Blake laughed loudly. “Ready?” he called. “Everybody ready?”
“Let’s go!”
The engine raced for a minute. Blake backed the car, then started down the road to Albuquerque.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Before they had come to the gap that cuts a sharp high line of hills and marks the half-way point to Albuquerque, the sun came up. It was gloriously melodramatic over the little crawling black car; it spouted red and orange over the sky, and the fresh midsummer wind was cool and ethereal. Gin held up her chin and closed her eyes for a second, sniffing. Then she opened them hastily, for she was driving and it would not do to go to sleep. Not that she felt sleepy; she was still tingling and wide-awake. She peered into the mirror at Blake, asleep and white-faced in the tonneau, and wondered at his indifference. But the poor kid had been through a rotten night: only in the last half-hour he had stopped jerking and looking back over his shoulder at the empty black road behind them. It was awful to be a kid. Even the law wouldn’t help.
Thinking of the law, she felt afraid again. It was time to ask Teddy the question she had thought of hours before, but had put out of her mind.
“Teddy,” she said in a low voice. He woke from his doze, beside her, and cocked an eyebrow. “Teddy, are we all right with Blake?”
“Why not?” His voice was husky: a morning voice.
“Couldn’t we get into trouble driving off with the car like this?”
“No. It’s his car. His own car.”