Wired (15 page)

Once the jacket was on and the last of the plaster particles removed, I smoothed his hair down, straightened his tie, and tried not to stare at the purple bruises settling in around the bridge of his nose.

“Roxanne.”

I looked at him, surprised by the intimate tone of his voice.

“When this is over, I think you at least owe me a moment to completely explain myself.”

Do you mean, to
excuse
yourself?

“You totally misunderstood. I don't have a girlfriend now. I had a girlfriend.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I just don't think of her as my ‘ex,' you know, because we didn't break up. But, I don't know how much to tell you. I don't want to mess things up.”

My blood started to boil. “I think we're a little beyond that.”

“The thing is . . . Leo disappeared her.”

I looked up at him, totally startled. He was either a really good liar and knew exactly how to push my buttons . . . or he had lived through something really hard. I knew how upsetting it was to discover that a convenience store manager's kid whom I'd never even met didn't exist anymore because of an artificial shift in reality; to lose someone you really loved to such a thing and to be so cognizant of it . . . that had to be truly horrible.

“It's why I got into this line of work,” he said, suddenly looking overcome with emotion.

I didn't know what to think. I wanted to believe him. He was totally believable. Under the circumstances, what he'd described was totally believable. I
wished the nurse hadn't said what she'd said. And I sure as hell wished I hadn't let her do what she'd done.

I could have touched him, maybe touched his shoulder or put my hand on his good one. I could have said that I was sure we'd work things out. I just didn't have the balls. I was afraid he was lying, and I was afraid he would reject me.

“Let's go,” I said, breaking the moment. “This is the most important event of my life.”

Mason and I walked to his car, and I tried to feel like he really, really deserved it when he forgot that he was substantially handicapped and probably still had enough sedative in him to make driving illegal. He managed to wedge himself into the driver's seat but couldn't figure out how to hook the tips of his fingers far enough around the stick shift knob to drive the car; I hadn't cut the plaster down far enough.

I kept my mouth shut as I walked around to the driver's side. Mason got out of the vehicle and came around to the passenger side. “Shit. Are you kidding?”

“What?” I asked.

He slid into the seat, then reached into the back with his good arm and pulled the hard drive onto his lap. Glaring at me he muttered, “I can't believe you just left this in the car.”

“I'm sorry.”

“101 South,” he said sulkily. “Let's go.”

“Sure thing,” I said. Gunning the engine, I headed for the freeway on-ramp.

Halfway down the block, I knew we had a situation.
Mason was leaning over me, practically, his good hand curled tightly into a fist and white around the knuckles. I felt quite sympathetic actually. The poor guy really did want control back. Every time I shifted gears, he'd wince slightly, or make a sound like a sudden sucking in of air. From my peripheral vision I could see his feet working in the footwell, one on the imaginary brake, one for the imaginary clutch.

“Everything okay over there, Merrick?” I asked.

“Fine,” came the reply, followed by a fake, rigid smile.

Poor sap
. We weren't even on the freeway.

“You didn't complain about the way I drove you to the hospital and back.”

He glanced at me. “I was preserving what was left of my nose.”

I hit the on-ramp and stepped down on the accelerator in what I considered to be the appropriate way to merge: actually at or exceeding the speed limit. Mason blanched, and I saw his bad arm swing out away from his body slightly, subconsciously trying to shift.

Now didn't seem like an appropriate time to mention that I hadn't driven in years, nor that my license had expired accordingly. I floored it, the roar of the engine and the way we basically blew out onto the freeway making me feel naughty. Now I was full-out grinning, taking the lanes past 80 mph, weaving in and out of traffic in the worst possible way. At some point I was going to have to suck it up and tell Mason I at least understood a little bit why he had such a thing for this car.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one experiencing a rush from freeway driving that day; in the rearview mirror a black sports car followed my pattern of feint and parry. Still feeling the pleasure of the ride, I swerved into the lane next to us to give it room to pass. It turned down my offer, leaving me stuck behind a Volkswagen van that should have been in the slow lane. The sports car accelerated before zipping in behind me.

