The Night Window_Jane Hawk by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz [Koontz, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-05-14T04:00:00+00:00

25

Struck by the big Sno-Cat, the slat-sided truck slid sideways across the highway, and the right rear fender slammed into one of two poles supporting a large highway sign. The impact spun the truck perhaps 120 degrees before it skidded off the road and rolled almost in slow motion onto its port side, as if it were a tired beast lying down for the night in mounded pillows of snow.

“I threw my jacket in the back of that truck,” Tom told Porter Crockett. “Some kind of locater was sewn into the lining. They were following me by its signal.”

“Son, your story becomes a bigger mess of strangeness with each new detail.”

“But you still believe me?” Tom worried.

“I’m a believin’ kind of fella.”

Having entered the interstate going the wrong way, the Sno-Cat now came to a stop astride the extreme right lane, as though the driver operated on the highest authority or didn’t give a damn about traffic laws. Two men in storm suits jumped down from the vehicle and hurried to the overturned truck. At this distance, Tom couldn’t be sure, but they appeared to be carrying guns.

“If they’re law, they’re the lawless kind,” Porter said. He reached under his seat, withdrew a pistol, put it in his lap, and drove forward. “I been licensed most of my life. You got yourself a pacifier?”

Tom zippered open the pocket on the right leg of his pants and withdrew the 9 mm Glock. “Not licensed to carry. It’s a long story.”

“Be nice if we live for me to hear it.”

Porter threaded the pickup among the several whipsawed vehicles littering the highway, moving into the extreme left lane to pass as far as possible behind the Sno-Cat and the overturned truck.

Other drivers began to swing toward the west and find their way forward in the ill-defined lanes. No one seemed of a mind to help the people in the battered truck. This was a new America, in which going to the aid of a stranger was less likely to be rewarded with a thank-you than with a lawsuit or even a bullet in the head.

A third man got out of the Sno-Cat. He was one of the rayshaws who had escorted Tom from the Hollister residence to the starting point of the hunt.

Holding the Glock between his knees, muzzle aimed at the floor, Tom bowed his head and averted his face.

After less than a minute, Porter Crockett said, “Gone past them now.”

Peering at the sideview mirror, Tom saw the Sno-Cat that had been in their wake now angling to rendezvous with the one that had rammed the truck. “Let’s step on it before they find the jacket instead of me.”

“Bein’ too fast makes us look like a getaway. Let a couple other folks move out ahead, so we just seem to be dawdlin’ along with the herd.”

Maybe two inches of well-worked snow, accumulated since the most recent plowing, groaned softly under the tires, as though the fallen body of the storm suffered their passage.

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