Alex Tully

It was hotter than hell as the Challenger whipped around a tight turn on the 89. Alex was glad he’d earned a new set of tires three checkpoints back when he and Corinna had arrived first. They’d won more sprints of the race than they’d lost, but right now they were driving aimlessly waiting for the next clue. Neither was sure where they were headed, but at the fringe of Arizona they knew they were running out of country for the illegal cross country race.

Alex’ fingers tightened on the wheel as the grit filled arid desert air hit his face through the open window. The air conditioning had died the big death fifty miles back, and the increase in power was worth the sweat trickling down between his shoulder blades. His tongue darted out to lick his dry lips, but instead of tasting dust he could taste Kathryn. He knew he was close. They were almost there.

They just needed the bastards who were running them through the maze to tell them where the cheese was. He nearly jumped out of his skin as the race phone rang. He and Corinna made eye contact before she reached onto the seat between them to check the phone’s display.



“Dorothy’s Pretty Shoes.” The pretty blonde wrinkled her nose as she settled back against the passenger seat. Bruises on her face had finally gone from purple to green. She’d be healed up soon from her ordeal with the race sponsors that had taken her.

Tully preferred not to think about that part of the game. That hadn’t gone according to plan at all. All they’d managed to do was lose time and for Corinna to get hurt. His own bruises at he hands and fists of Officer Poole were a painful memory. It had been weeks since he hadn’t looked like he’d had the shit kicked out of him.

“Vegas,” Alex said with a narrow grin. “Dorothy’s shoes are in Vegas.”

“Oh yeah,” Corinna scooted forward to grab a bottle of water. It was tepid, warmed from the heat, but still tasted good. “They still have a whole Wizard of Oz thing going at the MGM, right?”

“Not those shoes To-to.” The driver glanced over at her from behind his sunglasses. “The ruby slippers were only in the movie. The shoes in the book were silver.”

“You read the Wizard of Oz?”

“Darlin’. I grew up in the tornado belt. Anyone who lives there has read the Wizard of Oz books. We’re not looking for the Ruby Slippers. We’re looking for the Silver Slipper. It was an old casino.” Alex’ smile broadened. “Course they tore it down quite some time ago.”

“What good is that going to do us?” Corinna reached into the back seat to grab her new laptop and booted it up with the Sprint card they’d stolen from another drive team. “Let me see what the Wikipedia has to say about it.”

“What would we do without the Wikipedia?”



“Tully look!” She held the laptop where he could see without driving off the highway and into a ditch. “There it is the Silver Slipper. They saved it.”

“Neon Museum. That’s it, Corinna. That’s the finish line.” If it had been possible, the Challenger would have made a wake in the blistering hot asphalt as Tully floored it.

***
A flash of golden paint and the squeal of tires as they sprayed a shower of gravel against the side of the Challenger told Alex Tully that his number one competitor had caught up with him. He narrowed his deep blue eyes behind his dark glasses to glare at Winston Salazar who smirked past his brother in the passenger seat to meet Tully’s eyes.

Tully knew it would come down to the two of them. He’d known it for weeks. Winston was in it for the money though, and Alex didn’t blame him. They’d found out that his own father was one of the race supporters, and the man was a bastard all the way around for the way he’d treated Winston and his mother. Alex liked Winston. He thought of him as a friend, even when they were racing down the dirty road, but today.

Today Winston was the enemy and the end of this final stretch of the race was going to get him his prize. Unlike Salazar Tully wasn’t interested in the 32 million. He was in it for one prize – his wife.

Through the dust covered window and the glare of the Nevada sun, as he crested the hill, the Challenger and Winston’s Impala neck to neck the sprawling chaos of the Neon Museum appeared before them. Hundreds of retired bulb and neon studded signs from defunct and extinct casinos stood like some kind of weird wild animal park exhibit.

“They light it up at night,” Corinna said as she grabbed the doorframe as Alex made a wild turn to get in front of the Impala again.

“Don’t really care about that right now Corinna. Do you see it? The red light?” What he wanted to ask was. Do you see her? Do you see Kathryn? Do you see my beautiful wife with her long brown hair blowing in the wind? But he couldn’t. He didn’t want to jinx anything.

Bang! Winston did the unheard of and slammed his tricked out low rider into rear quarter panel of Tully’s sleek liquid black and blue Challenger. “Son of a whore!” Alex shouted as he floored it. The car was now racing over a hundred miles as hour downhill, each pothole they hit set their teeth on edge, but he was in the lead again.

“I guess we’re not playing nice anymore?” Corinna said as she turned around to look at Winston’s big Chevy filling the rear window. Reaching over the back seat, she grabbed her insurance policy out of her messenger bag. The 9mm was an unfamiliar weight in her hands, but she was not going to let Winston win. She couldn’t. She was too close to finding out the truth and avenging the death of her parents when they’d died in the race trying to save her.

“No darlin’,” Alex said as Winston’s bumper grated against theirs. “We are not playing nice.”

“Good.” Her stomach hurt. With hands shaking she aimed and fired. The back glass of the Challenger erupted into a shower of safety glass.

“What the fuck!” Alex ducked nearly losing control of the car. “Corinna!”

“We are not going to lose, Alex.” She emptied the gun into Salazar’s Impala, blowing out the windshield. Gritting her teeth she fired one more time, hitting Winston between the eyes. “I can’t let us lose.”

The Impala swerved and launched off the road. It rolled and crashed into a row of signs its engine still running as it landed on its roof. Corinna couldn’t look back to see if anyone got out of the car or not. “Oh god. I’m going to puke.”

“Not in my car.” Tully felt sick too. He’d liked Winston. He’d liked Corinna. But now he was sitting next to a stranger.

They flashed by the blinking red light and came to a screeching halt. Alex climbed out of the car and turned in a slow circle looking for any sign of Kathryn. One place he didn’t look was into Corinna’s eyes. He couldn’t bring himself to, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to look at her again.

“You did it Alex.” He blinked and took off the sunglasses as Kathryn sauntered towards them from next to the Silver Slipper. He wasn’t sure if she was real or not. She’d haunted his days and nights for so long. “You won, and you did it for me.”

She wasn’t bruised or bleeding. There were no signs of the horrific abuse he’d been expecting. If anything Kathryn looked better than she ever had and it made no sense at all. “Maybe I’m being paranoid. But y’all look just a little too healthy and not quite happy enough to see me baby.”

“Well I have some explaining to do Alex. You see I work for the Race. I was never really kidnapped. I was also never legally married to you.” She smiled with teeth white enough to make Jaws jealous, but it never reached her eyes. They were cold and showed no affection at all. “But you still get the money. Isn’t that great?”