She looked up. Beck wasn’t bothering to stick to the path from the house. He made a straight line for her, barreling across the paddock, straight into the fire. The vehicle bumped and crashed over the rolling surface. Flames licked at it, but none took their toll.
She jumped behind the wheel of the police cruiser. The key was in the ignition. She twisted it and the engine turned over but didn’t catch. The gas gauge registered just above empty.
“Start, damn it.” She deserved for something to go her way, and it finally did when the engine fired.
She pulled on her seatbelt, then jerked the shifter into reverse. She looked over her shoulder at the dirt road that would take her to freedom. Was it freedom? She’d run before and escaped nothing. If she escaped, he’d just hunt her down again. She was his obsession. Fleeing would be just another stay of execution. Even if the cops put him in jail, there was always the chance he’d get out. She couldn’t have that. It was time to end this one way or another. She shifted into drive and stamped on the gas.
The cruiser leapt forward into the blaze. She plowed through the paddock’s fire-ravaged fence, heading toward Beck. Flames and embers flew up over the hood and windshield as it gathered speed. The needle on the speedometer passed forty miles per hour. She fought to keep the car on course. It bottomed out on the dips, and the rear end went airborne on the rises.
Beck was doing better at riding the bumps. His SUV kept coming at her. She wanted to meet him head-on, but she was struggling to keep her car on course and the distance between them was running out. They were so close now she could see him through the flames. His expression was simple—total focus. He hadn’t let emotion take over. He had a job to do, and he was going to do it. The simplicity of his drive scared her. How could she compete?
She hit a dip, which wrenched the steering wheel from her hands. The car slewed right, teeing her up for Beck. He slammed the SUV into the rear passenger-side corner of the police cruiser, sending it into a spin. The cruiser threw up dirt and mowed down burning grass. The world was lost to her in an explosion of sound and a blur of flying dirt and embers. The car came to a sudden halt at a right angle to Beck’s SUV.
His vehicle was a wreck. The crash had collapsed the front end. He wasn’t going anywhere. But was she? The cruiser’s engine was dead. She jammed the shifter back into park and tried the ignition—nothing. She tried again and again. Each time the engine turned over but failed to fire up. So many things could be wrong—heat vaporizing the gas or smoke being sucked into the intake or luck just running out on her.
Then movement caught her eye. Beck swung open his SUV’s door. Zo?’s mouth gaped as he stepped into the fire with his fist wrapped around the knife. The flames here were only knee deep, but the heat had to be intense. She marveled at his twisted desire. “Zo?, there’s no escaping your punishment,” he said, staggering toward her.
She couldn’t believe the sight, the insanity of it all. But it was coming to an end. Sirens filled the air. Authority figures were en route. But she couldn’t let it end their way. Their way left room for error. It had to end now, between victim and victimizer. The engine fired on the third attempt. It sounded rough, but if it was running, it was the sweetest sound in the world. She jammed it into drive and a terrible racket came from the car’s rear as it lumbered forward. Something was broken back there, but it wasn’t enough to stop its momentum.
She aimed the car straight at Beck and smashed into him. The force pinned him to the hood of the cruiser. Zo? kept her foot down. She plowed into her tormentor’s SUV, pinning him between both vehicles. He yelled out in pain and thrust his knife into the cruiser’s hood, as if stabbing the car would help him. His display reminded her of a toddler’s temper tantrum. He was lashing out at the world because it didn’t do the things he wanted it to do. It was sad and pathetic. Just like him.
She reveled in his pain. It was what he deserved. Despite the trauma he’d suffered, it was fair payback for what he’d done, but it wasn’t enough. Not yet.
She picked up the dead cop’s pistol and pointed it at him through the windshield. He was still flailing in pain, oblivious of her. That wasn’t good enough. She wanted him to see this coming.
“Tally Man,” she yelled.
He stopped flailing and looked directly at her, then the gun.
Good. She wanted to see fear and terror in his eyes, the same fear and terror that she and all his other victims had suffered at his hands. She wanted him to know the misery he’d put her through.
“How does this feel? Are you scared? I hope this hurts as much as you hurt us.”
“You still don’t get it, do you? I was right. I changed you. I made you better. Admit it.”
He’d love to believe that. It disgusted her that he could even think that. “I changed me.”
He grinned. “Zo? Sutton, my success story.”