Standing in the Shadows (McClouds & Friends #2)(72)

Georg Luksh was grinning in the passenger seat, like some death's-head jack-in-the-box. His long hair was cut off, but it was definitely him, still missing the four teeth that Connor had knocked out of his head last November. The window rolled down. He leveled a rifle at Connor, and fluttered his fingers in an effeminate wave.

The Cadillac shuddered as Connor jammed on the brakes. The Explorer surged ahead, picking up speed.

Erin jolted awake. "What? What happened? Connor?"

"I thought I saw—" He stopped when he heard the panic in his own voice. He could've sworn he had seen no one in that passenger seat at first.

"I can't believe it," he muttered.

"What can't you believe?"

His mind was too busy churning out possible explanations to answer her. Georg could have been crouched down, waiting for a chance to pop up and scare the shit out of him. But it sounded so improbable. So… paranoid.

"What? Please, Connor, what did you see?" Erin pleaded.

He pulled up closer to the Explorer. The passenger seat was empty. His stomach sank down to cold, new depths.

He took a deep breath. "I thought I saw Georg," he admitted.

Erin put her hand over her mouth. "Where?"

"In that black SUV ahead of us."

She studied the SUV "That's not Georg driving. That guy's too tall, and his head is too narrow."

"Not driving," he said. He already knew just how this was going to look and sound to her. His stomach was already clenching. A vague, sick feeling, like shame.

Erin stared at the SUV "There's nobody in that passenger seat."

"I see that," he said tightly. "Believe me. I noticed that weird, wacky detail already with no help from you."

"Connor?" Her voice was timid and small. "Maybe it's just… are you tired? I'd be happy to drive, if you need to rest, and I could—"

"No," he snarled. "I'm fine."

She turned her face away, so that all he could see was the graceful sweep of her hair.

"Shit," he muttered. "I'm sorry."

"It's OK," she whispered.

Oh Christ, the exit. He swerved at the last moment and pulled off the highway. He did not want to share that dark, empty road with a phantom nightmare SUV Not unless he could go after the bastards full out, run them to the ground, and grind them into paste.

Which was not an option tonight. Not with Erin in the car. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed Davy on the scrambled line.

Davy picked up instantly. "What's up? You in trouble?"

Davy could always smell the trouble his little brothers got into, even when he was oceans away. "You talked to Sean?" Connor asked.

"Yeah. He told me all about the quest to rescue Erin's little sister from the evil f*ckhead. I'm working on it, too. You need something?"

"Run me a license plate number, please." He rattled it off.

"Got it. What's wrong, Con? What's special about the car?"

His stomach rolled. "Don't ask," he said. "I'll tell you later."

Davy waited, hoping for more, and grunted in annoyance when no more was forthcoming. "Take it easy," he said. The connection broke.

"Um, Connor? Where are we going?" Erin asked.

He hated her low, guarded tone. He'd used it himself while trying to reason with crazy people. "We're finding another road," he said. "I don't want to share the highway with that thing."

"It'll take us all night to get back to Seattle if we don't use I-5."

"Get the map out of the glove box," he ordered.

He'd forgotten shoving all the Mueller printouts into the glove box at the airport. They exploded out over her feet, a blizzard of paper. She gathered them up and peered at them in the dim dashboard light. "Are these the results of the check your brother ran on Mueller?"

"Yeah." He felt almost guilty, as if she'd discovered a dirty secret. "Get out the map."

She sounded as if she were going to say something else, but then thought better of it. Probably didn't want to push an unpredictable head case like him over the edge. Poor Erin, stuck in the middle of nowhere in the dark with a guy who saw things that weren't there.

His misery deepened and spread. Like a pool of blood, widening inexorably on cold concrete. She studied the map. It was terribly quiet.

His cell phone rang. He snatched it up. Davy. "Yeah?"

"That license plate is a 2002 Ford Explorer, color black, which belongs to a guy named Roy Fitz. A sixty-two-year-old divorced used car salesman in Coos Bay, Oregon. He has bad credit. Does that help?"

Connor let out a long, silent sigh of misery. "Uh, no. Not really. But I appreciate the help. Later, Davy."

"Goddammit, Con, what the hell is—"

"I can't talk about it right now," he snarled. "I'm sorry. Goodbye."

Great. Now he could feel bad about being rude to his brother, too.

Erin tidied the Mueller papers into a neat sheaf, folded them, and tucked them carefully into the glove box. The map rustled as she opened it up. She switched on the interior light and peered at it for a couple of minutes. "We can take this road up to Redstone Creek, and then connect with the Paulson Highway north until we reach Bonney. Then we'll make our decisions as we go. Sound good to you?"