As my engine catches, two bullets smash through the rear windshield, turning it to starred chaos. I throw the BMW into gear, stomp the accelerator, whip around, and start down the hill. Before I’ve gone thirty yards, the sheriff’s cruiser pulls onto the highway and races off toward town.

“Stop!” I shout, honking my horn. “Stop, goddamn it!”

But he doesn’t stop. The rifle must have made a tremendous noise, though I don’t remember hearing it. Maybe the exploding glass distracted me. But the black deputy in the cruiser must have heard it. Unless the weapon was silenced. This thought is too chilling to dwell on for long, since silenced weapons are much rarer in life than in movies, and indicate a high level of determination on the part of the shooter. But if the deputy didn’t hear the shots, why did he stop so long? There was no traffic at the intersection. For a moment I wonder if he could have fired the shots himself, but physics rules that out. The first bullet came through the driver’s window, while the deputy was fifty yards in front of me. The last two smashed the back windshield after the skid exposed it to the same side of the road.

My heart still tripping like an air hammer, I turn onto Highway 61, grab the cell phone, and dial 911. Before the first ring fades, I click End. Anything I say on a cell phone could be all over town within hours. The odds of catching the shooter are zero by now, and my father’s blackmail situation makes me more than a little reluctant to bring the police into our lives at this point.

Shad Johnson’s words echo in my head like a prophecy: A while back, some black kids started shooting at white people’s cars. Killed a father of three. But this shooting was not random. This morning’s newspaper article upset a lot of people—white people exclusively, I would have thought, until Shad Johnson disabused me of that notion. What the hell is going on? Johnson warns me that my family is in danger but gives no specifics, and ten minutes later I’m shot at on the highway? After being followed by a black deputy who doesn’t stop to check out the shooting?

Whoever was behind that rifle meant to kill me. But I can do nothing about it now. I’m less than a mile from my parents’ house, and my priority is clear: within an hour I will be talking to the district attorney about my father’s involvement in a murder case, and deciding how best to sting Ray Presley, a known killer.

CHAPTER 9

“Tom Cage, you dog! I can’t believe you came!”