39

THE LONGEST TRIP

The flight to Nashville took barely an hour, although the time needed for check-in and getting through security made it feel much longer. Lady Diamond, as promised, was waiting at the airport with the ocelot kitten in a very expensive pet carrier, and all the necessary papers. Wendy was dying to hold the little ocelot, but not in a public place where people would stare and want to touch it because it might cause the kitten to freak out. She used the short time before her flight back to go over the paperwork, making sure everything was in order and almost before she knew it she was on a return flight to Little Rock.

By mid-afternoon she was zooming along in the RAV, chauffeuring a barely weaned ocelot to his new home. She exited the interstate on to the country road that led to their farm. She passed a used-car dealership, a plant nursery, and a few other businesses; then it was rural, with only an occasional farmhouse. Between the farms stood small patches of woods, the trees mostly bare this time of year. It was a grey, overcast day. Snow was predicted. The closer she got to the farm the more excited Wendy got. She could hardly wait to get acquainted with baby Santiago.

She was about two miles from the farm when her cellphone rang. It was on the seat beside her, but she had belted Santiago’s small carrier into the seat, so it took a minute to get her hand under the carrier to reach the phone. The ring, or maybe the way she tilted the carrier, woke Santiago. He began to snarl in the fussy, demanding way of a kitten who wanted to be fed now.

“Hold on, baby,” Wendy murmured. “We’ll almost there.”

But there was only the one ring, and when she answered, she didn’t get a signal. Wendy hadn’t been using a cell long enough to remember to charge the battery regularly. No matter. It was probably Kyle calling to find out where she was. In another five minutes she would be home and could phone him from there.

That was when she saw the car behind her. Was it the one she had passed a mile or two back, parked by the side of the road? She had sort of seen it, but not really because it was right when she was trying to get the cellphone out from under Santiago’s cage. The car was coming up on her fast. She looked for a farmhouse where she could pull off the road, but this was an empty stretch of highway and there were no houses around. She sped up. The car behind her sped up, too.

Within seconds it was close enough that she could see two people in the front seat. Two black men. No! Not black men! Men wearing black ski masks!

Wendy’s foot quivered on the accelerator. She wanted to stomp it to the floor, but she was coming up to the turn into her driveway, the dirt lane that ran from the main road to the house. She waited until she was almost at the turn, then slammed on the brakes and hung a hard left. Santiago yowled as he was thrown against the side of his carrier.

Wendy took the dirt lane faster than she ever had before, but it wasn’t fast enough. As she screeched to a stop in front of the house, she thought she glimpsed Danny’s face in the living-room window. The thought skittered through her mind that he shouldn’t be in the house, because Kyle wasn’t home and Danny didn’t have a key. But she had no time to take a second look to see if he actually was there or if it was just her imagination. The car following her had pulled to a stop about ten feet back.

She flung off her seat belt, but what she saw in the rear-view mirror told her that she’d never make it to the house. There was a slim chance that she could outrun the man who was already out of the car, but there was no way she could outrun a bullet from the gun he pointed at her.

The driver opened his door and hauled himself out. “Hey, Blondie,” he called in a voice muffled by the knitted ski mask covering his mouth. “You the little girl who plans to ID us in a lineup? Well, my buddy and me, we wanna make sure you don’t make a mistake. We want you to see us close up. Real close up.”

Kyle had told Wendy what kind of hole a .40 calibre bullet could put in a person. She didn’t know how much of a hole it could blow in a car, but the RAV was all the protection she had. At least, that’s what she thought for one terrifying minute. Then she saw, incredibly, a police van streaking along the highway. But it couldn’t be coming to her rescue! Nobody knew she was in trouble! It must be on an emergency call to somewhere else and would go zooming right by!

That was what her mind told her, but her eyes told her something else. The police van hung a sharp left and came flying along the dirt track even faster than Wendy had.

She dove for the floor. There was sure to be a shoot-out, and bullets fired by good guys could do just as much damage as ones fired by bad guys!

“Hang on!” she whispered to Santiago. “Help’s on the way.”

Her voice did nothing to soothe Santiago, who, though just a tiny kitten, snarled and growled so loud she didn’t hear the shots — or else there weren’t any. What she heard was a roar of engines. Cautiously, Wendy lifted her head high enough to see out the back window. The car that had followed her was no longer there. It was tearing across the field toward the main road, with the police van in hot pursuit.

Then Danny was pounding on the passenger-side car window. She hit the unlock button, and released the seat belt holding Santiago’s carrier. Danny grabbed the carrier and ran up the steps to the house, Wendy on his heels. She slammed the door shut behind them and stood gasping for breath as if she’d run a mile instead of twenty feet.

Danny dashed to the window. Wendy followed, but the tree in the front yard blocked their view. As if they’d had the same thought at the same time, they tore up the stairs to Wendy’s office. From there they had a clear view of what was going on out on the main road.

“Holy smokes!” Danny gasped. “Every cop in the country’s out there!”

Actually, there were only five vehicles — two police cruisers blocking the road in one direction, two sheriff’s cars blocking it in the other direction, and the police van pulled up sideways to the criminals’ car. As to how many law enforcement officers there were, Wendy couldn’t tell, nor could she see if Kyle was among them. But it was clear that the chase was over and the two men were in custody.

Suddenly Radar burst into the room and ran circles around Wendy and Danny. “Merow, merow, merow!” he cried plaintively.

Wendy picked him up. Although her heart was pounding, just holding the serval next to her chest helped her to breathe normally again.

“I don’t think he wants us to play ‘Wild Thing’ for him,” Wendy said shakily. “I think he’s trying to tell us there’s a real wild thing in that carrier downstairs.” She started for the door. “I’m going to fix Santiago a bottle.”

Danny stared at her. “Wendy, you are incredibly weird!”

“I am? Why do you say that?”

“Five minutes ago, you just about got shot. Or kidnapped, or something. And all you want to do is fix a bottle for the new kitten!”

“I guess that is weird,” Wendy admitted. “But it’s just how I am. The best way I know to calm down is to curl up in a quiet place with an animal in my lap. Lady Diamond said Santiago’s been weaned, so I don’t know that he needs a bottle.” She held out a trembling hand. “But look how I’m shaking. I definitely need to give him one.”