Free Stiffed by Rob Kitchin Page B

lost us , then decided to check out the smoke signals in the middle of nowhere.  We might as well have put up a two thousand feet high arrow with ‘amateur idiots are here’ painted on it.
    ‘You try anything stupid and Fat B oy here is going to be losing a lot of weight.  Fast.’
    I climb in and turn the ignition.  I’m that tense that if you hit me with a hammer I’d probably twang a middle C. 
    I really, really don’t want to do this.  I’d sooner cut the sheets off of Junior and search his pockets.  Fuck it, I’d be prepared to twirl him round a dance floor in a foxtrot.
    I still have nightmares about the ac cident.  The day had started well.  We’d headed out of Denver climbing up into the Rockies.  We were going to visit the continental divide, the line across America where water on one side drains to the Atlantic and on the other to the Pacific.  We were snaking up a pass when a large pick-up truck came careening round a corner on the wrong side of the road.  Instinctively, I swerved to avoid a collision and we smashed through a barrier and flew off down the Pacific side of the divide into a ravine.
    The passenger side of the car wrapped itself around a thick trunked pine , then plunged thirty feet to the ground.  Both of my parents were crushed to death with the impact.  There one minute, gone the next.
    I was pulled from the car with barely a scratch or bruise.
    The police concluded that the crash had been caused by the other driver.  That I’d acted instinctively, but with fatal consequences.
    Faced with a split- second decision, I’d taken the wrong one – launching off into the great abyss. 
    I never want to have to make such a decision again.  Get it wrong and people end up dead.
    Of course, people could end up dead right now.  Cowboy, Redneck and Barry White all seem quite happy to kill anyone who gets in their way in their quest to recover a million dollars. 
    That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t want to drive the damn jeep.
    The van starts to head back towards the main road.  I put the jeep in drive and set off after it, my hands gripping the steering wheel so tight I feel they might meld with it.  Heaven knows what’s in store for us when we arrive.  I just hope Kate’s got the good sense to tell them where the money is.
    * * *
    Every pore of my body has been open for the last ten minutes and I’m a sweaty mess, my shirt sopping.  The journey has been in full IMAX mode, everything amplified and overwhelming.  It’s been all too real, but I can’t really remember any of it.  It’s as if the journey is producing so much sensory overload that my brain is refusing to take most of it in. 
    I recognize , however, that we’re taking a different route back into Carrick Springs, avoiding the possible traffic chaos we caused earlier.  Running back into Barry White and his sister would not be good right now.  It wouldn’t be good at any time; the man makes Cowboy look like a pussycat.
    I stop at a set of traffic lights and rest my head on the steering wheel.  The van is on the far side of the crossing, its back doors dancing into the distance.  There’s no way I’m going to jump a red light to stay in contact.  That’s how accidents happen; how people end up dying.  Jason was just going to have to slow down or pull over to let me catch up.  I don’t care.  There’s a moral responsibility at play.  Paavo might be willing to risk innocent peoples’ lives by causing traffic chaos, but I’m not.  Well, not unless you count Jason’s and Paavo’s lives, but I reckon they’ll be okay. 
    As long as I catch them up.
    A couple of horns blare behind me.  I glance up and see that the lights have changed to green. I set off again, aware that I’m driving like a cautious old lady, but I don’t care.  Cautious is good.  Cautious is safe.  Vehicles are streaming round me like frustrated racing cars. 
    I spot Paavo’s van parked at the front of a row of