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Hours later, Dan peered through the windshield, trying as best he could to navigate in the darkness. And snowfall.
It was just past two in the morning. Ben was sound asleep, as evidenced by a heavy, brain-rattling snore that could not possibly be faked. Dan wasn’t annoyed, except that the snoring reminded him that Ben was sleeping and he wasn’t. The days when pulling an all-nighter seemed fun were far behind him.
He'd stopped in Amarillo to rent another car. Not that he turned in the previous one. He didn’t have time to explain bullet holes and a shattered back window. He left it on the side of the road near the rental car station. Maybe Garrett could deal with that mess. He rented another car—a Ford Explorer this time, just to prevent Ben from criticizing—and continued the journey. All seemed well and he expected to hit Roswell by morning, maybe about the time that museum opened.
Except, snow.
Weren’t they in a desert? How much snow could New Mexico get? And yet there it was, coming down faster by the second. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep moving forward. He wasn’t a big fan of driving at night, much less in hazardous weather. In a Ford. Although in truth, he might be better off. Some foreign cars were less than ideal on slick roads. They were made to fly, not crawl. At least this Explorer had four-wheel drive. He wished he’d thought to get snow tires. But the sun was shining when he rented it and they were in the desert. Who knew?
Probably anyone listening to a weather report. But he’d been busy...
He gripped the steering wheel tighter, taking deep breaths to keep himself awake. The wipers were doing their best, but they couldn’t cope with the increasing precipitation. He’d already slowed to half his normal speed. If the snowfall didn’t let up, they would not make Roswell by dawn.
Ben stirred a bit. “Kinda cold in here,” he mumbled.
“I’ve got the heater on, but it can only do so much.”
Ben popped one eye open. “Is that snow?”
“Indeed.”
“In New Mexico? In March?”
“So it seems.”
“I hate climate change.” Ben straightened. “How are the roads?”
“Getting worse by the second.”
“Maybe we should pull over somewhere. Wait for the snow to stop. Or the sun to rise.”
“I can do this.”
Ben wiped sleep from his eyes. He laid a hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Look, I know you’re anxious about Maria. But getting to Roswell a little later is better than not getting there at all.”
“I can do this.” Almost the instant he said it, the back tires lost traction and began to slide. “Whoa!”
Dan corrected the steering and managed to get the car moving straight ahead again. But his grip on the road seemed even more tenuous than before.
“Tell me if I’m wrong,” Ben said, “but I think I see black ice.”
“You’re not wrong. I’m trying to avoid the super-slick patches.”
“Which is impossible. Sometimes you can’t see them till you’re on top of them. I really think we should pause a moment.”
“Not an option.”
Ben glanced out the passenger-side window. “How long has it been snowing? Looks like there’s six inches on the ground.”
“Probably more.”
“Your arm must be killing you.” While in Amarillo, they’d bought supplies and Ben bandaged his arm. “I really think—”
“We’re not stopping!” Dan’s eyebrows knitted together. There was an unaccustomed harshness to his voice. “We’ll be fine. I’ll take it easy and—”
As if on cue, the rear wheels swerved sideways.
Dan took his foot off the accelerator and tried to correct course, but he’d lost control. The back of the Explorer slammed into the center median with a resounding crash. He kept adjusting the wheel, making the car turn one direction, then the other.
“Stay out of the ditch,” Ben said, a sharp edge in his voice. “Better to batter the median than—”
Too late. The car spun out of control. They crossed lanes, swerved around, and a few seconds later went spiraling into the incline off the side of the road.
Dan felt as if his teeth had slammed into his nose. The car tumbled sideways down the ledge like they were plummeting off a high cliff, even though he knew that they were tumbling six feet at best toward a barbed-wire fence. The car brought down the fence, but the fence stopped the car from sliding farther into the forest.
“Damn!” Dan pounded his left fist against the dash. “Damn, damn, damn!”
Ben leaned forward, arms locked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. You?”
“I’ll live. You’re not going to get this car back on the road, though. Not even after the snowfall stops. We’ll need a tow truck.”
“We don’t have time for that. And no one will come for us while the snow is falling.”
“Probably right. Does your cell phone work? I lost mine recently.”
“Can’t get a signal. We’re out in the boonies.”
Ben looked livid but said nothing.
Dan admired him, if nothing else, for containing the “I-told-you-so” that must be on the tip of his tongue. “We’ll walk.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“We’ll stay on the road.”
“Where cars are careening out of control?”
“We’ll walk to the next town. We just passed a sign. We’re only three miles from...something.”
“From what?”
“I don’t exactly remember. It didn’t seem important at the time.”
Ben appeared incredulous. “You just want to start walking? And hope for the best? It’s cold and snowy and only a complete idiot would go out there.”
“You’ll be fine. Don’t you have a coat?”
“How would I have a coat? I didn’t get to pack a bag, remember?”
“You can have mine.”
“You’ll freeze to death!”
“At least out there we can move. Get some blood going.”
“This is the stupidest thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life.” Ben paused. “And there’s a lot of competition.”
“Consider it an adventure.”
“I consider it a blunder by a complete bumbler who—”
Ben stopped. All the air seemed to seep out of his chest.
Dan understood why. He’d remembered. About Maria.
“Fine. We’ll walk. But I’m not happy about it.”
“It would be a strange surprise if you were.”