Need for Speed Page 16

  Julia had no other choice. She drove the Mustang off the cliff . . .

  And at that very instant, the Super Stallion’s straps went taut, catching the supercar and suspending it underneath.

  Tobey and Julia couldn’t believe what was happening.

  “Holy shit!” she yelled. “This is crazy!”

  The Flyin’ Hawaiian and his right-seater watched in disbelief as the enormous helicopter flew the Mustang up and out of their grasp.

  But there was one problem. The Mustang was hanging almost straight down over the vast gorge below. The bottom of the gorge suddenly filled their windshield. Julia and Tobey were pointing straight down even as the helicopter began to gain altitude.

  But because Julia was terrified of heights, this was her worst nightmare.

  “Oh my god!” she screamed again. “Oh my god!”

  She was so terrified that she was holding her breath, which was turning her face beet-red. She was freaking out and trying to cry, but she couldn’t because she had no air.

  Tobey grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “Julia—look at me!” he yelled.

  She did as he asked, but was still red in the face and still not breathing.

  “Focus on my eyes,” he told her. “Now . . . breathe, Julia. Breathe!”

  Julia exhaled and started gasping—but it was a start.

  Tobey continued to soothe her.

  “Good,” he said. “Now breathe . . . relax . . . and focus on my eyes. What color are they?”

  “Blue,” Julia managed to reply. “They’re really blue . . .”

  “A little bluer than yours,” Tobey told her.

  “No, they’re not,” she said. And for one fleeting and crazy moment, they were lost in each other’s eyes.

  Then finally, Julia smiled broadly. She was breathing again. Tobey had successfully talked her down.

  At that moment, the huge helicopter banked to the left and flew on, the Mustang hanging safely below.

  Twenty

  EVERY RACING CAR enthusiast in the world knew about the Bonneville Salt Flats.

  A giant, flat piece of desert located in northwest Utah, it was, in reality, a gigantic dry lake bed, surrounded on all sides by picture-perfect mountains.

  This was the place where many race car records had been broken over the years, and where many experimental cars and motorcycles had been tested.

  Sitting here now was the Beast, with Joe Peck and Finn lounging in the back, waiting for the prearranged meet-up with the Mustang.

  Suddenly, they were aware of something flying over the mountains and heading right for them. They stared at it silently for a long time.

  “Is that our car?” Finn finally gasped.

  “Under a helicopter?” Joe added.

  It was the Mustang and it was being carried by an enormous helicopter.

  But they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

  “Do they put something in the water out here?” Finn asked. “Mormon acid or something?”

  The helicopter went into a hover right above them. The downwash from its blades kicked up a blizzard of white dust and salt. But still, Joe and Finn could see that while it was the Mustang, its undercarriage was heavily damaged.

  The car was slowly lowered to the ground. The front end touched first, fairly gently. But then the back end came down hard, crashing to the ground like a heap of junk.

  The car was immediately detached from the copter’s cables. Suddenly the doors opened and Tobey and Julia emerged from the mangled racer. Joe Peck and Finn ran over to them, still fighting the copter’s massive downwash.

  “Jessuz!” Joe Peck exclaimed. “What the hell happened? Are you guys okay?”

  They both answered at once. Tobey said, “Yes,” while Julia replied with a resounding “No!”

  Meanwhile, the huge copter rose in altitude, with its hook cables dangling. Then, from another direction, came another thunderous noise. It dwarfed any racket that the Shelby had ever made.

  Suddenly two F-16 fighter planes roared overhead. The four of them watched in awe as the two jets screamed by.

  “Something tells me they want their helicopter back,” Julia said, looking up at the fierce warplanes.

  The Beast’s radio came to life. A very authoritative voice boomed: “One Alpha Bravo Victor Charlie—this is the United States Army.”

  Then they heard Benny’s voice. “Hope everyone is okay down there,” he said. “I might have to go away for a bit.”

  They all watched as the helicopter turned east and sank behind some hills.

  “Godspeed, boys,” they heard Benny say before the copter disappeared for good.

  Suddenly, they were all alone out on the expansive salt flats. The wind was blowing, but everything else was quiet. No one said anything for a few moments. It had been a strange turn of events, to say the least.

  Finally Tobey told them a quick version of the story and then nodded toward the banged-up Mustang. He looked at Joe as if to say, “What do you think?”

  Joe just laughed.

  “Yeah, we can make her run again,” he said. “But . . .”

  “Just do your best,” Tobey told him.

  Joe and Finn didn’t move, though. They had to have a serious talk with Tobey.

  “We heard about your cop friend getting chained back in Nebraska,” Joe told him.

  “And Benny is going to be in the brig in about ten minutes,” Finn said.

  “Plus, there’s an APB out for your arrest in at least ten states right now,” Joe added.

  Tobey just shrugged. “So what’s your point?” he asked them.

  “Maybe we should rethink the plan,” Joe finally suggested.

  Tobey just stared back at his two friends.

  “Dino took everything from me,” he said to them. “From us. Including Pete. Pete got put in the ground and Dino went to sunny California like nothing happened.”

