The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Forty-Three: Lauren, Saturday

Al turned around to look at what she meant. "Why's he riding your ass?"

"I don't know, but it's pissing me off."

She drifted as far to the right as possible without hitting the shoulder, to signal to the asshole behind her, as if he hadn't thought about it until now, that he should pass. She had a kid in the car, and the last thing she wanted to do was speed up.

The car did not pass her. It stayed on her tail, even drifting to the right with her. That was when she noticed a few details she'd missed before, now that she was paying attention. It was dark green in colour. It had two tall antennae, one in the front and one rearing up from the back. It had a ram bar on the front.

Fuck.

She floored it.

"Mom!" Tosh yelped, holding on to the dryclean hanger bars, or what Joe called the holy-shit bars. Even Al held on, giving her a look of concern.

She wasn't losing the car. It reminded her of a police interceptor, but it didn't have any markings. That scared her more than the aggressive tailing. She didn't want to speculate on who might be driving the car; criminals were frightening enough, but if they were actually police, and weren't using their lights and sirens, that opened up a whole lot of other dark and dystopian scenarios. Suddenly she could imagine how her father felt as a child, cowering in fear as the police rounded up his family to take them somewhere he didn't know, somewhere he didn't want to go, and not knowing why.

She made sure the centre lane was clear before she threw the Highlander across, and then grabbed the left lane in a split second action. She was lucky the traffic was so light. The car following her sped up, still in the right lane, and did something she didn't expect at all, veering left, and then left again, as if intending to side swipe her. Probably it did.

Instinctively, she braked, harder than she probably should have because it was raining, and the car skidded, but now she was behind the car that was following her. It was a miracle they hadn't hit anybody yet.

"Let's see how you like being followed, fucker," she growled.

Apparently, that wasn't in their plan, because whoever was driving remedied the situation immediately.

By braking.

"Fuck!" she squawked, jerking the car to the right at the last second, causing the car coming up behind them in the centre lane to jerk around them, blaring their horn.

Suddenly Al was talking. "Police, please! We're on Highway One between Sprott Street and Willingdon Avenue heading west, being pursued by a car, I think it's a Dodge Charger, it has a ramming bar on its front, it's chasing us all over the road, putting us and all the other traffic in danger!" She realized he was on his cell phone and calling 911, but his voice was so calm, if stiff from tension, that it didn't click at first, because all of her focus was on losing this fucker, using every skill she'd learned in defensive driving courses to keep them all alive. 

Tosh was whimpering in the back seat, and that made her feel worse than being chased by whoever these guys were; where before she was scared, now she felt exhilarated, as if the chase had awakened some inner warrior in her, where the fight was all that mattered, winning was all that mattered, not the possibility that one wrong move might kill them all. Dad had taught her that when the fight was on, you shouldn't think about getting hurt, because if you did you would never prevail, because you would hold back while your opponent was giving their all. A one on one fight was one thing, though; a car chase with two passengers relying on you was another, and that was what made her feel ashamed, that she wasn't thinking about Al's safety, much less Tosh's, when it should have been her priority.