Chapter 2
What now?
How many were
there? And how long before they came after us again, now that we held the
mysterious DVD they’d proved so willing to kill for?
My body was coming
down from a serious adrenalin high. I hadn’t driven that fast in months, never
on city streets. My heart still pounded, albeit slower, and I became aware of
my palms -- wet and slippery against the leather steering wheel.
A digital gauge on
the instrument panel began blinking the news -- the Avatar's fuel tank needed
nourishment. Higgins slowly regained his composure as we turned into a Shell
station off Metropolitan Parkway. He used a credit card at the pump farthest
from the cashier's booth, filling the Avatar with high octane.
I thanked God I had kept up the training the
Adams & Benson advertising agency provided its creative people five years
ago. Back then it was common practice to send writers and art directors
assigned to its American Vehicle Corporation account to the famous Skip Barber
Racing School. They wanted us to have an intimate feel for the subjects of the
ads we were assigned to create.
I took the
training more seriously than my contemporaries. When I left Detroit after my
divorce five years ago, I became a regular at the two-mile, fourteen-turn
Grattan Track near Grand Rapids. There I practiced skills like heel-and-toe
downshifting, trail breaking and finding the fastest racing lanes.
When AVC made
plans to introduce this souped-up AVX version of their hot Avatar sports car
last summer, company officials asked me to drive one of the first prototypes.
They wanted, get this: "a woman's opinion."
My opinion? The
same as a man’s -- with a top speed well over two hundred miles an hour and a
zero-to-sixty time under three seconds, this car was one fast mother.
I stayed in the driver’s seat as we pulled
back onto the road, checking the rearview mirror for signs of the Viper or the
police. We drove aimlessly, both of us near shock from the events that had just
taken place: the shooting of a policeman and the high-speed escape from two
armed men. The image of the officer crumbling to the pavement kept tumbling
through my mind. Had he died? Did he have a wife? Children? A feeling of
sadness stuck to the mental picture.
To my right Higgins fumbled with the stereo;
"I could use some 'Music to Relieve Stress By.'"
He found a newscast instead. We listened in
horror as the breaking story unfolded; a police officer killed near Roseville,
a community north of Detroit. Two males were being held for questioning; two
other persons, a man and woman, had fled in a black Avatar. It would be a
matter of hours at most, before those “two other persons” were identified as
Darcy James and Sean Higgins, executives employed by the Adams & Benson
advertising agency.
Higgins hit the "off" switch.
"They’re saying we killed that cop."
"Maybe we should get to the police and tell
them what really happened.”
"No. You can bet the two guys chasing us
have already spilled their version. What chance do we have when the cops,
including your former husband, already have me in their sights for another
murder?”
I hated to admit Higgins was right. “It’s our
word against Bacalla and Roland’s,” I said. I glanced over at the small
metallic disc in his hands. “We’ve got to find out why they’re so desperate to
get their hands on that DVD.”
Higgins thought for a moment. “It keeps coming
back to this disc and Vince Caponi.”
“Yep.”
I felt the impact of the situation wash over me.
There seemed to be no one to turn to, and my fate was partially dependent on a
man I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with just days before.
With the police looking for us, driving the black
Avatar was like riding around under a spotlight. I left the main road and meandered
through side streets.
We rode in
silence. At one point, as Higgins pulled out his cell phone and started
punching numbers, I stopped him.
"What happens tomorrow will affect hundreds
of lives,” he said. “I've got to tell Cunningham we won’t be there.”
"Not on your
cell. I read that police can triangulate their location. By now they know are
identities and cell phone numbers. We need to find a pay phone."
“Good luck finding one in the Cell Phone Age,”
Higgins said. For the next few hours we simply drove, as if moving made us less
vulnerable. Staying clear of major highways we wandered from side street to
side street, from suburb to suburb, from late night to early morning.
Somehow we had to
uncover what Vince Caponi found on that disc, but without suffering the same
fate.