Stop Me by Richard Jay Parker Read Free Book Online

into the left lane where it came to rest and Leo saw the rider and his bike sliding on the hissing tarmac until they hit the muddied bank of trees to the left of the junction. It felt as if his seat belt was holding his rib cage together but he quickly unfastened it and got out of the car, jogging halfway over to where the rider lay. Pain bear-hugged his chest but before he reached the rider, another car leaving the same junction as Leo broke hard, hitting the back of the Saab with enough impact to smash the headlights.
    He turned from one to the other and then held up his hand to the car driver before continuing to where the bike rider lay. He was already sitting up and snapping up his visor.
    If he’s not injured, Laura hasn’t been either.
    ‘Jesus, I’m so sorry. Anything broken?’
    The rider lifted his visor and examined the snagged leather palms of his blue driving gloves. Leo registered that the boy was barely old enough to hold a licence. ‘I don’t think so.’ His pale blue eyes shifted and he looked more embarrassed than anything else. He had to have been going full throttle but Leo wasn’t sure he would have seen him even if the boy had been driving at normal speed. He couldn’t trust his eyeballs and driving up he’d already experienced moments that felt like they were coming unglued from his frazzled brain cells. There was no way he should have been behind the wheel of a car and even though the impact had momentarily galvanised him he could already feel the shadows creeping back around the periphery of the accident scene.
    ‘I think I’m OK.’ It was looking more certain; the rider’s attention had already turned to the state of his bike.
    ‘Can you stand?’ Leo helped him to his feet but the boy disengaged himself from his grip to demonstrate that he was perfectly capable of limping over to where his machine lay. He pulled his bike upright andexamined the buckled front mudguard. Leo tried to ascertain the damage to the front of the other mud-spattered metallic olive car behind him. It looked OK…from the side anyway.
    ‘I don’t mind if you don’t want to make this official.’ There was a note of desperation in the rider’s voice and he was already climbing back into the seat.
    Leo guessed he was probably uninsured, had a healthy amount of points on his licence or didn’t even possess one. ‘As long as you’re OK. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I call an ambulance or phone somebody to pick you up?’
    The boy unsuccessfully kick-started the bike and a twinge registered on his face. ‘No, it’s cool.’
    Leo knew the boy would be gone in a matter of seconds. ‘Look, take it easy. As long as you’re OK we can handle this however you want.’
    The boy tried again but it was the car behind them that revved to life.
    Leo turned in time to see the car that had come from behind him skid sideways and barrel down the road away from them. He squinted after the car but barely registered the model let alone the registration number.
    Leo drove the rest of the way home in the slow lane, his gut shivering and rattling his bruised ribcage. He had all the windows open to keep him awake and had decided to stop at the first motel he came to. But as hegot closer and closer to home without spotting one it seemed pointless to stop a few miles from his own bed.
    He drove into a curtain of rain and large droplets thudded off the car seats. He hadn’t even glimpsed the face of the driver in the metallic olive car, just a dark shape behind the windscreen’s reflection of grey clouds. Perhaps they’d wanted to leave the scene for similar reasons to the boy on the motorcycle but Leo doubted it. It was a saloon car, Passat or Volvo and even though the side of it had been caked in mud it looked to have been brand new. Although he kept an eye out, he didn’t glimpse it for the rest of the journey home but couldn’t shake the notion that, if it had ever ceased, the surveillance was certainly underway