She was doing eighty when she passed the You Are Leaving St. Charles County sign. The road leveled out for a bit and Timmie downshifted for better acceleration. She was going to lose ground here, and she knew it.

So did the Bonneville. Timmie could hear that engine winding out. She saw the next curve coming, hoped it would be soon enough, knew that if this guy smacked her at this speed she wouldn't come to earth till she hit the far bank of the river.

He was inching up. Timmie found herself leaning forward, as if she could get a few more mph just by gravity. The curve was close, closer, beckoning like a mirage in a terrifying desert. Timmie's heart was knocking against her chest like every poor, overworked piston in her engine. But she was going to make it. She could get to the next set of curves and keep going, because there was a town nearby. People. Witnesses this guy didn't want. She reached for the stick shift and stomped her foot on the clutch, and knew the guy behind her had lost.

Timmie had forgotten one important thing. She hadn't driven in Missouri in over ten years. In that time, she'd never had to deal with ice on the road. It was one o'clock in the afternoon on a sunny day. The temperature still hovered at freezing, though, and the hills to the north kept the sun off the road. Timmie didn't even see the patch of black ice she hit. She just suddenly found herself airborne, with a panoramic view of the Missouri River out her windshield, and knew she was screwed.

Chapter 16

Thank God for seat belts. It was about the only coherent thought Timmie had for about fifteen minutes as she stared blankly out her front window into the bushes that had ended up catching her. She would have been pavement pizza if she hadn't been strapped in. As it was, she was hanging from the shoulder strap like a parachutist who hit a tree. Her head hurt, her chest hurt, and her hands, still wrapped around the wheel as if holding her in the car, felt as if they'd shattered on impact.

Amazing. She could still see the river, not more than twenty yards off. Rolling, rolling... no, that was the Mississippi. Besides, it wasn't rolling at all. She'd sailed right to the edge of some farmer's pond. Oh, well. Maybe that was the farmer himself she heard trying to get into her car.

He wasn't going to have any luck. The door was locked. Another legacy of life in the fast lane. Timmie locked her car doors if she was going to sit in her driveway to think.

Now the person was tapping, scraping around the car as if trying to find a better way to get in. Timmie sighed. She guessed she was going to have to move. She tried to reach around for the seat-belt release and couldn't. Something was in her way. Besides, her shoulder hurt when she stretched.

"Just a... minute," she called out, which made her head hurt.

He didn't wait. He punched out her rear window. Timmie couldn't see him. She couldn't get her head around. But she heard the distinctive pop and crunch and tinkle of glass tumbling onto her backseat. She felt sick. She smelled gas and remembered how to feel afraid.

"I need a little help getting out," she ventured, trying again to reach her seat belt. Failing.

"Where the fuck is it?" he said, a baritone with a south St. Louis accent.

Not the farmer, then. Timmie finally remembered the reason she'd been sailing over farm silos and fought a new rush of fear. The smell of gas was even stronger, and the man who'd broken into her car wasn't there to get her out.

"If you get me unlatched I'm sure I can help you look," she tried.

Timmie could hear him rifling through the backseat, and then the front. She actually caught sight of a head of hair. Dark. Thick. Oily. No face to go with it, though. Kind of like talking to a badly groomed Cousin Itt.

"You took it with you this morning. That's what they said."

"Who said?" she asked. "And if you knew I had it this long, why the hell didn't you just break into my car when it was sitting on the street? You didn't have to chase me through two counties."

"Shut up."

"And I expect you to pay for that window," she said. "Not to mention the rest of my car. Asshole. You ran me off the road."

He laughed. "You misjudged the turn."

"I did not. I hit ice."

Timmie did give a passing thought to how ridiculous the conversation was. Better than screaming for mercy, she guessed.

"What'd you do with it?" he demanded, shaking her by the shoulder this time. Like that would help. All it did was dislodge a few more brain cells so they probably scattered over her seat like broken glass.

"Find it yourself."

She didn't have a clue what he was talking about.

"Hey!" an old voice yelled nearby. "You all right there?"

Timmie could hear the guy moving toward the back of the car. "Call 911!" he yelled. "A drunk ran off the road!"

That was what cleared Timmie's head. "Drunk?" she demanded. "I'm not drunk. I am not drunk!" she yelled for whoever was outside, as if that would make a difference.

"Do yourself a favor," the guy said almost in her ear. "Ditch that piece of paper. And forget I was ever here."

She would have if she hadn't caught sight of his hand scrabbling through the nursing bag she'd left on the passenger seat. If she hadn't seen the gold-and-cat's-eye ring on its pinkie. Its bent pinkie. Its square, pale, scraped pinkie. Timmie took one look out of the corner of her eye and knew she could identify that fifth digit anywhere. She didn't say anything to the guy, though. She didn't even say anything to the farmer when he finally returned leading a parade of fire engines and police cars. She waited until she was in her own ER, strapped to a backboard like a bagged deer and blinking in the overhead lights.

"The printout!" she gasped, coming to her senses.

Of course. The carefully guarded, top-secret, all-revealing Morbidity and Mortality printout they'd been tossing back and forth for the last week or so like a hockey puck in overtime. It was the only thing Timmie had been carrying in that nursing bag except an extra pair of nylons, and if that guy had run her off the road just for used panty hose, she had more problems than she'd thought.

"Pardon?" Dr. Chang asked as she bent over her upside down, her face as round as a moon. The Halloween moon, except this one was frowning and kind and much, much younger. And the goblins chasing Timmie weren't pretend.

Timmie began to shake. "Nothing. Isn't Barb on?"

"You don't like me?"

"I love you, Chang. Really. I just need to ask Barb something."

"She busy. And you need c-spine films."

"My c spines are fine. I need to get up."

"No. No, you stay. We get films. Behave."

Great. A third-year resident from Beijing sounding just like her mother.

Other people came in. A couple of day-shift people and the portable X-ray tech and one of the other day docs. A couple of local cops in jackboots who tried not to laugh when Timmie told them a guy in a Bonneville and a pinkie ring had tried to run her off Highway 94. Timmie lay on the board getting stiffer by the minute and trying her damnedest to pretend she wasn't affected by what had just happened.

Maybe the guy who'd done this had just been stupid. Or maybe he hadn't cared whether she'd lived or died. Or maybe she would have been dead no matter what if that farmer hadn't shown up.

Definitely not things to consider when tied down so a person couldn't walk off the news. Which meant Timmie lay there shaking hard from adrenaline and a delayed terror she refused to admit, and focused everything she had on eavesdropping on the hallway. Which really didn't make her feel much better, either.