“Merrick . . .”

“Jesus, just keep your eyes on the road,” he blurted.

As the pavement unrolled rapidly in front of me, my foot instinctively pressed down harder. My hands started to sweat on the steering wheel as the needle shifted past eighty-five. “Merrick, you see that black sports car?”

He checked his mirror. “The one practically up our ass?”

“Yeah. Was he already on the freeway when we got on, or did he get on the freeway with us?”

Mason squirreled around in the seat and stared out the back window. The rearview mirror reflected the guy so close on our tail that Mason could have exchanged phone numbers by holding a business card up to the glass. He turned back. “It's Leonardo. We need to get away from him. Now.”

“Leonardo Kaysar? You're kidding.”

“Does this seem like a smart time to kid around?”

He looked so longingly at the steering wheel it was almost painful. I wasn't sure what the sports car wanted me to do, and I'd long since stopped
feeling like I knew what I was doing. I was beginning to wish Mason were driving almost as much as he did.

I couldn't see our pursuer's face clearly, but I could see he held a cell phone up to his ear. Kaysar's nonchalance under the circumstances infuriated me. “He's going to kill us if he's not careful.”

Mason looked at me like I was insane. “Do you actually think he's trying not to?” He pulled his handheld out and started madly texting, then switched to voice. “What do you got? Uh-huh . . . uh-huh . . . still red, then. Jesus. Keep an eye on the GPS and have a taxi waiting at the endpoint.” He hung up, slamming the smartie's clamshell casing closed.

“I think Leonardo wants us to pull over,” I said, speeding up more.

“Don't,” Mason said.

I took the Mustang to ninety. Leonardo kept up. I drove even faster. Mason was about to have a stroke, sitting there next to me as I jumped in and out of the lanes, trying to get lost in traffic.

Swearing continuously under my breath as if the word
shit
were some kind of mantra, I gripped the steering wheel and held on for dear life. Mason started to yell at me, choosing this moment to become a backseat driver, but the sledgehammer sound of my heart beating at three times the normal rate drowned out his exact words. I wiped the sweat out of my eyes with my sleeve, which apparently incensed Mason even more, although I wasn't sure why.

The sports car touched my back bumper so gently that I couldn't help but be impressed. I lost control of
the car for only a second, and swerved. Mason leaned over, still shouting driving instructions.

The sports car touched the bumper again, this time not so gently. I lost control of the car again for a moment, this time Mason's car coming off the two right wheels for a second, the entire vehicle almost airborne. The sports car had sort of latched on to the back, grinding and bumping and sliding our car and trying to manipulate my driving.

“You wearing your seat belt?” I asked Mason in a voice that was almost normal—save for the hoarse quality brought on by the lack of saliva in my mouth. He had no time to answer; Leonardo forced us forward and a car on either side sandwiched us in. A monster construction vehicle loomed into view up ahead, and there was no safe way to slow down.

Mason rolled down the window with his left hand and, with an insane amount of calm, threw the external hard drive we'd taken through the window into the path of an oncoming vehicle in the opposite lane. I heard something hit, maybe crush, and then stopped caring. A series of mathematical calculations zipped in one ear, through my brain, and out the other as we stared at the back of the braking truck ahead, into which I was being forced.

I screamed, let go of the steering wheel, and clawed my fingernails into Mason's thigh. He took me by the scruff of the neck and jammed me down in the footwell of the car. We were going to hit the back of the truck and go under.

A huge impact rocked the car, drowning out the sound of the engine and slamming my head against the bottom of the steering wheel. The Mustang
careened violently to the right before swaying left again.

I screamed over and over, unable to wrap my tongue around any other noise. The high-pitched sound of metal scraping metal like the worst case of fingernails on blackboard you've ever heard filled the air, followed by shattering glass, sparks, and a horrible anticipatory feeling that “it” hadn't happened yet, but would. The top of the car was tearing away.

