Now he was driving with the sun melting the hood and the radio spitting half country, half static. Somewhere just outside a town called Meridian Bluff, a sound started dragging underneath the car. At first it sounded like a hum. Then it turned into a complaint. Then it became that clear, hateful sound a tire makes right before it gives up.

“Not now, you ragged bitch,” he muttered at the steering wheel.

The car began to tilt. Leo fought it as best he could, pulled it over, and stepped out into a wave of heat. The left rear tire was dead. Not just flat. Dead. He crouched, opened the trunk, pulled out the spare, and found exactly what he had feared.

That one was dead too.