High Rhymes and Misdemeanors Read Online Free PDF

choice but to step on the gas. Her speedometer climbed as the blue mini bounced along over the narrow, potholed road.
    It had been a mistake to speed up. The van stayed right on her tail, lights flashing, horn blaring.
    God help them if they met opposing traffic. The driver of the van had to be crazy, Grace thought, concentrating on keeping the mini under control. Up ahead it looked like there might be room to pull off where a dirt lane turned off into the woods.
    The mini flew, rattling as it hit another missing chunk in the road. The van stuck to Grace’s bumper like glue. As Grace risked a peek in her rearview she glimpsed what appeared to be an old woman crouched over the van steering wheel. The woman’s long gray hair flew around wildly. Another lumpish figure sat beside her.
    The van drew closer still, its black face filling the rear window of the mini. To Grace’s angry amazement she felt a tremendous bang as the van rammed the bumper of the mini. It was not a hard hit but the mini swerved, its left fender screeching horrendously as it scraped along the stone wall to the accompaniment of whirling Irish fiddles.
    Grace wrenched the car back on course, trying not to panic as the van loomed behind her once more. Once again the van slammed into the mini’s bumper and she fought for control.
    The turnoff lay just a few yards ahead.
    Three yards.
    Two yards.
    Grace cut the wheel sharply and the mini spun out, gravel spraying beneath its tires. Very nearly turning over, the mini rocked back onto all four tires, managing to stay upright, and sat there, its engine running.
    Shaking, Grace leaned over the wheel, fully expecting to see the black van go hurtling past in her side mirrors. Instead the van screeched up perpendicular to the mini, effectively blocking entrance to the road. The cab doors flew open and two men got out, striding to where Grace idled.
    Shock held her speechless. For a moment she thought it might be Mutt and Jeff, but no, something about their height and builds didn’t match up. One of the men was a little taller, one was a little broader. They were dressed in dark casual clothes, jeans and sweaters, and they wore wigs and Halloween masks: the taller man, a flop-eared hound dog; his stockier companion, a beaming caricature of the late Queen Mother.
    The driver, the Queen Mother, reached the mini first, and yanked on the passenger door handle, which was fortunately locked. Belatedly Grace’s survival instincts kicked into gear. She turned the key in the ignition, which was already running, causing an alarming grinding of the engine.
    Fumbling, she found the unfamiliar shift and threw the car into reverse, dislodging the second man who was tugging on the handle of her door.
    As the first man thumped hard on the windshield, Grace looked up. He was pointing an enormous black gun at her. The glass between them seemed like no barrier at all as he made a convincingly threatening gesture.
    Grace didn’t know what to do. In her entire life she had never faced a genuinely violent situation—barring the occasional brawl between the young ladies of St. Anne’s. She had never held a real gun, let alone had one pointed at her. Staring wide-eyed, Grace tried to think with a brain that felt freeze-dried.
    “Get out of the car!” The man on Grace’s side pounded on her window. He wore black leather gloves, deadening the sound of blows heavy enough to break the glass.
    Grace turned off the engine and the car shuddered to a stop. Numbly she felt for the seat belt release. She unlocked the door. What choice did she have? They could shoot the tires of her car and smash the window in. They could shoot her through the window for that matter. Even if she could get past the guns, she wasn’t going anywhere with their van blocking the main road.
    The man sporting the hound dog mask jerked open the car door and grabbed Grace’s arm, dragging her out of the mini. Grace fell against the side of the car.
    The other man, the