  A long pause ensued. The wind was blowing fiercely across the flats. No one said a word.

  “You guys do what you think is right,” Tobey finally told them. “But I’m never going to stop.”

  Part Six

  Twenty-One

  IT WAS MIDAFTERNOON when the Mustang blew past a sign that read, “Welcome to Nevada.”

  The car was a mess. The undercarriage was in shambles. The body had dents galore. It was dirty and dusty all over, especially the remaining windows, which were coated with some kind of greasy slime.

  But it could still move very fast, and at that moment Tobey had the accelerator buried.

  Julia was back in the right seat. She’d been pensive since they’d left the salt flats.

  “What are you thinking about?” she finally asked Tobey.

  “That I never should’ve made that deal with Dino,” he replied.

  The expression on his face told the tale. Dealing with Dino had been akin to dealing with the devil.

  “You needed the money, though,” Julia told him. “Nothing wrong with that.”

  “My father would have never done it,” Tobey replied sternly.

  Julia let that comment sit for a while.

  “Is your mom still alive?” she asked him quietly.

  “No,” he replied.

  “That’s too bad,” Julia said. “What was she like?”

  “She was beautiful,” he replied wistfully. “In fact, before she met my dad, she used to model, for calendars—tasteful ones. The kind they’d hang up in repair garages and gas stations way back when. She could have gone to New York and done some real modeling, but she chose to get married and start a family instead.”

  “That must have been a big decision for her,” Julia said. “Do you think it worked out the way she wanted it to?”

  “I think so,” he replied. “I mean, when I was a real
little kid I remember that she was always smiling, always a big smile on her face whenever I looked up at her. It was the same way when I was growing up. I loved driving on the go-cart track and then, later, the shifter cars. She’d always be there to watch me—her and my dad. And I’d go around the course a few dozen times, and she was always just standing there, not rooting me on as much as just smiling at me every time I went by.”

  “She died when you were young, I take it?” Julia asked.

  “Yeah, when I was eleven,” Tobey replied quietly. “I was too dorky to figure out what was going on until it was too late. Just a lot of doctors’ visits, at odd times of day—sometimes early in the morning. Sometimes in the middle of the night. But she was always there when I woke up in the morning, always had my breakfast ready. It all seemed really strange at the time.

  “Then came the trips to the hospital, again at weird hours, and after that she wasn’t always there to make my breakfast in the morning.

  “Then one day, I was coming home from school and I saw her being put into an ambulance. And I saw my father crying—the one and only time for that. She held my hand for a moment, and she never stopped smiling. Then the ambulance took off, siren, lights flashing, the whole bit. But I never saw her alive again.”

  Julia’s breath caught in her throat. “That’s heartbreaking, Tobey,” she said.

  He just shrugged. “Everyone has to go through it eventually, right?” he said. “It’s just that I was still a kid—and my father was just never the same afterward. I feel like we grew old together, just the two of us, in a big empty house. Then one day at work, he was under a car, changing an oil line, and he had a heart attack. He was dead before the EMTs got there, even before I could call 911. Peck was there when it happened. I’d never seen Peck cry, either, until that day.”

  Julia was on the verge of tears herself. She touched his arm, lightly and only for a moment.

  “They sound like good people,” she told him. “Your father, solid, hardworking. Your mom, beautiful—you made her happy. That’s why she was always smiling.”

  “She was beautiful,” Tobey said again, after taking a deep breath. Then he looked right at Julia and added, “And while I’m not the smartest guy in the world, I do know a beautiful woman when I see one.”

  * * *

  Several hundred miles to the west, Dino and Anita were in his 2012 Ferrari Berlinetta, driving through the streets of San Francisco.

  Dino was at the wheel and on the phone. He was all but ignoring Anita.

  They arrived at a very exclusive restaurant, pulling up out front with a screech. Only then did Dino hang up the phone.

  “Dammit!” he cursed.

  “How much do you owe him?” Anita asked him. “Or should I ask, at what point will they actually break your kneecaps?”

  Dino paid her no mind, but she decided to press him.

  “Those two goons who came to the shop yesterday,” she said. “They work for him, don’t they?”

  Dino just looked at her with very hard eyes, but still remained silent.

  “How did it happen?” she asked. “How did you get in so deep with these mobsters?”

  “It’s none of your business,” Dino said. He was growing angry. “Just stay out of it.”

  “No, I won’t,” she shot back at him. “I can’t.”

  “Look, I’m taking care of it,” he said sternly.

  But she would not let up.

  “Why is Tobey risking everything to race you?” she asked him. “He has so much to lose if he’s caught. So much to lose even if he isn’t. It makes no sense . . . unless—”

  “Watch yourself,” Dino warned her darkly.

  At that moment, the restaurant’s valet, Juan, tried to open the Ferrari’s door, but Dino had locked it. He tapped on the window as another car pulled up in back of the mega-expensive sports car.

  Dino cracked the window and said, “Hey, Paco—you touch this car again and you’re screwed. You understand?”

  With that, Dino rolled the window back up.

