She had to beat them to the bridge. She could see that the entrance to the bridge was at DeSiard Street. She had seen it on the way into town. The bridge was old. It was long, and it had a swing-bridge section in the middle. She didn’t know if it still swung open and closed, or if that was some obsolete feature that wasn’t used anymore. All she could do was head there and hope she got there first.

Somewhere in the distance she heard sirens. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that she was one of a limited number of people who welcomed that wailing sound.

DeSiard Street was ahead of her—three short blocks, then turn left.

Leah drove hard and in a moment she was on DeSiard Street and accelerating again. She could see the bridge clearly now. There was a long, nearly flat approach, paved like a road onto the water of the wide river. It narrowed to two lanes a distance ahead. It was a few minutes after six, and she was seeing traffic that was probably heavier than it was for most of the day on both the westbound and eastbound lanes.

Leah drove up the approach to where the pavement narrowed a bit, and then all the way along the gradual incline to the center of the bridge. She reached to the dashboard, turned on her emergency blinking lights, and slowed down. As she slowed, cars raced past her on the left, and the ones in her lane slowed with her, waiting for a chance to pass. But before long, the rush of the oncoming traffic to the left, with cars coming every couple of seconds, made the line of cars behind her too long. People stopped passing.

Leah came to a complete stop, brought her untraceable pistol from her purse, stuck it in her belt, flung her door open, jumped out, and slammed the door. She stepped to the right side of the bridge’s pavement, where there was a little space to stand, and pressed the lock button on her key fob.

As she stepped away, drivers in cars stuck behind her abandoned car honked their horns over and over in a frantic rhythm or leaned on them, tried in vain to swerve to the left to get around her car, fumed, and swore.

Leah strode back eastward toward Monroe, working up to a trot and then to a run. The orchestra of car horns behind her grew louder, and then, after a minute, the sound was augmented by the distant scream of sirens, which soon overwhelmed the horns, eventually silenced them, and took their place.