The Midnight Road Read Online Free Page B

slid over the jetty together.
    Nuddin going, Wah wah wah.
    “Hold on!” Flynn shouted.
    And here came the punchline. So this mook spins out of control, hits the mooring where the ferry takes off from in the summer, blasts through the retaining wall and crashes into the ice upside down! He was going to die pretty much like his own brother did, and get this—in the same car!
    Flynn just didn’t get the joke.
     
     
     
    He came to with Danny’s voice loud in his mind but the words were unrecognizable. He’d been out for no more than half a minute. He saw stars because the bulldog had bounced off the back of his skull.
    The Charger was on its roof down on the frozen surface of the Long Island Sound. The ice had been thick but four tons of Detroit production line had cracked it wide, and the noise was like a splitting glacier. Sixty feet of water lay beneath them.
    The tires were still turning and creaking. Freezing water had started to seep into the car. Flynn tried the door but it had buckled. The window was busted but he realized now they were lying at a forty-five-degree angle, the driver’s side facing down. There was nothing but ice here. He couldn’t get free this way.
    Through the windshield he could just make out the tail end of the Caddy about ten yards in front. It was rightside up. Christina Shepard had the driver’s door open but she was hung up in the seat belt. She was still holding the gun. He’d never seen anyone look so damn resolute. A wet thunderclap rumbled and the SUV started sluicing down, dragging Christina Shepard along as she frantically tried to get free of the belt. She wasn’t going to have enough time. She was already halfway underwater. She let out a whimper. Flynn made a similar sound. He hoped to Christ the little girl wasn’t watching.
    The broken ice flailed open like a trapdoor and swallowed the woman and the SUV whole. They dropped into oblivion and there was another crashing roar as the great lid of ice resettled almost perfectly back into place.
    And then there wasn’t a goddamn thing, there was absolutely nothing more.
    Christina Shepard had actually done it. The crazy bitch had killed herself and probably murdered the rest of them as well. Flynn stared at the empty ice for another second as his heart chopped at his ribs.
    “Kelly!” he called, craning his neck to look behind. “Kelly, are you all right?”
    “I think so,” she said. He could hear the trembling sob about to break in her voice.
    Flynn tried to get his seat belt open, but the damn thing was jammed. The belt should’ve been part of the punch line too. You survive the crash, you’re alive on the ice, you’ve been an ace driver since you were fifteen but this little busted button is what’s going to do you in.
    He smelled Danny’s cigarettes. The French bulldog, sitting on the ceiling, stared at Flynn.
    “My door’s no good,” Flynn told her. “Can you climb up here and get out the other side?”
    “No.”
    “You’ve got to try.”
    Kelly clambered forward from the backseat, stepped on the dome light and stretched across Nuddin. “The door is stuck!”
    “Can you roll the window down?”
    “Where’s the button?”
    “This is an old car. You’ve got to roll it down. See the handle?”
    Nuddin reached out from behind the passenger seat and cranked the handle. The window slid halfway down and shattered. The car shifted with an enormous moan.
    “Climb out!” Flynn shouted. Kelly got her hands on Nuddin’s seat belt and popped it in an instant. Of course. Nuddin swung out the busted window and slid from view. “Both of you! Go!”
    “Where’s Zero?”
    “He’s right under me, he’ll follow in a second.”
    Nuddin going, Woowoo woowoo.
    “There’s water!” Kelly screamed. “I’m slipping! The ice is breaking!”
    “Don’t stand up. Lie flat. Can you crawl?”
    “It’s cold, Flynn! It’s too cold!”
    “Crawl for the pier!”
    “Come on, Zero!” she shouted.
    The dog was just