The Long Road to Missouri

As he drove away from the braced-for-war Farm Missouri noticed he had spent a pair of hours in vain searching and was no better off than when he started. Valee's office will have been gutted by the Feds, the crime scene photos would still be cooking in a dark room chemical bath somewhere, and he was beginning to wonder why he had bothered at all. The fact that his name had come up in conjunction with Valee's murder wasn't surprising. It was the missing hand that had crawled under his skin and started to itch. Why would the major players be in motion? What could Valee have done to rate a Harlequin? Overkill by any stretch. He was well into his third round of circular reasoning when he caught the glimmer of starlight reflecting off of black metal away on his left.

He didn't have time to react as the onrushing car slammed into his door sending him spinning into the retention ditch on the right side of the road. Missouri felt his head crack into the window on his left and the violent rush of wind that poured in as the shattered fragments of glass tumbled out of the window frame. Struggling to right the spinning car, Missouri's desperate effort amounted to little as the right rear tire caught the lip of a divot sending the car into a barrel-roll down the rest of the embankment. Each time the roof struck the ground he heard the metal frame of his poor Belvedere contract and complain finally rolling to a stop and resting on its passenger door. Missouri coughed against the seatbelt now holding him in place suspended above the ground.

He forfeited the idea of finding his pistol in the aftermath of the wreck and composed himself as quickly as possible knowing he was on borrowed time before the attack resumed. His ears were still ringing with the sound of the impact, but he could still make out the unsettling slam of a door somewhere up the hill behind him.