Part 38 (1/2)

It was the sound she heard first.

The roar of an engine behind her, so loud it was as if she were standing in the middle of a runway at Dulles International Airport. The second she spun around, she was blinded by a pair of headlights. The lights were getting bigger. Very quickly, too. The car was heading straight at her.

No time for overthinking this. She dove. Part leap. Part cartwheel. Straight between the two Dumpsters to her right, the asphalt practically knocking the wind out of her as she landed.

Make and model! License plate! Get something!

But by the time she could look up and focus, his car was turning the corner, gone. It was so dark out that she couldn't even tell what color the car was. She got nothing.

No, wait-not quite. She still had her own car.

Sarah pushed herself up, sprinting in the direction of her rental car. She could still catch him, she thought. h.e.l.l, yeah, let's see what this Camaro can do!

”s.h.i.+t!” she screamed the second she laid eyes on it.

Jared Sullivan knew who she was, all right. He knew what car she was driving, too.

Sarah stopped at the right rear tire, flat to the rim. Ditto for the left rear one. ”s.h.i.+t!” she yelled again. ”s.h.i.+t! s.h.i.+t! s.h.i.+t!”

The b.a.s.t.a.r.d had slashed all four tires, and as if to rub it in he left his folding knife resting on the hood of the car.

Only it wasn't his knife.

Sarah picked it up with the bottom of her s.h.i.+rt, then took out her phone for some light. There were initials inscribed on the ivory handle. J.O.

John O'Hara.

It was his fis.h.i.+ng knife. And it was no longer missing. Sarah had found another piece of the puzzle.

Chapter 59

SARAH CALLED DAN Driesen the next morning to brief him. She didn't want to make the call, but she had to. It was like going to the dentist. To have a tooth pulled. Without Novocain.

”h.e.l.l, Sarah, you're supposed to be chasing him, not the other way around,” he said in a tone that was bordering on ticked off but nonetheless contained a hint of genuine concern. ”He could've killed you.”

”That's just it. He could've killed me, but he didn't,” she said, standing by the window of her third-floor room at the Emba.s.sy Suites. Nothing but cacti and highway as far as the eye could see. ”He was probably hiding at the lake and saw me with the local police. From that moment on he could've killed me at any time, and he chose not to.”

”So now you're saying he didn't try to run you over with his car?”

”Think about it. If he really wanted to, why did he flip on his headlights?”

”Is that supposed to make me feel better? He knows who you are, and that's not good.”

”Maybe I can turn it to my advantage. I'm thinking about that possibility now.”