Boogie House: A Rolson McKane Mystery by T. Blake Braddy Read Free Book Online Page A

perverse pride in, but maybe it’s just the long genetics of my southernness coming out, something that wasn’t bred out of my ancestors in the last two hundred or so years. It just tends to appear to fuck everything up, and I can’t help but see what it does to me.
    I waited for the perfect opportunity. When the high-beams reached into my cab and whited out the rearview, I clenched my teeth, feeling the temple muscles lock up, and then I let the brake pedal have it with both feet.
    I stamped so hard I thought the pedal might punch a hole in the floorboard. My tires squealed on the wet asphalt like wounded dogs, and the rear end veered drastically to one side. I waited for the inevitable, crushing impact, my whole body clenched like a fist.
    But nothing happened. Once my truck stopped, absolute silence was all that rushed up to meet me. The truck had somehow swerved and missed me, and it was now speeding off into the distance. It was the same truck, all right, and I caught sight of those hellishly red taillights disappearing yet again.
    I know what I should have done. In my head, it was an entirely simple decision. Watch the taillights disappear. Just give the dude time to disappear and then call the cops. That’s all you’ve got to do, son.
    Sad thing was, I wasn’t even in the mood for piling onto my misery. I just wanted to get the hell on with my life and forget about this shit, but there was something that wouldn’t quite untether me from the situation. Bullish stupidity is my cross to bear, I suppose.
    I’d suffered enough, or should have, even if I’d brought most of it onto myself. The temptation to be a fuck-up should have been easy to deny. No, no, I’ve had my fill of that for a while, but thanks . I’d peeked behind the curtain of my unquestionably grim future, so I should have been able to swear off risk, but I guess Hephaestus is a distant relative of mine. I’ve dutifully created the tools of my destruction.
    Sitting there, truck idling, watching the taillights become smaller, I had a choice. One voice was sound and calm, telling me to let it go. Chasing dangerous rednecks down a curvy patch of highway would only result in trouble, I knew that. And yet, somehow, there was a second, equally convincing voice, speaking in whispers about the discarded body I had found.
    Then a phrase came to me, one that was both beautiful and dangerous, one that had gotten me halfway to this point.
    “Aww, fuck it,” I said.
    I stomped the gas pedal on my aging Ford. What the other guy probably didn't know was, I'd put a low enough gear in the transmission that, completely wound out, it could top off at a hundred and fifteen, easy. Most modern vehicles have a switch that cuts the engine off at a flat hundred, and you have to get a chip override to disable that feature. Most people don’t go that far, and I hoped this guy was no different.
    Once I got up to speed, trees and road reflectors passed in a near-psychedelic blur. With no guiding moon and me outrunning the headlights, it was tantamount to driving with my eyes closed. I focused on the electric red rectangles, hoping I hadn’t forgotten about some hairpin curve ahead of me.
    As a police officer, I'd been involved in innocuous chases with people who found jail much more terrifying than running - or going through a windshield - but drunks and other common criminals will often have a moment of clarity and pull over. This fool had no intention of slowing down. The car veered dangerously on the country roads. One bad yank on the wheel, and the truck would go rolling across the landscape like a skier missing a jump.
    However, the diesel on that lead truck, a V8 GMC behemoth, could get up and go a sight better than I thought. In fact, the thing could flat-out scoot , but I managed to keep up. It topped a steep hill, and I accelerated through the next curve to make up ground.
    Over another hill, a reflection caught my eye, and for a moment I thought I saw a deer's