Hard Rider

There was a stop sign ahead. Now that I was out of range of the house, I had to slow it down. There was no reason to get pulled over for doing ten over in a residential.

I eased the car up to the limit line and let it sit. The engine purred but the rest of it was quiet. The guy had obviously gone to painstaking lengths to make sure there were no rattles anywhere in it. I could only imagine how pissed he was when he saw me driving his baby down the street.

Just when I was about to turn back on to Carter, my heart sank. Pulling up to the stop sign directly across from me was a cop. It was a run of the mill patrol car and I knew if they called the car in as stolen, he’d get the notification any minute. So much for my theory on cold nights.

I bit my bottom lip and eased into the intersection. I tried to get a read on him out of the corner of my eye. It probably looked more suspicious than if I’d just looked right at him.

Any time there were cars on the road after midnight, they got increased scrutiny. But a car like this, on such a freezing weeknight, was sure to draw even more. The cop was a square-jawed, clean cut type.

Weren’t they all?

He was wearing a beanie with the Chicago PD logo emblazoned on the front. It was pulled down low, but not as low as Eddie Salazar wore his.

As I was almost all the way through the turn, I thought I saw his eyes flick toward his computer screen. Maybe it was just my head playing tricks on me, because it would have been damn hard to see from across the intersection, but I could have sworn it happened.

I completed my turn and stared intently in the rear-view mirror. The cop turned left as well and headed in the opposite direction. I closed my eyes and said a silent thank you to whoever wanted to listen.

But my reprieve was short-lived. Just when I thought I was free, his taillights flared and he swung the car hard to the left. Before he could even complete his U-turn, I punched the gas and went tearing ass down the road.

The Mustang’s tires didn’t hold the ground well. I had to be careful. The car was all American muscle and if I gave it more than it could handle going into a turn, I might end up driving right through somebody’s front door.

For the first time, it struck me how dumb it was to even drive a car like this around Chicago during the winter. You were just asking to go spinning out of control any time there was an ice storm. Oh well, I guess I couldn’t be too surprised that a gang banger who called himself “Money” didn’t have a little more common sense.

I hit a patch of ice and began to fishtail. I remembered just in time to turn into the spin and it saved my ass from going in the ditch. I stole a glance at the mirror again and the cop had cut the distance between us in half. Reds and blues flashed behind me. I may have had the wide-open speed advantage, but his vehicle was much more maneuverable.

I cut the wheel hard to the right and went over the curb as I crossed to the next street. It was decision time. I could either try to shake the cop or bail out and make a run for it. Soon enough, he’d have backup and chase helicopters all over the place. One way or the other, I had to get away, and I had to do it quickly. There was no time to waste.

I cut through an abandoned gas station parking lot on my way to the main drag. The cop almost lost it trying to follow my path. He hit some black ice and swerved hard.

Think, Troy, think!

If I just jumped out and left the car, I was almost certain I could get away. I was an athlete in my prime. There wasn’t a cop in the world who would be able to run me down in a foot chase. But if I left the car, the situation with Ortiz would go on—and that meant keeping Riley at risk.

There was no way I was letting this car go. It was going to be delivered and it was going to be delivered tonight.

“Here we go, Troy,” I said under my breath. “You’ve got one shot at this.”

I wasn’t having any success shaking him. It had only been a minute or two, but it was long enough to prove he was going to be able to stick with me. I had to lose him another way.

The whole time I drove, I kept the map to the warehouse updated in my head. The turns I made weren’t random. No matter where I went, I wanted to be close enough that if I got out of his sight, I could dip in a drop it off. From where I was now, I would only need about thirty seconds to get there. Once I reached private property, I could hide it and get the hell away.

I had an idea.

I waited for a straight enough section of road and took my foot off the gas. As the car slowed, the cop gained rapidly. He was closing on me in a hurry. I kept my eyes on the rear-view.

Not yet. Not yet.

He was within thirty yards. I hung my foot over the brake pedal. I was only going about thirty miles per hour, but without other cars on the road to reference, it was probably difficult to judge my speed.

He closed to within twenty yards.

Now!

I mashed the pedal to the floorboard and held on to the steering wheel with everything I had. The Mustang swung in a wide arc but I didn’t lose control. After a second, she straightened out and I began to pick up speed.

