Page 75 of Gone Before Goodbye
Shit. Another gun blast.
Her tire explodes.
She swerves, but she keeps her foot on the accelerator. The Ferrari still has enough firepower. She keeps her foot down. The car fishtails up. She has no front windshield anymore. The cold digs deep into her face. She can barely keep her eyes open.
The black SUV chases her, moves alongside. The tire is gone now. She’s driving on the rim. Another bullet rings out.
Maggie feels something tear in her shoulder.
It’s over now. A part of her knows that. There’s nothing she can do to control the car anymore. She takes her foot off the accelerator, tries to hit the brake. But either her foot or the car won’t obey.
The Ferrari veers off the road. Maggie’s eyes are closed now. She feels rather than sees the plummet. She tries again to hit the brake or turn the wheel. But nothing happens. Nothing slows down. The descent continues until the car slams into a tree.
There is no seat belt in the Ferrari. Not that Maggie would have had time to put it on. But there is nothing to keep her in place. Maggie feels her body lift and rocket forward through what remains of the front windshield. Shards of glass slice her skin before she smacks into something hard.
Her body goes slack. Everything leaves her. Everything turns cold, so cold, a deep, hard, bone-crushing cold she’s never experienced before.
And then, mercifully, everything turns black and there is nothing.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Porkchop spreads the printouts on the bar. Sharon stands over him. They are at Vipers for Bikers. It is eight a.m. Last year, Porkchop started opening for a Full Throttle Breakfast with specials like Rise and Ride, the Biker’s Breakfast Slam, and the house specialty, Pit Stop Pancakes. It’s proven to be a hit with the tourists.
“Okay,” Porkchop says, “explain to me what I’m seeing.”
“There is a proprietary beta UX app I created on Maggie’s phone.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It contains certain features involving the Doppler effect, CDRs, GPS, triangulation—”
“Sharon,” Porkchop says.
“Yes?”
“Are you saying you can track Maggie?”
“Yes. No. Well, I could. Maggie didn’t explain what my new program can do, did she?”
Porkchop gives her a look. “You know I don’t own a smartphone, right?”
“It’s why I took the first train here,” Sharon says.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“So Maggie never mentioned an app?”
“An app to me is chicken wings,” Porkchop says.
Sharon nods. “Of course she wouldn’t,” she says, more to herself than to him.
“I’m not following.”
“It’s…” Sharon shakes it off. “Never mind, it’s not important. What’s important is that the app was on her phone. It’s an important app. For her. For me. It could one day also be worth a lot of money. She visited you when she came up to see Doctor Barlow, right?”
“Right.”
“And then she took some job. Something very lucrative. All of a sudden, all my debt was gone.”
