Free Ultimate Betrayal by Joseph Badal Page A

on-ramp. Toney liked that. Drivers on the freeway were more likely to concentrate on traffic in general than on any specific vehicle. Besides, his target was a businessman, not a killer. The guy didn’t have a chance. He chuckled when it began to rain. The rain offered cover of a sort. Things are workin’ out, he thought.
     
     
    “What will you do now?” Peter asked.
    David shot a glance at his father. “I’ll find the bastard who killed my family. And then I’ll kill him.”
    Peter sighed. “That’s a slippery slope, son. It always is when someone takes the law into their own hands.”
    “You might be right, Dad. But that changes nothing.”
    David saw his father slide down in his seat and stretch his legs. He knew the old man was right. But it made no difference. Tommy’s killer had never been brought to justice. That would not happen with the man who had murdered Carmela, Heather, and Kyle.
    The droning hum of the car tires filled the Lincoln. David drove as he always did—on the alert. Because he assumed he had been the target of the attack that killed his family, he was now especially alert. Because of the rain, the sparse traffic moved more slowly than usual. Spray flew from the vehicles in front of the Lincoln and splattered against its windshield. David cranked up the windshield wiper speed. He looked in the rear view mirror and tapped his brakes a couple times to signal the asshole in the Camaro directly behind him to back off.
    “Sonofabitch!” David said.
    “What’s wrong?” Peter said.
    “There’s a red Camaro on my ass.”
    David flipped on his turn signal and moved to the lane on the right. The Camaro mirrored his maneuver. The lane opened up in front of the Lincoln.
    “Why don’t we check it out, Dad?” He accelerated from fifty-five to seventy-five miles per hour and looked in his mirror. The red Camaro was now about three car lengths back.
    David felt a surge of adrenaline. He rapped his knuckles on the weapons locker and told his father, “Take out a pistol. I need to find an exit.”
    Based on a sign on the side of the highway, the nearest exit was seven miles north. He abruptly increased his speed to ninety miles an hour, shifted back to the middle lane, and aimed the Lincoln straight ahead. The Camaro followed.
    The two cars hurtled down the road. They jockeyed from one lane to the next. David couldn’t put any distance between them and the Chevy. Soon their pursuer moved to the far left lane, abreast of the Lincoln. Both vehicles blasted down the freeway and sprayed torrents of water from the rain-drenched roadway in their slipstreams. David laid heavily on the Lincoln’s horn to sweep slower-moving vehicles out of the way.
    Peter shouted, “Brake now! Now!”
    David hit the brakes. The Lincoln skidded on the rain-slick pavement and fishtailed right, then left, and right again. The Camaro rocketed past. Car horns blared and tires screeched all around them. David hit the gas, straightened the car, and accelerated after the Camaro.
     
     
    Toney, now two hundred yards farther down the highway, frantically looked for Hood in his rear view mirror. He saw the Lincoln skid and fishtail in the middle of the wet road. Then it picked up speed and closed the distance between them.
     
     
    Peter lowered his window and switched the 9mm pistol off safe. David kept the Lincoln just feet off the Camaro’s bumper. “I’ve got a clear shot,” Peter shouted.
    Suddenly, the Camaro switched lanes, sideswiped another vehicle, and raced ahead again until it vanished in the heavy rain.
    David took the next exit and drove east to US 1, and then north. In Dorsey, Maryland, he stopped outside a diner and took a minute to calm down. His head hurt and his hands shook as he came off the adrenaline high. His stomach ached as though an acid tap had been turned on there.
    “What the hell have you gotten yourself into?” Peter said.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “I thought maybe the explosion