Dead Run Read Online Free PDF Page B

up here and sit in the front. I'll be needing the backseat to accommodate this dress. If it gets wrinkled, the appliqués poke out this way and that, and I end up looking like I've been run through a paper shredder."
    "It's a pretty amazing dress," Sharon said, giving her the once-over.
    "I knew there was hope for you, darlin'."
    After a minute on the road, Sharon said, "This feels weird."
    "What, the car?"
    "Nah. Going on a road trip with a couple of women."
    "You've been on road trips with men?" Annie asked from the backseat, immediately intrigued.
    "A couple. I wouldn't recommend it, though. Guys have this thing about getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. No side trips.
    They never want to stop and look at anything. And they never have to go to the bathroom either."
    "Yeah, yeah, I know all that, but who'd you go on a road trip with? Sheriff Halloran?"
    "God, no. Elias McFarressey. He played the accordion, among other things."
    Annie's jaw dropped. "You dated a man who played the accordion?"
    "It was Wisconsin. You kind of had to be there."
    "I'm seeing Lawrence Welk."
    "It wasn't quite that bad. Grace, do you know where you're going?"
    "I figured I'd head east until you tell me to make a turn."
    "That'll work. I'm better than any GPS, at least in Wisconsin."
    "Good thing, because I don't have one."
    "I thought all these fancy rides had GPS."
    "Grace wouldn't hear of it," Anne said. "Too Big Brother. They always know where you are with a GPS."
    Sharon cocked her head at Grace. "And who is 'they'?"
    Grace shrugged. "Could be anybody."
     
     
     
    DOWN THE LONG DRIVE that led to the Wittig farm, behind the barn and out of sight of the road, three figures in bulky white suits stood motionless in the tall grass bordering a paddock fence, looking as alien in this landscape as the barn would have looked on the moon.
    Through the thick transparent shields in their helmets, three pairs of busy eyes watched the slow progress of a big green tractor with a blade doing work it was never designed for. Flattening the grass with heavy, dirt-caked treads, the machine lumbered inexorably toward a lip of land behind the paddock that sloped down to a small lake. Behind the tractor, at the end of a long chain with links as fat as a man's fist, the dairy tanker followed as obediently as a dog on a leash.
    Behind his shield, Chuck Novak's lips compressed and he tasted salt. Rivulets of sweat were coursing down his reddened face-sweatborn as much of fear as of the unrelenting heat that turned the heavy suit into a portable sauna. His companions were sweating, too, but their expressions revealed none of the nervousness that was churning in Chuck's stomach like acid in a Mixmaster. Maybe they weren't afraid. Maybe they'd understood the hurried lecture about vacuums and pressure and molecular weights that was so far beyond Chuck's high-school education it might as well have been delivered in Chinese-maybe they were a hell of a lot more certain than he was that all the gas had long since escaped from the milk truck's stainless-steel tank, just like the Colonel had said.
    But if that was true-if there was no danger whatsoever that any of the lethal gas lingered-why the hell did they have to wear these suits? Why had all the others been pulled back out of range until they were finished with the truck?
    Because somebody wasn't a hundred percent sure,Chuck thought.
    He blinked sweat out of his eyes and watched the tractor grind to a halt at the edge of the slope, then ease back to put slack on the chain. For a long moment, none of the three white-suited men moved, then one of them waddled toward the back of the tractor to release the chain. The second man headed toward the front of the truck, and after taking a deep, shaky breath of canned air, Chuck brought up the rear.
    The thick, bulky gloves attached to the arms of their suits foiled dexterity, and it seemed to take them a long time to release the chain from the oily undercarriage of