“What happened back there?”
“Bergman and two others.”
Lacey groaned.
“Our cover is blown. How did that happen?”
“Who knows, and it’s too late to worry about it,” Ryker said.
“You’re right. Get us out of here,” Lacey said.
Star was out of breath and trembling as Ryker started the car and drove away.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“They’re sending a chopper for us,” Lacey said. “This might have worked better if the need for haste had not been an issue. Now we just have to get to the pickup site.”
The toddler whimpered in Star’s arms. Now that they were settled, she dug into the bag over her shoulder and pulled out a bottle, then smiled when the baby started drinking.
“My poor little Sammy,” she crooned. “Mama’s hungry little boy.”
Lacey glanced over her shoulder at the young woman. At first glance, and in the darkened interior, she looked like a teenager. Lacey gave Star and the baby one last look, then turned around and buckled her seat belt. They were headed out of Vegas with fireworks exploding in the sky behind them. They had a date with an FBI chopper at a GPS location just off Highway 93, and time was wasting.
Lacey kept an eye on the headlights of the cars behind them while Ryker wove through the traffic with professional precision. The farther he drove, the less traffic they met, and the fewer cars trailing behind.
“How far now?” Ryker asked, knowing Lacey was keeping track of the GPS location for him.
“Looks like about six miles,” she said.
He hit the accelerator, moving them faster, anxious to tie this up without anyone getting hurt. But he had a knot in his gut and a niggling concern that this wasn’t over.
The night sky was beautiful, peppered with stars from a heavenly explosion a thousand light-years in the past, while the mountains to the north appeared as a ragged bulwark between the city behind them and the desert landscape around them.
Star glanced out her window and then looked up through the glass sunroof. Her pulse was as erratic as the trip they were on, and then she saw a shooting star.
“Look at that! A star on the run, like me.”
“They burn out,” Ryker reminded her.
The shock of his careless comment scared her, and she buried her face against her sleeping baby’s neck.
Lacey frowned.
“Damn it, Ryker, that was harsh,” she said.
“This whole situation is harsh,” he muttered, then glanced up in his rearview mirror and frowned. “We have a tail.”
Lacey turned to look.
“Are you sure? That seems impossible.”
“See that right headlight on the car behind us? See how it’s shaking?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how they found us that fast, but it’s been behind us ever since we left Vegas.”
“Oh no,” Star moaned.
She started to turn and look when Lacey stopped her with a shout.
“Get down!”
Star lay down on the floorboard with the baby clutched against her chest as Ryker pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor. The engine vibrated like a roar in her chest. The high-pitched whine of tires against the highway was close to her ears as they raced off into the night.
“They’re gaining,” Lacey said and grabbed her cell.
Ryker’s fingers curled even tighter around the steering wheel as the car began to vibrate, too.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Calling the chopper,” Lacey said.
Ryker’s jaw was clenched. The highway was a blur as he listened to her make the call.
“What did they say?” he asked, as she disconnected.
“They’re still en route. Not even at the pickup site yet. What the hell’s up with that?” Lacey cried.
“How far to the pickup site?” Ryker asked.
Lacey glanced at her GPS.
“Almost four miles.”
“We aren’t going to make it,” he said.
Star started to cry. Softly, hopelessly.
“I’m so sorry,” she cried, but she was talking to Sammy, not them. She’d tried so hard to get him away. God only knew how this would end.
Lacey was on her knees, her gun drawn.
“Open the sunroof,” she said.
Ryker frowned, but the headlights were closer and he didn’t argue. The glass ceiling above them slid back, opening most of the roof to the night. The loud roar of the engine and the shrill whistle of the wind inside the car was shocking.
Suddenly glad they’d doped her baby to sleep, Star held him tighter and started to pray.
Someone in the car behind them got off the first shot, exploding the back window of the car, covering Star and the baby in shattered glass.
She screamed.
Ryker cursed.
Lacey popped up through the sunroof and fired two shots back in rapid succession before the force of the wind nearly blew her out of the car. She stayed up long enough to see their windshield shatter. The car behind them was now the one in trouble as the driver fought to stay on the highway.
She ducked back down but stayed on her knees, her gaze focused on the car behind them. For a few moments they had the edge and were putting some serious distance between them and their tail—until another car came up fast behind it, passing the damaged vehicle like it was sitting still. The new threat was suddenly at Ryker’s side and swerved into them with such force that it threw their car into a spin.
“Hold on!” Ryker shouted, as the car spun backward, sliding off the highway into the desert.
He righted the spin and stomped the accelerator again, sending up a rooster tail of sand in a desperate attempt to get back onto the highway. But now both cars were coming at them fast.
“Where the hell is that chopper?” Ryker yelled.
Lacey was bleeding from her forehead and trying to focus as she reached blindly for her phone, but it wasn’t in the console.
“I can’t find my phone,” she cried.
Star was on her knees on the back floorboard with the baby in her arms, praying the same silent prayer over and over. Please, God, please, don’t let Sammy die.
Another round of bullets hit their car.
One tire blew, launching the car into a spectacular skid that threw them sideways into a roll.
Star closed her eyes and held Sammy tight, certain they were going to die. The first roll tumbled them from the bottom of the car to the roof and back down again. Just as they went into the second roll, Star and the baby shot through the open sunroof and up into the air. She felt the heel of her shoe hit the side of Lacey’s head on the way out, and she hit the ground with such impact it slid her across the desert on her back. The blow knocked the air from her lungs and set her back afire. But none of that mattered, because she still had Sammy in her arms.
She was struggling to catch her breath when there was a deafening explosion. She gasped again and again until her lungs finally expanded, and was trying to get up when fire shot straight up into the sky