The car said nothing.

“Gracie, come on. I keep my end of the bargain, you keep yours.” Sandra tried to smile. “Hey, we’ve got a history. In the few weeks we’ve been together, we’ve had some good times, right? We’ve gotten to know each other. Before all the shit that happened today, we were friends. And I know that the way you’ve behaved today, that’s not your fault. Someone did that to you. Someone messed with your programming. I get that. So come on. I plug you in, then you back up far enough to let Katie go.”

Sandra, as a show of good faith, opened the box that held the cable, and started to draw it out. “See?”

The car remained silent for several seconds. Then: “Plug me in and I will back up.”

“You’ll back up right away?” Sandra asked.

Another pause.

“Yes.”

“Okay then,” Sandra said, pulling out more cable.

“No.”

She looked around. That wasn’t Gracie talking. It was a real live human voice, and it was male.

He was standing several feet away, in the middle of the yard. Sandra didn’t recognize him at first, given that he was streaked with dirt and looking a lot slimmer than the last time she’d seen him.

And of course, the gun he was pointing at her was somewhat distracting, too.

But then she realized he was the man who’d passed himself off as Ben Stapleton, of Wheel Base Trends. Except there was no Wheel Base Trends, and there was no Ben Stapleton. This man, she believed, was Brandon Kyle.

Sandra stood there, frozen, cable in hand.

“I have to,” she said. “The car will crush her if I don’t.”

“I know,” Kyle said, and smiled. “Your daughter, right?”

Sandra nodded.

“She nearly blinded me. Put shit in my eyes.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “You didn’t raise her right.”

“I know who you are,” Sandra said. “And I know what you did.”

“Really.”

“You’re the guy with the other car company. You wanted to get even. You did all this, made it happen. I don’t know how, exactly, but you did it. And I know all about Ruskin.”

A puzzled expression passed across Brandon Kyle’s face. “What about Ruskin?”

“Plug me in,” Gracie said.

Sandra said, “He was your inside man. He hated Lisa Carver. He helped you get even with her.”

Kyle said, very slowly, “I don’t think so.” He chuckled. “I mean, where the hell did you come up with that?”

“He confessed,” Sandra said. “Just before he died.”

“Ruskin’s dead? One of the cars got him?”

“No,” Sandra said. “Something else. But that’s what he said. Guess he wanted to clear his conscience.”

Kyle’s look of puzzlement deepened. “That’s not possible.”