Raising the Stakes

He saw her head jerk up. She was looking into her mirror, trying to see what was happening behind her. He hit the horn again and, even though she couldn’t possibly hear him, shouted her name.

She went faster.

Of course she’d go faster. She didn’t know who it was, zooming up on her tail, honking the horn like a madman. She wouldn’t recognize his car. What were the odds that a woman alone on an empty road would obediently pull over and stop when a car started following her? Would she figure the motorist behind her was trying to tell her something important? Or would she think he wanted to hurt her and try to outrun him?

Gray hit the gas, pulled abreast of the old Ford and tapped the horn.

“Dawn,” he shouted, “it’s me.”

She looked over, saw him and her face turned into a mask of terror. Her car shot away from his. Gray cursed and put his foot to the floor.

They flew down the deserted road at sixty, seventy, eighty miles an hour, Gray slamming his fist on the horn, Dawn pushing the old Ford beyond anything it had been made to endure. He knew he could get more speed out of his car and he thought about zooming ahead and angling it across the road…

Was he crazy?

Sanity returned in a rush. The way things were going, they’d both end up dead in a heap of twisted metal. He slowed down and fell in behind her. Dawn kept up the speed. He didn’t. The last thing he wanted to do was encourage her to go on driving so fast.

The road was straight. He’d have no trouble following her back to Vegas, if that was what it took, though he couldn’t imagine her old clunker could keep this up forever.

* * *

Her car couldn’t keep this up forever.

It was rattling and groaning, and Dawn had given up looking at the speedometer because seeing the needle hovering at eighty had to be an hallucination, but she couldn’t slow down, wouldn’t slow down. She didn’t want to deal with Gray, not out here in the middle of nowhere.

The only good news was that she was on her way back from the Rocking Horse Ranch, not heading to it.

She looked in the mirror. Yes! He’d slowed down and fallen in behind her. She was losing him! Who would have thought it possible? All she had to do now was make it to the gas station on the corner where the road intersected the highway. There would be somebody to help her.

By the time she reached the station, her car was making ominous noises. Dawn shot a look into the mirror. Gray was far behind her. She pulled into the station, threw open the door and ran to the office.

“Help,” she yelled, “somebody, please, help…”

She skidded to a stop. There was a hand-lettered sign taped to the glass. A sob broke from her throat as she read it.

Sorry, it said, Closed Sundays.

Sorry? Dawn began to laugh. “Sorry,” she said, “they’re sorry…”

A car roared into the station. She spun around. It was Gray.

“Dawn,” he said, as he stepped onto the asphalt, “listen to me…”

She hesitated, and he thought he had half a chance, but he was wrong.

“No,” she whispered, and she took off, racing into the raw, endless expanse of desert that stretched behind the station.

Gray shouted her name again and she ran faster. She was quick but he was quicker and he began to gain ground. He could hear the breath pumping in and out of his lungs.

“Dawn? Dammit, don’t run away. I won’t hurt you.”

His promise didn’t slow her down. If anything, it seemed to give her the impetus to speed up until, finally, she began to falter. He pushed harder, got close enough to grab her by the shoulders, and he spun her toward him. She gave a little cry and struck out at him. A couple of blows landed on his jaw, one hard enough to rock him on his heels, but he caught both her wrists in one hand and clamped them against his chest.

“Don’t,” she sobbed, “please, don’t.”

Her eyes were wide with fear and shiny with terror. Gray knew he’d never rest until he’d killed the man who had put that terror into her.

“Dawn,” he whispe