Lethal Ransom. Laurie Alice Eakes

thought he sneezed better than anyone else.

      “I don’t like him,” Kristen said. “He only does the sort of free legal services that bring him maximum attention from the press.”

      Kristen struggled to keep one eye on the dark SUV bobbing in and out of her rearview mirror, and the other eye on traffic. The latter seemed to close in on her so much she could scarcely breathe. And the former was drawing near.

      “The press loves him.”

      Even if she hadn’t found him boring, she’d never date a man with a job that kept him so busy—a man she couldn’t count on to be home when she needed him. Her lawyer father had been absent for nearly every important moment in her life.

      “I don’t want to talk about Marcus, Mom.” Kristen sounded tenser than she intended.

      “All right, but I was sure you would like him.”

      “He’s a perfect gentleman. He’s just not my type.”

      Mom pulled her phone from her bag and began to text. “What is your type?” she asked as her thumbs flew across the screen keyboard.

      “Someone who...um...”

      She forgot the question she was answering as the dark SUV filled her rearview mirror.

      She needed to get away from that vehicle, return to the left lane. If she could find an opening in the line of cars and trucks streaming past her, she would accept traveling beside the “L” train. Anything to get clear of that behemoth riding too close to her rear bumper.

      “See, you don’t even know what you want.” Mom sounded victorious.

      Mom’s phone pinged with an incoming text, so Kristen didn’t bother to respond. Her goal required her attention. She needed an opening.

      Nothing but endless vehicles sending up plumes of rain water. Nothing... Nothing...

      Yes. There! A break in traffic at last.

      She stomped on the gas in an attempt to surge into the break in traffic. Zero to sixty in her aging vehicle was more like zero to thirty, but she managed to slip into the next lane.

      And that oversize SUV cut in right behind her, its engine far more powerful than hers.

      Kristen wanted to scream in frustration and beat the steering wheel instead of gripping it like a rip cord on a parachute jump.

      If only she could bail—from the highway, from the conversation with her mother, from the fear that the vehicle was following them, or more likely her mother, the judge who often made unpopular decisions in the name of justice and had experienced trouble in the past.

      And this time, the second time since Kristen was fifteen, the pursuer was bringing her into the picture.

      Unless she was mistaken and this wasn’t the same vehicle. That was entirely possible. Likely, even. Only, past events were making her anxious.

      “You don’t even know which lane you want to drive in.” Mom didn’t raise her gaze from the phone in her hands. “And you’re going too fast for the conditions.”

      “I’m trying to keep up with traffic so we’re not run over by that monster behind us.”

      “You’re too close to the car ahead of us.”

      She was, but only by a car length or so. If she dropped back, that SUV would be too close by about a gazillion feet.

      “Kristen, get back into the right lane.”

      “How? I forgot my shoehorn.”

      “Don’t be sarcastic. It isn’t attractive.”

      Kristen sighed. Her mother—every carefully blond hair, dyed to look natural, lay in place in an elegant twist, her makeup glowed as fresh as it had been that morning, and her charcoal-gray suit hung on her slim frame without a wrinkle—might be a circuit judge in the federal court system, but she was still a mother and applied herself to the role with as much vigor as she had applied herself to everything else in her life.

      “There’s an opening coming up where you can get back into the right lane.” Mom tapped on the side window.

      Kristen shook her head. “Can’t make it.”

      “If you had a better car—”

      “Please, don’t start.”

      She was too tired and too worried about that gunmetal-gray SUV to deal with the “If you had a better job, you could have a better car” lecture. At that moment, she needed to tell her Mom she intended to get off at the next Oak Park exit instead of continuing to her mother’s house farther west. She needed to lose this tail before she led him straight to her mother’s home—or her own.

      But the SUV was even closer.

      “Kristen,” Mom said with exaggerated patience, “get into the right lane. You can move in there.”

      “But I want to exit the expressway.”

      “Not here.”

      “Who’s driving here?” Kristen tried to laugh to lighten the question.

      “Just listen to me for once.”

      Kristen glanced at her mother and read tension in the tightening of the skin around her blue eyes.

      “You know,” Kristen murmured.

      “That we’re being followed? Yes. Now change lanes.”

      Hands gripping the steering wheel hard enough for her knuckles to whiten, Kristen managed to slide into the slower lane.

      And the dark SUV wedged in right behind her. Mere inches from her bumper. Just as her foot pressed harder on the gas to create more distance between her Camry and the SUV, a pickup roared into the gap between Kristen and the car ahead of her.

      “What are they doing?” Kristen cried.

      Mom didn’t answer. She held her phone to her ear. “I think we are about to be carjacked.”

      “Mom, who are you talking to?” Kristen’s voice had gone squeaky again as she sought for breath—breath and the Harlem Avenue exit. She passed it every day, and she couldn’t remember if it was on the left or the right. She couldn’t remember if Austin or Harlem was first.

      Her sweating palms slipped on the steering wheel, and the car swerved. “I need to get off the expressway.”

      “We’re easier to find if we stay on the Eisenhower.” Mom’s tone remained quiet, calm. “If we get off in Oak Park, there’s too many quiet side streets we could end up on.”

      And the exit loomed too close. Moving over for a left-hand exit was impossible at the moment. The pickup was slowing. The SUV was not. The faster lane flowed with an unbroken line of cars and trucks. At the moment, a semi roared alongside them, flinging water from beneath its enormous tires, sending diesel fumes into the intake vents for the air-conditioning.

      Kristen’s stomach rolled with the anticipation of what was about to happen and the knowledge she might fail at the drastic measure she must take in an attempt to stop it.

      “Mom?” Kristen kept her tone as calm as she could manage. “Hold on.”

      She spun the wheel to the right.

      “Don’t do it,” Mom cried.

      Too late. The Camry’s tires rumbled on the edge of the pavement. The car hit the shoulder, water and rocks spraying, pinging against the fenders. Kristen’s foot pressed harder on the gas. Fifty-five. Sixty. Sixty-five.

      “Kristen!” Mom shouted.

      She saw it looming in her rearview mirror—the SUV riding her bumper. Ahead, a disabled vehicle stood on the side of the highway, flashers blazing into the rain-created twilight. To her left, the pickup kept pace, blocking her ability to swing back into