Free Hard Return by J. Carson Black

dry riverbed that ran through town. Then she drove the plat of six streets downtown—the north–south streets four lanes, the east–west streets two lanes. Half the shops on the main drag closed up. Plenty of cars, though.
    She drove past Safe Harbor National Bank on the corner of McCarron and Juniper. The bank opened at ten, and it was just past seven thirty now. A couple of cars were in the parking lot. Jolie drove by, squinting against the sun. A woman in a blue suit walked briskly to the side entrance, went inside, and closed the solid door behind her. Jolie made the turn and drove past the front. She could see the lights on beyond the bank of windows near the ATM machine.
    She drove to the next street, made a U-turn, and drove back up the main drag, cruising past storefronts in Old Town and then farther out, past the IHOP, followed by an Olive Garden, a car wash, and another bank-slash–credit union—this one for the employees of the prison. She turned left and then left again on the street paralleling the first one. Second Street wasn’t as busy as the main street would be in another half hour when people commuted to their jobs. She passed a tire store, a Foot Locker, a Staples, and an older diner, Bart’s—right out of the sixties with mosaic rock facing on the wall by the front doors, and one long window where you could see the people in the booths and the globe lamps hanging down from long rods from the ceiling. They had good omelets there, and just thinking about it made her hungry.
    Jolie spotted some kid peering into the locked doors of the Sports Authority, so she slowed down and cruised by him and he looked at her furtively, and went back to walking. Shoulders slouched, hands in his pockets. He looked suspicious, but it could be due to the fact that he was young and the young always had something going on inside their heads. He wore the uniform: sweatshirt and hoodie, low-riding pants, boxers peeking demurely over the waistband—but that was really all she could see that pegged him as possible trouble, except for his darting eyes. She decided to round the block again. Oftentimes just the sight of a sheriff’s car kept them on the straight and narrow.
    As she turned left on the street one block down, she saw a car speed past on the main drag—right through the light.
    Something—she didn’t know what—kept her from using lights and the siren. As she reached the intersection, another car flashed past, this time with the light—a newer model, small car. Two cars speeding? One after the other?
    She accelerated to the intersection. The first one was blue, a new SUV of some kind—
    There was a loud collision—metal on metal, and glass.
    And the manic whooping of an alarm.
    Unbearably loud.
    Jolie made the corner, left tire bumping over the curb, and heard through her open window the dying-animal howl of an engine, then screeching tires. Ahead of her on the left she saw the blue SUV perpendicular to the street, blocking one lane, its nose crumpled against the building, mashed up against the Safe Harbor National Bank.
    An accident?
    Then the SUV’s tires chirped and it shot backward, stopping in the middle of the street. A car had pulled up perpendicular to it—and at first Jolie thought it was because the SUV was blocking the lane. The car was stopped dead in the middle of the street: a small late-model silver car.
    The blue SUV’s engine roared. Even inside her own car she imagined she could hear the clunk of the differential as the SUV lurched into drive. With a rhino scream the SUV lunged forward and collided with the building and the ATM it was attached to.
    Jolie called it in, as she hit the gas.
    A car came out of a side street, middle of nowhere, and suddenly she corrected, almost overcorrected, and spun to the left and up onto the curb, the front fender barely missing the building next to the bank.
    ATM. Bank .
    Two men, bulky in black clothing, hoods on their heads, armed to the teeth,