it back. “I’m going to let you off this time, considering what you say you’ve been through. I’ll even let you drive the bike back to your motel. But I’d advise you not to ride it again until you get your license sorted out. If you’re stopped, you
will
be cited, and your bike will be impounded.”

“Thanks,” Wes said, trying not to let his annoyance show.

“I’ll have one of our officers follow you back. Just in case your friends show up again.”

Wes was about to tell him it wasn’t necessary, but he could see that Anna liked the idea. “That would be nice. Thanks, again.”

“We’ll call you if we need any more information.” Andrews stood up.

“Or if you find out who did this to us?” Wes asked.

“Of course.”

BY THE TIME WES AND ANNA PULLED IN TO THE
parking lot of the Desert Rose Motel, it was almost 10 p.m.

“Not exactly the night I had planned,” he said.

Anna got off the bike. “Well, it wasn’t dull, that’s for sure.”

As he joined her on the sidewalk, he noticed she was favoring her left side. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

“Is it your arm?”

She frowned, then shook her head. “My ribs. Jammed my elbow into them when we hit.”

“You think you cracked one?”

“I said I’m fine. It’s just bruised.”

“Maybe we should take you to the emergency room.”

“Whoa. Who needs to go to the emergency room?” Danny had just exited the corridor to the courtyard, his new friend Dori stuck to his side.

“Nobody,” Anna said quickly, her voice strong. “I just tripped and banged into something, and Wes is overreacting.”

“Protective of your girlfriend, are you?” Dori said.

Danny let out a laugh. “Anna is Wes’s girlfriend? He wishes.”

Dori merely smiled, but the look in her eye let Wes know she suspected she was right.

“Hey, we’re going to grab something to eat, then head over to the bar,” Danny said. “Wanna come?”

“I don’t think so,” Wes said.

“Come on, Danny,” Dori said. “They want to be alone.”

“Ha. Alone. Right. Well, if you get bored or thirsty or want to look at more of those pictures, you know where to find us.”

“Sure.”

Danny tipped a hat he wasn’t wearing, then continued down the walkway.

Wes and Anna had only taken a few steps toward his room when Wes stopped. “Our suits. Here.” He handed her his room key and returned to the bike. They’d stashed their chlorine-soaked swimsuits in the compartment behind the Triumph’s seat.

But he’d barely got it open when Anna rushed back out of his room. “Call nine-one-one.”

He scrambled for the phone in his pocket. “Is your pain worse?”

“It’s not me.”

IN THE MOVIES, WHEN SOMEONE CAME HOME
to find their place had been searched, it usually looked like a government-declared disaster area. That wasn’t quite what Wes found when he entered his hotel room, but close enough.

Everything that had been in his suitcase—shirts, underwear, socks, pants, a few books—had been tossed into a pile on the floor. The bed was skewed, the mattress twisted at a forty-five-degree angle from the box spring, the sheets and blankets ripped off and thrown in a separate pile against the far wall. Though Wes hadn’t used the dresser, all the drawers had been pulled out and were either on the floor or hanging in their openings. And in the bathroom, the contents of his shaving kit had been dumped into the sink.

Panicked, he ran over to the closet and jerked the door open. Surprisingly, the camera was still there. But the relief was only short-lived when he realized the backpack with his laptop and the case with the backup system for the cameras were both gone.

“No!” he yelled.

Anna came up behind him. “What is it?”

“They took the computers.”

While they waited for the police, Wes and Anna searched her room to see if anyone had been there, but it was untouched.

The same investigator from the previous evening, Detective Stevens, showed up accompanied by Detective Andrews. After a quick examination of Wes’s room, the night manager loaned them the motel office so they could talk to Wes in private.