Katie figured it out before Bruce could finish the explanation. Riding half on pavement, half on gravelly shoulder, Katie twitched the wheel to the right, as if she intended to get all four wheels back onto asphalt. In the next millisecond, the Arrival adjusted its heading more toward the middle of the road.

And that was when Katie aimed for the ditch.

She jerked the wheel to the left, and the left side of the car dropped off the edge of the shoulder and into the tall grass, tipping on a thirty-degree angle.

“Jesus!” Bruce said, planting his palms onto the dash in front of him.

The Arrival whizzed past them in the other direction. If Bruce had been foolish enough to stick his arm out the window, he’d have been able to touch it. And if Katie had been hanging off the landing skids of a helicopter, her grip wouldn’t have been any stronger than the one she had now on that steering wheel.

She felt the car being dragged farther into the ditch, but she fought it, turning the wheel back to the right and planting her foot down harder on the gas. The back end kicked and fishtailed before it found purchase, and the Caddy was launched back onto the pavement, the rear tires squealing.

“HAAAA!” she screamed triumphantly. “Did you see that? Did you fucking see that?”

Bruce hung his left arm hung over the back of the seat so that he could turn around and look out the rear window. On the way, he gave Katie a brief, admiring glance. “That was something, I’ll give you that.”

Katie was taking quick, deep breaths. She glanced in her mirror, looking for the Arrival. “Where is the little shit?”

“It’s back there,” Bruce said. “You gave him the slip, that’s for sure.” He hadn’t yet turned around to face forward.

“What are you looking at?” she asked as she eased up on the gas and continued to catch her breath.

“I don’t know that slowing down is such a good idea,” Bruce said slowly.

Katie looked in the mirror again. “No.”

“Yeah,” Bruce said. “The little shit appears to be turning around.”

Katie’s eyes went from the mirror to the road ahead and back again to the mirror. “I don’t get it!” she said. “What the hell is wrong with it? Why did it try to . . . to . . .”

“Kill us?” Bruce asked.

She shot him a wide-eyed look. “That’s insane.”

“Of course it’s insane,” Bruce said. “But that’s what happened. That car was deliberately aiming for us.”

“So its programming or sensors or whatever must be broken,” Katie said. “That doesn’t mean it was trying to kill us. Not on purpose.”

“Well, I’ll tell you this. It’s very deliberately, and on purpose, coming after us.”

Another look at the mirror proved Bruce right. The silver Arrival was in pursuit, and gaining on them.