The cop, on the other hand, didn’t see the brake lights until it was too late. He tried to stop in time but there was no way. He cranked the wheel to avoid crashing into the back of me and lost control. The car spun across the oncoming lane. His headlights showed a three-sixty view of the neighborhood before he went spilling off the roadway into a thicket of frozen bushes.

I got back on the gas and roared around the corner. I had maybe a minute at most before he righted himself and got back in the chase—that was only assuming his backup didn’t arrive before.

I took off for the warehouse. All I had to do was get inside the gate and stash the car under a tarp. The Mustang felt loose and fast beneath me. One mistake would end all of this.

I came to a T in the road and hung a right. In the distance, I heard the wail of police sirens. The problem I had was that the warehouse was situated right off the main drag, which was the road the cops would surely take to respond to the crime. It was a risk I had to take.

I found the street I was looking for and shut off the headlights. The warehouse was up ahead on the corner. I could see it from where I sat.

Two police cars rolled past on the road that sat perpendicular to the one I was on. I froze like a block of ice. Neither of them slowed down.

The rest was easy. With the gate open like Ortiz said it would be, all I had to do was dump the car off, lock up, and throw my tools down a storm drain.

I cut through the gravel, taking care not to kick up any dust, and rolled on to the property. It was a large lot, with the warehouse situated in the back corner. I spotted the shipping container they told me about and drove the car carefully inside. After tying the tarp down over it, I got the hell out of there.

Close call.

There wasn’t a storm drain close by, but after I locked up, I tossed the pliers and the screwdriver in a dumpster just off the street. I slipped my hands out of my gloves so I could make the call.

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“You know who this is,” I growled.

“Oh, Mr. Ea-”

“It’s done.”

“Good. It’s about time.” He sounded drunk.

“You and I are square. No more cars, no more collecting, no more anything. We can lose each other’s numbers. And you can forget the girl’s name, too.”

“Yeah, that’s a pretty girl. Looks like she’s rich, too.”

“We’re done,” I snapped. I ended the call before he could reply. As far as Damon Ortiz was concerned, I was a ghost.

I jammed my hands in my jacket pockets and started on the long walk back to my bike. Damn, that was too close. I didn’t feel cold anymore. It could have been the adrenaline from the chase, or maybe the thought of the shit-storm that would have gone down if I’d gotten caught.

All of it flashed before my eyes: Riley would have broken things off, the promoter would have canceled my fight contract, the gym would have

disowned me… spelling it all out like that made me shudder. From now on, I’d never take the risk again.

Whoop whoop!

I spun around just in time to see the cop coming at me with his gun drawn. A spotlight blasted me in the face.

“Get on the ground!”

My mind went blank. I was done.

Riley

“So, you’re interested in nursing?”

“I… maybe,” I said.

“But something in the medical field, right?”

The counselor was an older woman with a wrinkled face and a tight helmet of gray hair. If not for the way her eyes smiled when she spoke, her demeanor would have been a dead ringer for Mrs. Hemlock’s.

“It seems that I haven’t thought this through very well.”

“That’s okay, Dear. Choosing a career path isn’t easy. But someone with your resumè shouldn’t have a problem getting into any program you choose.”

“Thanks.”

I’d only been out of work for one day and I was already going stir crazy. When I packed up my desk and walked out of Fitting In’s office for the last time, I knew I’d made the right decision. The part I wasn’t prepared for was how directionless I was going to feel. My whole life had been a rush to get things done… accomplish the next goal, find the next opportunity, get a leg up on the competition. And now, that had all come to a halt.

It wasn’t a bad thing, it was just… different.

I was done doing things to meet other people’s expectations. Fitting In had been a good idea, but it didn’t work out in actual practice. That’s why I’d gone over to the local Junior College to do some research. It was as good of a place as any to start figuring out what it was I wanted to do next.

“I have to ask,” said the counselor. “Why is it that you’ve come here to look into classes? I would imagine you’d be more interested in some sort of graduate program with you alma mater.”

The poor woman almost fell out of her chair when I’d explained to her that I was a Northwestern grad. “I know, but I’m interested in making a big change. I was afraid if I went back there they’d try to fit me into some kind of box that I wasn’t comfortable with. Does that make sense?”

“I understand,” she smiled. “I just don’t know that I can offer you much help. Anything we provide here, I’m afraid, wouldn’t be of much interest to you.”