The driver of the SUV hit the brakes, and tires squealed as he did so. A town cruiser following the SUV nearly rear-ended it because of the sudden stop, but it veered away at the last second and careened into the parking lot of a saddle and tack shop.
Joe climbed into his truck and started the engine, but he kept his eye on the SUV, which was now doing a three-point turn in the middle of the street. The driver reversed course and was going to come back toward the library. Right at him. Joe quickly fastened his seat belt.
The SUV accelerated and roared closer right down the middle of the street.
As Joe pulled out of the lot, he could see two men inside the SUV, but he couldn’t yet see their faces. Joe turned toward them and floored it.
The SUV closed fast, the MRAP looming behind it but losing ground.
Joe realized he didn’t really have a plan. He’d been operating on adrenaline alone. All he knew was that he was roaring toward a head-on collision unless the SUV turned sharply in either direction. Or he did.
At the last possible second, Joe wrenched his pickup hard left. Unfortunately, the driver of the SUV turned hard right.
The crash rocked his pickup and threw him toward the passenger window, but the seat belt bit and prevented him from flying through the glass.
Both his vehicle and the SUV were motionless. A green-tinted cloud of radiator steam rolled from the SUV and into Joe’s cab through the broken windshield and he could hear a loud hiss.
Joe found the seat belt buckle and unlatched it. His Glock was on the floorboard of the passenger side and he grabbed it and opened his door and his boot heel missed the running board and he tumbled out onto the pavement in a heap. He gathered himself to his hands and knees.
Through a groggy haze, he watched what happened next from his vantage point beneath his truck.
There were the big feet and boots of the driver of the SUV on the ground. He’d emerged from the damaged vehicle and was shouting in a language Joe didn’t understand. Then the distinctive BOOM of a shotgun blast. Followed by a cacophony of pop-pop-pops from at least three different directions.
A second later, the driver was down and his shotgun skittered across the blacktop. Joe could see him clearly because he was a big man and they were eye to eye at the same level.
The gargoyle.
The same man Joe had seen behind the wheel of the green SUV.
The gargoyle saw Joe and for a moment they locked eyes. Then the gargoyle closed his.
Forever.
The next thing Joe saw was Schuster striding out of the SUV in the ill-fitting uniform with his hands up, shouting, “I surrender! I give up! I surrender! Don’t shoot me, please.”
A few seconds later, a very skinny white man wearing only boxer briefs emerged from the back seat of the cruiser. The man hopped up and down in a clumsy kind of end zone dance, hooting, “Damned right! Damned straight! Good shooting, boys!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Kovács Family Secrets
Later that day, Joe grimaced in pain as he shifted his weight on the examination table in a room in the emergency wing of the medical clinic. He wore a paper gown over his underwear and his naked feet dangled near the floor. His skin was mottled with bruises in their original shade of blue （they’d bloom into Technicolor in the days to come）， but he’d been correct to assess earlier in the library that he had no broken bones or internal injuries. The slivers of glass in his scalp from the smashed pickup windows had been removed by an intern with tweezers. He was waiting for the doctor to release him so he could go home, and he eyed his uniform, which had been hung up in the small closet.
There was a series of sharp knocks on the door and he looked up, anticipating the doctor.
Instead, Marybeth poked her head in and smiled. Her face was flushed and she looked, well, happy.
“I found you,” she said.
“You found me.”
“They weren’t very helpful at the front desk. So, how are you doing?”
“Dandy,” he said. “Just cuts and bruises. I’m ready to get out of here.”
“I told the girls to stay away. They’ve seen you in hospital rooms way too many times.”
“True.”
“I brought a guest,” she said with a lopsided grin.
“A guest?”
“AnnaBelle is with me, so you might want to get decent.”
From behind his wife, Joe heard AnnaBelle say, “I’ve seen half-naked men before, you know.” Like Marybeth, she sounded almost giddy.
“Not this one,” Joe grumbled. He stepped down from the table and quickly shed the gown. Climbing back into his uniform hurt more than he thought it would. He pulled on his boots but didn’t tuck the cuffs into the top of the shafts because bending over that far made him wince.