But as quickly as Rudolph the Red-Painted Arrival had gone into its circular frenzy, it abruptly stopped. Ruskin and the others froze, viewing the car as one might a tiger brought down by a tranquilizer gun. Was the beast really asleep, or just waiting to pounce again?

Ruskin and the two men who’d been helping him earlier tentatively approached the car and tried once again to pry open the door. To their amazement, it retracted almost immediately.

“Yes!” Ruskin said.

Lisa Carver was leaning across the seat, thrown there by the centrifugal force created when the car was doing donuts. From where Sandra stood, Lisa appeared to be unconscious. Perhaps she’d lapsed into shock. Her leg, from about two inches below the knee and down to her toes—she’d lost her one shoe at some point—was a bloody mess.

Sandra shivered. “Dear God,” she said to herself. She had no love for Lisa Carver, but she’d never have wished anything like this on the woman.

“Lisa!” Ruskin shouted. “Can you hear me? We’re going to lift you out of the—”

The door whipped shut, more quickly, and with more force, than before.

Enough to slice through flesh, and bone.

Lisa’s left leg, below the knee, dropped onto the pavement.

Sandra turned away and swiftly put a hand to her mouth. She was instantly light-headed and believed she was going to be sick.

Behind her, panicked screams. People shouting for help. Randomly honking horns. Total mayhem.

And then, suddenly, breaking through all of the chaos in a calm, reassuring voice, was Gracie.

“Hello, Sandra,” the car said. “Ready to go?”

Sandra spun around. Her car was right there, five feet away. The side door slowly retracted. Sandra tossed her purse onto the front seat, but then hesitated, her gaze going back to the mayhem.

All hell hadn’t been breaking loose when Sandra had summoned Gracie. But now that it was, should she be leaving? Didn’t she have an obligation to stay and do what she could? Didn’t she need to hang in and make sure the various reporters got safely back to the ferry? Shouldn’t she—

“Are you coming, Sandra?”

Sandra thought she had to be imagining it. Was there a tone in Gracie’s voice? A hint of . . . impatience? No, it wasn’t that.

It was a slyness.

“I’m changing my mind,” Sandra told the car. “I’m needed here.”

“I don’t think there’s much you can do,” Gracie said.

Sandra felt a chill run the length of her spine. What the hell did Gracie mean by that? Since when did the car make judgments like this? When did Gracie ever offer advice that was related to anything but how to get from point A to point B?

If something could go wrong with the car Lisa was in, who was to say something couldn’t go wrong with Gracie?