CHAPTER 32

“SCOOT OVER,” GRADY SAID, urgency in his voice. He threw an armful of papers and other things into the back seat and handed her his cellular phone.

Whitney had scarcely moved over and let him behind the wheel before he tromped hard on the gas pedal, throwing crushed oyster shells behind him as he whipped her Taurus back out onto the highway.

“Those fucking new-fangled spares aren’t worth a shit. They’re not good for more than ten, fifteen miles,” he said, before she could ask why they were taking her car.

His face was grim. Whitney fumbled with the seat belt and tried to watch the road ahead.

“There!” she exclaimed. “Up there! Go left!”

She felt herself pulled hard to her own right and up against the door as the car slewed into the turn. The back right tire found the shallow ditch alongside the road and they heard the whistle of its spin before it caught pavement and they shot ahead.

“You’re going to kill us!” She straightened back up, brushed her mussed hair back out of her eyes and looked wild-eyed at the moonless black they were plunging through.

“Just get me there,” he said, hunching down to concentrate on the unfamiliar road, a two-lane blacktop.

“I’ll...I’ll try,” she said, in a shaky voice. She bent forward to study the piece of notepaper with the hand-drawn map in her hand.

“Whitney,” he said, his eyes briefly catching hers before he turned his attention back to the road. “We don’t get there in time, it’s all over. We have to get there.”

“There’s another turn coming up,” she said, breathily. She took a deep breath. “About two miles. Watch for it because it looks like it’s one of those small parish roads. Probably dirt. The house is a mile past that.”

“I won’t miss it,” he said, and then he reached over and put his hand on her arm. “I can’t.”