At this point three lanes headed north on the 110 and the lane on the far left exited and merged into the 5. Lori accelerated to seventy, flew past a champagne-colored ’01 Caddy that was lounging at sixty to the right of her, and proceeded to tear up the fast lane.
As she drove, Lori amped up the decibels and the eleven-speaker Bose pounded out a blend of rock and urban blues. Lori was now in a state that was as close to soaring flight as she could get without actually leaving the ground.
Lori was six minutes into the race and had passed the halfway mark. She was gaining seconds on her best time, feeling the adrenaline burn out to the tips of her fingers, to the ends of her hair.
She was in the hot zone, cruising at a steady seventy-two, when a black BMW convertible edged into her lane as if he had a right to be there.
Lori wouldn’t accept that.
No brakes. No horn.
She flashed her lights, then saw her opening, a sliver of empty space to her right. She jerked the wheel, careened into the middle lane, her car just missing the Beemer’s left rear fender.
Oh, wow, the look on the driver’s face.
“It’s a race, dontcha get it,” she screamed into the 360-degree monitor on the dash. She was lost in the ecstasy of the moment when the light dimmed and the back end of a gray panel van filled her windshield.
Where had that van come from? Where?
Lori stood on the brakes. The tires screeched as the Infiniti skidded violently from side to side, the safety package doing all it could to prevent the inevitable rear-end smash-up.
The brakes finally caught at the last moment—as the van pulled ahead.
Lori gripped the wheel with sweating hands, hardly believing that there had been no crash of steel against steel, no lunge against the shoulder straps, no shocking blunt force of an airbag explosion. She heard nothing but the wailing of The Electric Flag and the rasping sound of her own shaky breaths.
Lori snapped off the music and with car horns blaring ar
ound her she eased off the brakes, applied the gas. Sweat rolled down the side of her face and dripped from her nose.
Yes, she called it the Death Race home, but she didn’t want to die. She had three kids. She loved her husband. And although her job was boring, at least she had a job.
What in God’s name was wrong with her?
“I don’t know,” she said to herself. “I just don’t know.”
Lori took a deep, sobering breath and stared straight ahead. The Beemer slowed to her speed and the driver, his face contorted in fury, yelled silently at her through his closed window.
To her surprise, Lori started to cry.
THE TWO MEN sat in the satin-lined jewel box of a room warmed by flaming logs in the fireplace and the flickering light of the flat screen.
The older man had white hair, strong features, cat-like amber eyes. That was Gozan.
The younger man had dark hair and eyes so black they seemed to absorb light. He was very muscular, a man who took weight-lifting seriously. His name was Khezir.
They were visiting this paradise called Los Angeles. They were on holiday, their first visit to the West Coast, and had rented a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, palatial by any standard. This opulent three-bedroom cottage was as pretty as a seashell, set at the end of a coral-pink path and surrounded by luxuriant foliage, banana trees and palms.
It was unlike anything in their country, the landlocked mountainous triangle of rock called the Kingdom of Sumar.
Now, the two men held the experiences of this hedonistic city like exotic fruit in the palms of their hands.
“I am giving you a new name,” said Gozan Remari to the rounded, blond-haired woman with enormous breasts. “I name you ‘Peaches.’”
There were no juicy women quite like Peaches in Sumar. There weren’t many in Southern California where women with boy-like shapes were considered desirable and ones like Peaches were called “fat.”
As if that was bad.
“I don’t like you,” Peaches said slowly. She was doing her best to speak through the numbing effect of the drugs she had consumed in the very expensive wine. “But …”