Page 63 of Not This Way

Her SUV roared into the empty crossroads, the tires gripping the asphalt with ferocious intensity as she slammed on the brakes, skidding to a halt just beyond the intersection.

“Rachel, he’s approaching fast. Be ready!” Ethan warned, his words punctuated by the high-pitched whine of the suspect’s sports car.

“I’m ready,” she whispered, her eyes hard and unflinching.

The dark Texas night was shattered by the approaching blaring sirens and flashing red and blue lights, casting eerie shadows across the desolate landscape. Rachel’s hands gripped the wheel of her black SUV, knuckles white with determination.

And then she spotted them.

The lights had been a siren’s call, heralding the approach, but the bright red flash of metallic paint under street lights caught her eye.

The Corvette buzzed toward her, outpacing the police vehicles behind it.

Rachel tensed, stalled in the intersection, hands on the steering wheel as she waited for the vehicle to reach her.

She didn’t flinch, as if she were staring down a charging bull.

“Come on,” she whispered under her breath. “Come on!” Her hands tightened around the steering wheel, and she went strangely tense. For a moment, it almost felt as if the windshield were the glass on a sniper’s scope. The red Corvette an animal caught in her crosshairs.

But sometimes, the hunter became the prey.

The red Corvette wasn’t veering. It kept hurtling directly toward her.

She tensed. It would veer.

It had to veer.

It was a life-and-death game of chicken.

If she stayed put, and he slammed into her, she’d be turned into goo.

But if she moved, he’d speed right past her.

“Rachel!” Ethan’s voice shouted through the speakers.

But she ignored him. She didn’t move. It wasn’t the thing to be done.

A phrase her aunt often uttered. Thethingto be donewas a sort of catch-all that explained a choice that seemed to have no explanation.

The red Corvette was fifty yards away. Twenty.

Coming so fast, she barely had time to blink.

But she didn’t move.

He’d veer.

He wouldhave toveer.

“Rachel!” Ethan shouted.

Her legs tensed, her jaw set.

And at the very last second, the red sports car turned sharply. The Corvette swerved to the right, tires screeching as it narrowly avoided Rachel’s SUV. She watched as the red car attempted to careen past her, but the turn was too tight. He’d left it too late.

His vehicle’s tires wailed against the asphalt as his front bumper slammed into a railing. Glass and sparks exploded, scattering across the ground.

Rachel let out a deep breath, her hands shaking slightly from the adrenaline rush. She had been so focused on the chase that she had forgotten to breathe.

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