  In the next moment, Juan, a few more valets, and some passing customers witnessed a shocking sight. A heated argument had erupted inside the Ferrari between Dino and Anita. Suddenly, Dino slapped Anita brutally across her face.

  She was stunned for a moment, as if she couldn’t believe what had just happened. But then she immediately jumped out of the car, slammed the door loudly, and started walking very fast down the sidewalk. Dino was out of the car in an instant as well, and began running after her.

  He caught up with her in a few seconds, grabbing her roughly by the arm. He tried to yank her back to the car, but stopped when he realized a small crowd of people was watching him.

  “I’m sorry,” Dino blurted out, just loud enough for the onlookers to hear. “I didn’t mean it.”

  But Anita wasn’t buying it. She yanked her arm back and hurried away.

  At that moment, Dino’s Ferrari screeched away from the curb. Juan the valet was behind the wheel as it roared down the street.

  Dino began yelling at the other valets, “Hey! Tell Paco to bring that fucking car back!”

  But all the other valets could do was shrug, and watch as Juan drifted around the next corner and went out of sight, leaving nothing behind but smoke spewing from the Ferrari’s screaming tires.

  Twenty-Two

  THE SUN WAS just setting when the Mustang roared across San Francisco’s Bay Bridge.

  Once the supercar was on the hilly streets of the city, it began passing streetcars and going around tight turns with speed and ease.

  Night had fallen by the time Tobey pulled up in front of the Intercontinental Hotel. He parked in a restricted loading zone.

  “You’re twenty-three minutes late,” Julia reminded him. “Hurry!”

  Tobey leapt out of the car and headed for the door.

  The lobby was brightly lit, glittering, and crowded. Tobey walked the length of it, anxious to find the room where Monarch said the details of the De Leon could be found. The race was going to be held the next morning. If Tobey was going to participate, despite the dismal condition of the Mustang, he had to find the right room fast.

  With his mind totally concentrating on the hotel room numbers, he turned a corner—and ran right into Dino.

  The two rivals stopped in their tracks, stunned that they would meet this way. They glared at each other with pure hate and distrust.

  At that moment, Tobey would have liked nothing better than to pummel Dino to death.

  “Surprised you made it, Marshall,” Dino said finally, the smarmy part of him taking over. “Impressed, actually . . .”

  The situation was very tense. Dino could tell by the look in Tobey’s eyes that a physical attack was probably seconds away.

  He spoke again. “So, what’s going on inside that head of yours, Tobey?”

  “That you never went back for him,” Tobey answered immediately. “That you left Pete back there to die.”

  Dino just smiled. “But I wasn’t there,” Dino said, goading him. “Remember? But I was there to comfort Anita at poor Pete’s funeral and give her a shoulder to cry on, and much more after that. She’s such a sweet, simple girl. But you already know that.”

  Tobey lost it. He grabbed Dino and slammed him hard against the wall.

  But though Dino was startled at first, he recovered quickly and just smiled back at Tobey. He had the eyes of a psychopath.

  “You really want to do this here, Marshall?” he asked the enraged Tobey, looking around the crowded hotel. “Remember, one of us is on parole. But it’s your move.”

  Tobey thought for a long moment. A fight here would bring the cops—and the cops would bring him to jail. If that happened, everything he had gone through in the past two days—and everything he’d been planning for the past two years—would have all been for nothing.
>
  So he let his cooler side prevail. He stepped away from Dino.

  “We’ll settle this behind the wheel,” he told him.

  Dino just scoffed back at him. “Believe me, I’m not the slightest bit worried about you behind the wheel,” he said.

  “Really?” Tobey asked him. “Then why did you put that bounty on me?”

  Dino’s features fell. He was busted and he knew it. But he continued to taunt Tobey.

  “Tomorrow is going to be fun,” he said. “I’m glad I’m racing. I’m really looking forward to it.”

  “Is losing fun for you, Dino?” Tobey spit back at him. “Well, let me tell you something. When you’re hanging upside down tomorrow, I’m not coming back for you.”

  Dino turned very dark. “Watch yourself, Tobey,” he said. “I’m serious.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, you pussy,” Tobey told him.

  Dino smirked. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” he said.

  With that, Dino slowly backed down the hallway, Tobey watching his every move until he was finally out of sight.

  * * *

  Tobey climbed back into the Mustang a few minutes later.

  He was seething. He pulled away from the hotel with a screech of tires and a burst of power.

  Julia guessed correctly as to what had happened.

  “You ran into him, didn’t you?” she asked him. “That monster Dino.”

  Tobey didn’t reply. He didn’t have to.

  “Listen,” she went on, “just forget him. Let it go.”

  “That won’t be easy,” Tobey replied.

  “Did you get the information you needed on the race?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Yes—even though I was late.”

  “Then you just need to get out of this car,” she said. “Take a hot shower, eat a good meal, and get some rest.” She hit her iPad. “I’m going to book you a nice hotel room and—”

  Tobey suddenly interrupted her. “You should stay with me,” he said.

  There was a long pause. For the first time in the trip Julia was authentically speechless.