They sat in silence, watching. Waiting.
“What the hell is she doing?” Gary said with a nervous strain in his voice.
Morgan didn’t answer. The question kind of passed him by, breezing past him while he kept his focus on the Mustang. What the hell is she doing? It was a worthwhile question, but the answer could be a thousand things. The only fact was that she wasn’t moving.
“Did she recognize you?” Morgan asked.
Gary splayed out his hands. “From where? We’ve never met.”
“But maybe she got the sense you were a cop.”
“My suits are nice, pal, but they don’t have red and blue lights flashing on them.”
Morgan ignored the sarcasm and kept watching. All he could see was Erika’s hair, black like raven feathers but straight as blades. She didn’t move, only kept facing forward like she was too scared to move. That, or she was considering if she should move. Morgan let the question rest on his lips a little, tasting the uncertainty. “She knows, doesn’t she?”
“Knows what?”
“That we’re onto her. She can’t be that stupid.”
Gary reached up and adjusted the vanity mirror, using it to keep an eye on Erika. “Maybe. She didn’t make it too difficult to find her, but she’s being really goddamn sneaky by not letting us catch her in the act. Like I said before, I can march right over there and book her for driving the stolen car, but it could get better. We could find more if we just stay patient.”
And then they did.
The words barely had time to reach Morgan’s ears before he jerked to alertness. Across the gas station, Mason’s Mustang roared to life. It boomed and echoed across the distance, sounding more like a yelling demon to Morgan. There was barely time to register what was happening before Erika floored it out of the space, gliding onto the road and beelining it up the road. She was gone in an instant, faster than a fleeing bat.
“What the hell just happened?” Gary said, fumbling for the gearstick. The car clunked as it found the gear and they took off after her in the blink of an eye. “There’s no way we can keep up with that car. No way.”
Morgan remained silent, gripping the armrest and keeping his gaze dead ahead. Sweat broke out on his brow, but he couldn’t tell if it was because of the high-speed weaving between the other cars, or because the Mustang was far ahead, vanishing into the distance and taking all hope of finding Mason Black with it. There was nothing worse than going home empty-handed, and that only made the sweat intensify.
They drew nearer as Gary shifted the gears. By now they were far outside the city and on their way to Pittsburgh, a place Morgan had heard about many times but never been to. It was as imagined; long rows of trees lined both sides of the road. The sun creeped on the horizon of the never-ending road. Only a handful of cars were in sight, but none were the Mustang.
“I think we lost her,” Gary said.
Morgan stewed in the silence, grinding his teeth from side to side. Was this what it’d come down to? After all he’d faced in recent months—the challenges in his personal life, the tracking and capture of two serial killers—his success had come to an abrupt end, losing Erika Givens, and probably Mason Black too, in some dumb pursuit.
But that morose thinking had to be put down.
Ahead of them, the black outline of the Mustang reappeared. Morgan sat up in his seat, the pains in his back vanishing to the depths of his mind while hope filled the void. He opened his mouth to tell Gary to speed up, but by then Gary was already pushing the car to its limits. Morgan just watched, closing the distance between them and the vehicle, his mouth turning dry as a stone at the thought of capturing Erika.
“If we get her, we arrest her,” Gary said. “No more games.”
Morgan agreed, but he had no time to voice it.
Far in front of them, the Mustang stopped. The door swung open. Erika stepped out, her hair swishing to each shoulder as she turned to look up and down the road. She held her gaze in Morgan’s direction, and although they were too far away to see her expression, he somehow knew it was a twisted, furious scowl of hate and disgust. The closer they got, the more he could identify, but by the time he could see her clearly, she took off into the trees, abandoning the Mustang on the side of the road. Her hair trailed behind her as she darted behind a wide trunk, becoming one with the darkness.
Morgan couldn’t take it anymore.
“Stop the car,” he blurted.
“But I—”
“Just stop it.”
Gary huffed a sigh and pulled the car to the side of the road. They were too far from the Mustang, but it was close enough for Morgan not to care. Before the car was completely still, he shoved open the door and leapt out, running in the direction he’d last seen Erika.
I’ve taken down The DC Carver, he thought, feeding courage into his own mind. I found the guy who killed my cousin. I’ve been knocked around, poisoned, and still emerged victorious. I will not be stopped by a woman who can outrun me.
He took those thoughts with him, inhaling and expelling cold winter air as he dashed into the trees—into the danger of the unknown—leaving Gary and the Mustang far behind as he chased after Erika Givens. No matter what happened, he couldn’t lose her.
Couldn’t lose Mason Black.