Past Tense by Freda Vasilopoulos Page B

mate.”
    With an unhurried rolling gait he walked out the door. A moment later the roar of a diesel engine announced his departure.
    The rain was falling with relentless persistence from a leaden sky when Tony and Sam returned to the car. The street lay deserted, its cobblestones shining darkly in the dull light.
    The blue Mini was gone. “Guess he wasn’t in the pub after all,” Tony remarked. “I didn’t see anyone leave.”
    More coincidence? They’d seen the Mini twice in a space of hours. She’d seen a black Jaguar a number of times over the past week, although she still hadn’t managed to get a license number. Was somebody shadowing her? Or was it really just one of those happenstances that occur every so often?
    “Maybe they had business elsewhere,” she said.
    “Probably.” He started the car. “Do you want the motorway, or shall we take the scenic route?”
    As a date, it had been a dud. Not sure whether to cut it short, or to hope that something could still be salvaged, she hesitated.
    “The scenic route, I think,” Tony decided for her.
    The road, bordered by hedges on one side, was narrow and twisting. Tony drove with skill and confidence on what still felt like the wrong side of the road to Samantha. When he asked her if she’d like to try the car, she barely restrained herself from reacting with horror.
    “No, you drive. I’m enjoying the ride.” Her lips felt stiff and she wondered if he noticed.
    “You have a license, don’t you?” he asked.
    “Of course I have.” A Canadian one. “But since I don’t have a car at the moment, I’m out of practice,” she lied.
    “Out of practice, or just not used to these roads?” he asked, more curtly than he’d intended. Frustration welled up in him. He’d learned nothing. All his questions and gentle probes had been met with silence or evasions.
    She’d taken the risk. She would bluff again and hope to get away with it. But after today she would make sure she didn’t see him again. Lifting her chin, she cast him an imperious look before returning to her contemplation of the rain-streaked windshield. “I’ll have you know I’ve been driving since—Tony, look out!”
    From a narrow driveway, a truck, gray as the weather, lurched toward them. Tony swung the steering wheel in a frantic half circle. The tires skidded on the rain-slicked asphalt, sending the car toward a ditch on the opposite side of the road. At the last second Tony regained control, swerving the car inches from the truck’s heavy steel bumper.
    Samantha covered her face as metal scraped metal with a sickening shriek. The car spun around, once, twice, before shuddering to a stop on the soft grassy verge of the road.
    All was still, except for the patter of rain on the roof and the low throb of the engine. Incredibly, the car was still running.
    Even more incredibly, Samantha felt no pain, only a creeping numbness in her extremities as the overdose of adrenaline drained away. Prying her hands off her face, one finger at a time, she opened her eyes, swiveling her gaze to Tony.
    He blinked a couple of times, then shifted his legs as if they, too, had gone numb. As his foot slipped off the clutch, the engine died with a rough cough. The wiper completed a final swipe across the cascade of rain and the dash warning lights flared red.
    The car appeared intact, rear wheels in the ditch, headlights pointing across the empty road. The truck was gone, the landscape hazy and dismal, as mist closed in around them.
    Tony sat with his hands on the steering wheel. His face was white, his lips pressed into a grim line. “Are you all right?” he asked tightly, without looking at her.
    She stretched her legs. Feeling was returning to them, a fine trembling that made every muscle weak. Taking a deep breath, she laughed shakily. “Yes, I’m all right. Good thing we’ve got seat belts.”
    “Yeah.” A single, abrupt syllable.
    He restarted the car, putting it into gear and gently feeding