He’s going to either ditch the Buick soon or we’re close to his secret interrogation site. Hurry up, Karen.
Vail cleared leather and had the tanto in hand. Now she had to turn it blade side up and start slicing. But manipulating it into position with her fingertips was more difficult than she thought—and she almost dropped it … which would’ve been disastrous.
She got the tip reoriented and started working on the twisted fibers of the rope. Even not restrained it would take some effort to cut through this material. But there was no choice. She had to do it.
“Do you really intend to kill your daughter?” she asked, hoping to distract him.
“I told you. We’ll talk later. On my terms.”
“She’s your daughter. How can you do that?”
For the first time, Marcks looked at her in the rearview. She saw intense anger folded into the creases around his eyes and across his brow.
“Fine,” she said, “I’ll drop it.” A moment passed. “When we sit down to talk, will you at least answer some of my questions? The ones I wanted to ask you at Potter?”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning forward and peering down the road. “Why not?”
Vail followed his gaze and saw a police cruiser on the right.
Marcks slowed. “Don’t try anything, Vail. Or I may have to slug you again.”
More fibers gave way.
“Once was enough,” she said. “Oh, wait, you hit me twice. I lost count.” And consciousness.
They passed the cop. She watched as he sat in his car, looking at his radar gun, apparently more concerned with catching speeders than apprehending fugitives.
“Maybe third time’s the charm.”
Vail flexed her neck left and right. “No thanks.”
Marcks turned onto a secluded side street—no houses in the immediate area—and no other vehicles.
Shit. Now or never.
Vail pressed harder and felt the fibers of one of the loops of the knot give way.
Keep going!
A minute later she felt the rope loosen. Got it! Her wrists popped apart and she grabbed the knife’s handle firmly in her hand, then rotated it to get it into position.
She whipped it around and slapped it against Marcks’s carotid, then grabbed a handful of hair protruding from beneath the hat. “Pull the fuck over! And keep your hands on the wheel where I can see them.”
He laughed. “Go ahead. You don’t have it in you to slice my neck open.”
She pressed the blade into his skin and a thin line of blood oozed. “You wanna test me? You think you know who I am and what I’ve done, but you’ve got no fucking idea.” She knocked his hat off and gathered up a full-fisted clump of hair, yanked back hard. He winced. “No one’s going to question me killing you. No one. Because it’s justice. Understand, asshole?”
He closed his eyes, the only acknowledgment, the only victory, he was going to allow her.
Vail knew she had to bully him because it was the only language Roscoe Lee Marcks understood. Show weakness and he would go for the jugular. Literally.
“You’ve got three seconds,” she said. “Two.”
Marcks lifted his foot off the accelerator and the car slowed. He angled the vehicle toward the right shoulder of the two-lane roadway and brought it to a stop.
“With your left hand, using two fingers, remove the Glock and hand it back to me. No fast moves.”
He did as instructed and she released his hair to grab the pistol’s handle, keeping the tanto’s pressure constant against his neck. She wanted to check the handgun’s chamber but needed two hands—and there was no way she was going to remove the knife from Marcks’s neck.
“Now give me the keys.”
He pulled them out of the ignition and handed them back—but moved them away when she reached for them. She dug the knife further into his skin, drawing more blood. “I swear, you fucking try anything—anything—and I’ll kill you. Now give them to me!”
He handed them back and she took them.
She wanted to handcuff him but there was nothing to secure him to: no headrest. Nothing except the steering wheel. If she had him lean forward and put his hands behind his back, there would be no way for her to reach over the seat to fasten them.
Vail set the Glock on her lap and reached for her cuffs—but they weren’t there. She patted the area around her, felt around with her shoes, taking care to keep firm pressure on the tanto—but they were not there.
She felt for her phone—gone as well. Shit.
“Pop your door open, then put your hands on the dashboard. Splay your fingers. And push your chest against the wheel.”
As he leaned forward, she removed the knife from his neck and got out, pointed the Glock at his head as she came around to the front seat—
But Marcks accelerated hard and the Buick lurched forward, the rear door slamming into her side and spinning her into the asphalt.
Vail got to her knees and squeezed off three rounds at the retreating vehicle, pinging the metal and doing nothing to stop Marcks as he once again fled.