James was the navigator and on the lookout for the Last Stop Motel. When she pulled out not fifty feet ahead of them, at first he couldn’t believe it. He shouted, “Good God. Wait, Dillon, wait. Stop.”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“My God, it’s Sally.”
“What Sally? Where?”
“On the motorcycle. I’d recognize my coat anywhere. She didn’t buy a clunker, she bought a motorcycle. Let’s go, Dillon. Jesus, what if we’d been thirty seconds later?”
“You’re sure? That’s Sally on that motorcycle? Yeah, you’re right, that is your coat. It looks moth-eaten even from here. How do you want me to curb her in? It could be dangerous, what with her on that damned bike.”
“Hang back for a while and let’s think about this.”
Dillon kept the Porsche a good fifty feet behind Sally.
“That was a smart thing she did,” Dillon said. “Buying a motorcycle.”
“They’re dangerous as hell. She could break her neck riding that thing.”
“Stop sounding like you’re her husband, Quinlan.”
“You want me to break your upper lip? Hey, what’s going on here?”
Four motorcycles passed the Porsche and accelerated toward the single motorcycle ahead.
“Damn,” Dillon said. “This is all we need. A gang, you think?”
“Why not? Our luck has sucked so far. How many rounds of ammunition do you have?”
“Enough,” Dillon said briefly, his hands still loose and relaxed on the steering wheel, his eyes never leaving the road ahead. Traffic was very light going out of Philadelphia at this time of night.
“You feeling like the Lone Ranger again?”
“Why not?”
The four motorcycles formed a phalanx around Sally.
Just don’t panic, Sally, Quinlan said over and over to himself. Just don’t panic.
She’d never been so scared in her life. She had to laugh at that. Well, to tell the truth, at least she hadn’t been this scared in the last five hours. Four of them, all guys, all riding gigantic Harleys, all of them in dark leather jackets. None of them was wearing a helmet. She should tell them they were stupid not to wear helmets. Maybe they didn’t realize she was female. She felt her hair slapping against her shoulders. So much for that prayer.
What to do? More to the point, what would James do?
He’d say she was outnumbered and to get the hell out of there. She twisted the accelerator grip hard, but the four of them did the same, seemingly content for the moment just to keep their positions, hemming her in and scaring the hell out of her.
She thought of her precious two hundred and seventy something dollars, all the money she had in the world. No, she wouldn’t let them take that money. It was all she had.
She shouted to the guy next to her, “What do you want? Go away!”
The guy just laughed and called out, “Come with us. We’ve got a place up ahead you’ll like.”
She yelled, “No, go away!” Was the idiot serious? He wasn’t a fat, revolting biker, like the stereotype was usually painted. He was lean, his hair was cut short, and he was wearing glasses.
He swerved his bike in closer, not a foot from her now. He called out, “Don’t be afraid. Come with us. We’re turning off at the next right. Al-the guy on your right- he’s got a nice cozy little place not five miles from here. You could spend some time with us, maybe sack out. We figure you must have rolled some guy for that coat, whatever, it doesn’t matter. Hey, we’re good solid citizens. We promise.”
“Yeah, right,” she shouted, “just like the pope. You want me to come with you so you can rob me and rape me and probably kill me. Go to hell, buster!”
She sped up. The bike shot forward. She could have sworn she heard laughter behind her. She felt the gun in James’s coat pocket. She leaned down close to the handlebars and prayed.
“Let’s go, Dillon.”
Dillon accelerated the Porsche and honked at the bikers, who swerved to the side of the highway. They heard curses and shouts behind them. Quinlan just grinned.
“Let’s just keep us between her and the bikers,” Quinlan said. “What do you think, Dillon? Are we going to have to follow her until she runs out of gas?”