I shifted in the well and moved my hand away from my face for a second to eyeball the scene around me, then covered it quickly, protecting it again. Crap was flying everywhere. Grit, gravel, dust, exhaust . . . car parts? There was the hulking shadow of the truck above. Then came the lunging and retreating sensation, like we were caught on something that was giving way. Mason's good arm flailed up out the well. A good sign. He seemed to be trying to reposition himself.

He turned to me and yelled something. My throat wasn't working. I just shook my head and mouthed,
What?

The car lurched forward and we both ducked down again. He moved sideways instead of upward as much as he could to get near me. I heard him say very faintly, “. . . come out the other side. Be ready. . . .”

We were jammed underneath the truck, and the lurching sensation was the Mustang trying to break loose. As it inched farther under the truck toward the front, and sparks shot out from the metal contact points, it occurred to me there was at least a fifty percent chance that between the truck's gas tank and our own, something would blow.

The truck eased up, the driver undoubtedly realizing that something unusual was transpiring under his vehicle. I didn't think he was in cahoots with Leonardo, but I didn't know for sure. The Mustang continued to wiggle forward. I peeked over the dashboard through my fingers and looked down a seeming tunnel toward a light.

The car jolted forward again and lost contact with the truck. For a second I thought we were going to get sucked back in, but the Mustang finally broke free and to the right. Mason yelled, “Drive!” at the top of his lungs. I wrenched myself back into the driver's seat, floored the thing while crossing over several lanes of traffic, and exited the freeway at top speed. We careened around the off-ramp, scraping the entire left side of the car along the metal ledge protector, but when we finally made it to the relative safety of the gas station just off the exit, I stepped on the brakes with all of my strength.

The car finally stopped shuddering. I leaned back against the seat with the back of my hand pressed to my nose against the smell of burning rubber. Mason leaned back against his own seat. We looked around at the twisted metal in which we were sitting. I had to make a conscious effort to relax the six hundred–odd muscles in my body that were still clenched.

Finally Mason looked over at me and said, “You okay?”

I held up a defensive palm. “Fine. Just need to rest here . . . few minutes,” I croaked. Actually, I didn't feel fine. I felt like I was going to throw up or pass out or possibly both, and I didn't want to do either of those things in front of Mason. I leaned out of the
car and spit down the side. I cleared my throat, trying to get the exhaust and dust out, and spit again, then leaned back against the seat.

Mason made like he was moving over to check me out and see for himself how I was, but I turned my head away from him to stare at what used to be the car window. He climbed over the car door on his side. He walked slowly around the front of his car, mouth hanging open like some cartoon character's, hugging his messed-up arm to his body for comfort. I blinked wearily, my eyes dry and gritty. I felt bad. I mean, I felt good that we weren't dead and that I'd come through in a pinch, but in a way, I really felt
bad
.

As Mason walked around his car, I realized that I'd basically killed his puppy, and that wasn't the least bit funny. I didn't know what to say. I didn't even know exactly how bad the damage was, but considering that at the very least the entire top of the car was sheared off, it had to be bad. So I stammered the obvious. “Sorry about your car, Mason.” I really meant it, but my words sounded almost flippant.

Mason closed his mouth, a tight, grim slash, and just looked at me. For once in his life, the guy had nothing to say. It was like the calm before the storm. I figured he was going to start yelling at me about how women are such crappy drivers and why didn't I do X instead of Y and follow it up with Z.

He walked around to my side of the car and leaned over me, and I thought,
Oh, here it comes
. But he didn't look mad anymore, and by the time I realized that, he'd already started fading from view, become just a silhouette against a darkening sky. Odd. And here I'd thought it was such a nice day.

“Come on, Rox. Wake up.”

I opened my eyes just in time for Mason's palm to clap the side of my face. I'd fainted again?