Deluge (The Best Thrillers Book 2) by James Best (top romance novels txt) 📗

anyone come out of their house to see what was going on. Perhaps that was better. Maybe most of these people had evacuated or were right now struggling in the street traffic to get out.

He suddenly encountered a problem. He needed to turn left to get into the depth of the community, but he was to the right side of the street, and the residential intersection was full of stopped cars. Vehicles inched forward, but no one would leave him a gap to get across the street. He slid down his window and held his badge high to no avail. He wanted to honk, but realized he already had his horn blasting away. Everybody refused to make eye contact. They evidently believed that if they didn’t see him, he didn’t exist. Cars inched forward, giving no quarter to anyone. He had to make himself unavoidable, so he did the unthinkable. He drew his gun and shot a hole in the front fender of the car blocking his passage. He had aimed forward enough to damage only sheet metal, but it frightened the bejesus out of the driver.

Now that Evarts had the man’s attention, he pointed his gun at the left front tire. The bluff worked. The driver vehemently shook his head no. Evarts holstered his gun and lifted his badge, pantomiming that he needed to get through the intersection. The driver nodded and dutifully inched backward. Evarts waited until the car in front inched forward enough for him to get through. He bounded off the curb, across the street, and into the yard on the other side. He still didn’t see any panicked people peeking out of their homes. Word must have spread. Perhaps this was an unnecessary exercise.

The next intersection was clear, so he transitioned back into the street. He checked his watch. It had been nearly four minutes since he’d left the park. He quit honking and listened. No need to strain. He heard what sounded like rolling thunder just beyond the next block. Oh hell, what had he done? He had risked his life for nothing.

Then he spotted a woman pushing a stroller, dragging two children behind her. They were a full block away. He punched it. His senses filled with the noise of squealing tires, the stink of burning rubber, and just beyond the rooflines, the sight of poles and trees pitching and at times toppling. Fear overrode all his other senses. He wasn’t going to make it.

He kept the gas pedal fully depressed until he passed the woman and her children. She looked after him, horrified. He slammed a U-turn, using the handbrake and steering wheel to spin the truck on its rear axle. He had been trained to do this with his Police Interceptor, but had no idea whether it would work with a truck. Thankfully, it worked beautifully. He alternately punched it, then broke hard to come alongside the family. He reached over and threw open the passenger door as the mother opened the back door. Her kids scampered into the back, and she jerked her toddler out of the stroller and jumped into the front seat.

“Go!” she screamed before either door had shut.

Evarts saw the house to his right shudder as if kicked by a giant. He didn’t wait to see what had hit the house. He cranked the wheel hard left and punched it. He knew from surfing that you did not want to be caught perpendicular to rushing water. He righted the truck enough to drive right up the driveway and into the closed garage door across the street. He heard screaming from the woman and the children … and perhaps himself, as he blasted through the garage and then kept it punched as he barreled toward the rear wall. Electrical conduit, plumbing, what? Nothing. He crashed through the rear wall and into the backyard.

“Keep going!” the woman yelled. “Kids, seatbelts, now!”

Instead of chain link, he gratefully saw a wooden slat fence in back. He kept the gas on and bounced haphazardly into the next yard, where he found no exit, so he again aimed for the garage wall, praying that a car did not sit inside. Whew. No car. And the next garage door barely put up any resistance.

“Drive, drive!” she screamed.

A peek in the rearview mirror explained her panic. A mountain of water chased them. How could that be? They were six miles from the dam. Shouldn’t the water have flattened out by now? It looked to his surfer eyes to be about a ten-foot wall of water, and that was just the face of the wave. If it caught them, they would be buried in deep water for a long time … and it was going to catch them unless he found a clean stretch of asphalt. He couldn’t outrun the water while plowing through houses and fences. A clean getaway didn’t appear to be in the offing. A swivel-necked glance assured him that all the windows were closed, but then he realized that might make no difference. The debris carried by the water would surely break the windows. Damn it!

He frantically looked for an escape route. Then he spotted an RV driveway beside the house to his right. Evarts swung into the street against the protests of the woman and then cut into the RV drive just as the wave of water crashed into the street. The dark, filthy water filled his rearview mirror. Now, the 6.2-liter V8 came into play as he saw thirty yards of clear concrete ahead of him. What lay beyond? Another damn fence. He never let off the gas. As he barreled through the fence, he saw street, not another backyard. There were no houses behind this row of homes. Better yet, he was only a single house away from a perpendicular street. Had he picked up enough distance on that concrete drive to make it to the corner?

It was going to be close.

He couldn’t help himself. As he hurtled toward