Page 76 of Stay in Your Lane!

“Just drive!” Kyle screamed, and oh right.

I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal, and we took off into the night.

CHAPTER 22

KYLE

“Cars don’t blow up!” Everett was ranting over the deafening wind as he tore out of the trailer park and onto the highway. “It just doesn’t happen! It doesn’t! Especially not from a gunshot!”

I didn’t try to talk him down. His fury over the violation of physics was keeping his focus away from the guns and the danger, and that was probably for the better. He wasn’t doing so hot at keeping us between the faded lines of the county road, but that was pretty normal.

I twisted around in the passenger seat, gun still in hand as I murmured, “I know, baby, it’s weird.” I checked my cats as much as I could in the low light through the Plexiglas divider. Jeff was still being vocally opinionated about the indignity of his accommodations, and Patches seemed a little concerned by Everett’s driving. They were uninjured, though, and I was both surprised and impressed—not to mention relieved—to realize Everett had taken the time to belt them in. At least then if we wrecked or he took a corner on two wheels, the cats wouldn’t be tossed around in the patrol car’s backseat.

Suddenly, Everett cried, “Oh my God!”

I dropped back into the passenger seat and looked around. “What? What’s going on?”

Everett snapped his fingers. “Propane. There was a propane tank by the car. I must’ve hit that instead, and that’s what blew up.” He tsked and rolled his eyes, chuckling at himself. “Okay,nowit makes sense.”

I blinked.

He glanced at me. “What?”

“I…” I shook myself. “Nothing.” I glanced in the side mirror. No headlights coming up yet.

And, now that I thought about it… the radio was quiet.

I’d ridden in my dad’s and brother’s patrol cars enough to know the radios were rarely quiet. They sure as hell wouldn’t have been quiet in the minutes since a patrol car had been stolen.

“We need to ditch this car,” I declared. “Likenow.”

The car in question swerved a little as Everett looked at me again. “Huh? Why?”

“Because every cop within a thousand miles is going to be searching for it, and I think that was Reardon’s plan.”

“It—what?” The car swerved again.

“Everett! Focus on the road!”

There was some slight fishtailing, but he mostly straightened out.

I spoke fast. “Look, Reardon wasn’t putting up nearly as much of a fight as he should’ve been in the trailer. I shouldn’t have been able to hold him off like that. And there’s no way he’d just… leave the engine running. Not unless?—”

“Not unless he wanted us to take it,” Everett breathed.

“Exactly. And I’d bet everything I have that there’s a tracker in this thing—and there was probably one on…” I closed my eyes and pressed back against the seat. “Fucking hell. They tracked Colin’s car. I guarantee it. I just… I fucking guaranteeit.” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t pieced that together. There was probably something on my dad’s car, too, because who else would I go to when I needed to blow town?

Try to outsmart a detective, I said.

It’ll be a really good fucking idea, I said.

Everett was quiet for a moment. Then, “When you say you’d bet everything you have—does that include Steve?”

I eyed him. Sometimes the way this man’s mind worked blewmymind.

But then the corner of his mouth twitched.

I rolled my eyes and laughed. “Shut up.” He chuckled, though, apparently satisfied he’d broken through my internal panic.

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