The Thieves of Faith by Richard Doetsch Read Free Book Online

control. She skidded, slamming both feet on the brake to no avail. She crashed through the guardrail and launched out over the water, the Buick sailing out into the night, flying above the lake like a bird in flight. She never saw a face, never saw the license plate, and had only recognized the trucks’ make because they were similar to one a friend had owned.
    She had noted a different vehicle—a silver Chevy Suburban—four miles earlier. It had picked her up as she exited the expressway and had hung back about an eighth of a mile. When she stopped to fill up for gas, the Suburban disappeared and she wrote it off as coincidence. Maybe paranoia. But when she caught it trailing her again as she hit the road five minutes later, curiosity quickly turned to outright suspicion. And it was this distraction that had caused her to lose focus, to lose attention to the road, to never see the two Ford trucks. She never imagined that there would be multiple pursuers but that thought would do her no good now. Otherwise, she might have reacted in time to avoid the racing trucks on the four-lane bridge. She knew she would die with many questions unanswered and regretted leaving so many behind.
    Forty feet from impact: her perfect hair and makeup didn’t provide the comfort they usually did in times of trouble.
    She had seen Michael at her funeral—a surreal moment, hearing her own eulogy—as she stood in the background, hidden under a wide-brimmed hat behind Jackie Kennedy sunglasses. She saw the pain in his eyes, the grief she had caused a man who was already in mourning. The staging of her own death had left a trail of pain in all who loved her, aside from her accomplice. As she had hiked out of the mountains, as she had surreptitiously meandered throughout Europe for three months, she had hoped that her disappearance from the world would be permanent, one that would erase her from the memory of those who pursued her. But in hindsight, it was an action that only forestalled the inevitable.
    She was twenty feet from impact, the car going vertical, when she thought about her purse. Genevieve reached back and wrapped her trembling hand around the leather bag, pulling it to her as if it would somehow save her life.
    And the nose of the white car sliced into the lake, an explosion of water cascading out in a vee. The air bags instantly released, enveloping the woman in a cocoon of balloons, bracing her body against the force of impact, her seat belt cinched tight, further restraining her against the blunt trauma of the watery collision. She felt as if a thousand stones assaulted her body from every angle as her mind’s orientation was turned upside down.
    The headlights cut through the clear water ninety feet to the bottom before flashing out. The car bobbed up and down for a brief moment as the echoes of the crash reverberated around the surrounding hillsides before the silence resumed.
    As the car finally settled its motion, floating quietly, its front half submerged, the air began to escape through gaps in the rear windows, slow at first, then faster, until the hissing could be heard on the far side of the lake, sounding like a child’s scream. Then, as if the reservoir reached up its hand, the lake sucked the Buick under like quicksand. Within thirty seconds, all trace of the vehicle was removed from existence, the water smoothed to its once again glassy surface.

 
     

     
Chapter 5
     
    T he Harley-Davidson Softail cut down the dark empty street, her engine’s roar tearing the silent night apart. The canopy of overhanging trees blotted out the star-filled sky above, shafts of moonlight cut through, reflecting off the polished chrome of the motorcycle. Michael’s hair blew freely in the wind, his helmet strapped to the rear of the bike. He wound the motorcycle up to ninety-five, the wind in his face setting him free, no one to bother him, no one to pity him. His cheeks peeled back, reminding him of jumping out of planes in a