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The Harem on the Hill (Part LXXVI)
🕑 Added 2023-01-11 19:58:05 +0000 UTC
You race up the stairs and into the garage, pausing only to grab the silver prancing horse keychain for your Ferrari Portofino off one of a dozen neatly arranged hooks that hold the keys to your fleet of vehicles. It’s an excellent choice for windy roads and has the added benefit of being recently driven.
You immediately regret your decision. The last person to drive the vehicle was your attorney, who is nearly a foot shorter than you are. Valuable seconds are wasted adjusting your seat so that your knees aren't in your nostrils. You can only hope Tina suffered a similar delay squeezing her girth into whatever vehicle awaited her.
Once situated, the Portofino's twin-turbocharged V8 roars to life and you shoot through the gate of your estate like a wild animal released from captivity. You guess Tina has a two-minute head start. Significant, but not insurmountable. Assuming the vehicle that picked Tina up (or was left for her) was an SUV, as its sizable shadow indicated, 45 MPH would be about all it could muster around the tight turns and short straightaways. Maybe 50 if the driver discounted the chance of opposing traffic, which was usually a safe bet but is any bet really safe when your life is at stake?
Conversely, you sail down the switchbacked road at 65 MPH without breaking a sweat. Without braking, period. If your math is correct, you should catch Tina in less than six minutes. Plenty of time to deal with the situation before the trees thin and you reach the ramshackle roadside bait shop that reintroduces civilization.
How you're going to deal with it is another issue entirely. The only weapon at your disposal is the two-ton Italian import you're currently manipulating around hairpin turns. You could force her off the road, but you don't want to kill anyone, especially Tina. Although it's still early spring, the trees are thick. They butt up against the pavement on either side with a lush layer of undergrowth that belies a craggy hillside formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago. Any crash would likely result in severe injury or death.
A better plan would be to block the road. It won't be easy to maneuver past an SUV, but you should have a chance on the straightaways. Then it's just a matter of getting far enough ahead to turn perpendicular. There'd be nowhere for the oversized vehicle to go.
Unless it plowed into you, of course. If betting against oncoming traffic is dangerous, betting that a two-ton sportscar will survive against a three-ton SUV with a quarter-ton's worth of occupants and downhill momentum is suicidal. You don't need mental math equations to tell you that. Still, you're willing to risk it. If Tina's end-game was killing you, she would have done it already.
The Ferrari hugs the blacktop like a long-lost relative. Fortunately, the sleepy road to your property is well-paved and well-maintained (thanks to a generous donation you made to the county commission several years back). As the speedometer touches 70 MPH, trees become green and brown streaks. A flash of white calls your attention to a speed limit sign. 25 MPH. You smile.
Your merriment fades, however, as turn after turn produces nothing but foliage. Either Tina hired Mario Andretti as her driver or her foot is even heavier than the rest of her.
At the six-minute mark, there’s still no sign. At the ten-minute mark, the road grade flattens, trees thin, and you're fishtailing into the dirt lot for "Bob's Bait Shop," a tiny wood shack that looks like a glorified outhouse at the edge of town. A weathered old man--Bob, most likely--stares slack-jawed out a window made nearly opaque with a muck-brown film. You expect he's trying to reconcile someone in a Ferrari fishing for anything other than a hot date or a moving violation.
How did Tina make it down the mountain ahead of you? Unless...she didn't come down at all. There are spots where Tina's vehicle could have eased into the woods and, with as fast as you were going and as dense as the foliage was, you might have missed her. But for what purpose? You chuckle at the absurdity of Tina doubling back and locking you out of your own home--until a check of your phone reveals your security cameras are offline. The scenario no longer seems so absurd.
You strum your fingers on the steering wheel as Bob awaits your next move. What will it be? Your inclination is to race back; however, if Tina is holding your harem hostage she's no doubt prepared for you to show back up at the gate. On the other hand, if Tina did reach town ahead of you, you can only think of one place she’d go. Even if she didn't, it might be a good place to look for clues...or collateral.
What do you do?
