Chapter Three

      Marco didn’t look at Lauren, but he could hear the sudden, sharp intake of her breath and sense her fear like a third presence in the car. He tried pumping the brake pedal, but nothing happened. He pressed it to the floor and downshifted to first gear. The engine whined in protest, and the car slowed, but not enough.

      “Hang on,” he said, raising his voice over the whine of the protesting engine. He pulled back on the lever for the emergency brake and the car began to fishtail wildly. He strained to keep hold of the wheel. Lauren whimpered, but said nothing.

      They were well out of town now, empty public land and private ranches stretching for miles on either side, with no houses or businesses or people to see their distress and report it. Not that anyone could do anything to help them anyway. If they had any chance of surviving a crash, he had to try to regain control of the car.

      They continued to accelerate, racing toward the curve at the bottom of the hill. He steered toward the side of the road, gravel flying as the back wheels slid onto the shoulder. The idea was to let friction slow the car more, but the dropoff past the shoulder was too steep; if he kept going he’d roll the car.

      Back on the roadway, the car continued to skid and sway like a drunken frat boy. The smell of burning rubber and exhaust stung his nose and eyes. If they blew a tire, he’d lose control completely; the car might roll. He released the emergency brake and grabbed the steering wheel with both hands. “Brace yourself against the dash and lean toward me!” he commanded.

      She didn’t argue. As she skewed her body toward his seat, he could smell her perfume, sweet and floral, overlaying the sharp, metallic scent of fear. He wanted to tell her everything would be all right, that she didn’t have to worry. But he couldn’t lie like that.

      He came at the guardrail sideways, sparks flying as the bumper scraped the metal rails, gravel popping beneath the tires. The scream of metal on metal filled the air, making him want to cover his ears, but of course he couldn’t. He kept hold of the wheel, guiding the car along the guardrail.

      Friction and a gentler slope combined to slow them, and as the guardrail ended, he was able to use the emergency brake to bring them to a halt on the side of the road. He shut off the engine and neither of them spoke, the only sounds the tick of the cooling motor and their own heavy breathing.

      He had to pry his hands off the steering wheel and force himself to look at her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

      She nodded, and pushed the hair back from her face with shaking hands. “My car isn’t, though. What happened?”

      “The brakes failed.”

      “I had the car serviced before I came out here,” she said. “My mechanic said it was fine.”

      “It sat at that overlook in the park for a few days, and then at the wrecking yard for a few weeks. An animal—a rabbit or something—could have chewed the brake cable.” He didn’t really think that was what had happened, but he didn’t want to frighten her.

      “But I’ve been driving the car for weeks now and it’s been fine.” She turned even paler. “What if this had happened when I was alone?”

      What, indeed? He unfastened his seat belt. “I’m going to take a look.”

      He had to wrench the hood open, past the broken headlight and bent bumper. He fixed the prop in place and stared down into the tangle of hoses and wires. After a moment, she joined him.

      “I couldn’t open my door, so I crawled over the console,” she said. “Can you tell what went wrong?”

      He leaned under the hood and popped the top over the master cylinder reservoir. It was completely dry, only a thin coating of brake fluid left behind. That explained why the brakes had failed, but why had the fluid drained?

      He walked around to the side of the car and knelt beside the front tire. He reached over the tire and grasped the flexible hose that led to the brakes. It felt intact, but as he ran his finger along the hose, he found a moon-shaped slit—the kind of damage that could be made by someone reaching over the tire and stabbing the brake hose with a knife.

      “What is it?” she asked, following him around to the other side of the car.

      He knelt and checked that hose. “Someone punctured the brake line on both sides,” he said. “The brake fluid drained out, and that caused the brakes to fail.”

      She steadied herself with one hand on the fender of the car. “The bird-watcher?”

      “Maybe. Or it could have been done while we were at lunch.” Big failure on his part. He should have taken the physical threat to her more seriously.

      “The parking lot at my apartment has a surveillance camera,” she said. “I mean, don’t they all, these days?”

      “Maybe, but a lot of places use dummy cameras that don’t really film anything.” He’d bet her apartment complex fell into that category. “And whoever did this is probably smart enough to avoid any cameras.”

      “We should call the police,” she said.

      He glanced around them, getting his bearings. Drying rabbit brush covered an open expanse of prairie, only the occasionally stunted piñon providing shade. Here and there purple aster offered a surprising blot of color against an otherwise brown landscape. “This is the edge of national park land,” he said.

      “Ranger territory.” She completed the idea for him and managed a weak smile. “Well, that’s something. I wasn’t looking forward to talking to the police.”

      He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call someone to give us a ride, then get a wrecker to haul the car to headquarters where we can take a closer look at it.”

      Her hand on his wrist stopped him. He looked down at the slender, white fingers, nails perfectly shaped and painted a soft pink. “Before anyone else gets here, I just wanted to say thank you,” she said. “You saved my life—again.”

      He covered her hand briefly with his own. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “Everything that happens brings us one step closer to stopping Prentice.”

      “Thank you, too, for not freaking out about my illness,” she said. “I’m getting better at working at controlling it, but sometimes...”

      “I know. It’s okay.”

      Her head snapped up, her gaze searching. “How do you know?”

      “I did some reading.” He shrugged. “I like to understand what’s going on around me.”

      “There’s nothing understandable about