POCONO MOUNTAINS NEAR BLESSED CREEK, PENNSYLVANIA FRIDAY EVENING
I T WAS DARKER than Savich was used to, what with no city lights within fifty miles. The moon was a sharp sickle, cutting in and out of bloated black clouds. He rolled down the window and sniffed the air. Snow was coming, he thought, lots of it, more than enough to build a snowman with Sherlock and Sean in the morning; then the three of them could tramp through the beautiful woods filled with spruce and pine to Lake Klister.
Savich started singing one of his favorite country-western songs, written by his friend James Quinlan, as he drove the straight road with snowcapped boulders and stands of thick trees on his left and a guardrail on his right. “A blameless life ain’t no fun at all. I robbed that bank, laughin’ till my belly hurt, till I—”
When there was a sudden pop, loud as a shotgun blast, he flung himself to the side in automatic reaction. The pop was followed by the hard slap of rubber against the asphalt. A blowout, a damned blowout. The Subaru’s steering wheel jerked in his hands as the car’s back end lurched wildly to his left. He gently eased the car into the skid and let up on the accelerator, but the Subaru’s momentum lunged it into a snowbank. Despite his seatbelt, his head slammed against the steering wheel, stunning him for a moment. Then everything was quiet. Savich raised his head, shook it, hoped he hadn’t hurt himself, and slowly climbed out of the car. The back driver’s-side tire had blown.
