Check it out below, and stay tuned to EW for an excerpts from book 5 in the series.
All six tie-ins go on sale Friday.
Luke is pissed because, weirdly, the traffic is bumper to bumper.
Credit: Christos Kalohoridis/NBC
It isnt supposed to be this way.
Not in this direction at this time of day.
Luke squints, trying to make out the problem ahead.
Lane closed due to construction?
The only reason hes driving is because Joannes jaw hurts.
Usually she prefers to be the one behind the wheel.
But Luke questioned the wisdom of driving one-handed while holding an ice pack to her face.
Cant you find a way around this mess?
We shouldnt be stuck here like this.
Theres nowhere to go.
Luke wishes traffic were moving for a number of reasons.
For one, they really need to get out of Atlanta as quickly as possible.
Memorys a tricky thing.
After a while, you cant be sure if youre inventing certain details, maybe subtracting others.
And that uncertainty triggers his obsession with all the tiny forensic details.
Luke cant help it; hes a detail man.
Seeing the little things everyone else misses has always been the key to his success.
Some of his patients, he knows, come to see him instead of an M.D.
Hes sort of a modern-day soothsayer with a D.D.S.
So wheres that keen eye for detail now?
Come on, think, buddy.
Youve got nothing better to do.
Youre stuck in traffic.
The wifedid she bite one of them?
Scratch her nails across his arm?
Did Luke step through the remnants of dinner and leave a boot print?
Sure, they set everything on fire.
But would fire be enough to erase all the traces of those they left behind?
The car ahead of them lunges forward a few feet, then stops dead.
Then it begins to roll forward a few more feet, and a few more.
Joanne bucks in her seat.
Almost immediately her hand goes to her mouth.
They crawl forward another few feet, then slam to another halt.
This is purgatory on asphalt.
This, Luke thinks, will never, ever end.
I was wondering, Luke finally says.
If we forgot something.
You know, back at the Shelby house.
What do you mean, forgot something?
Luke can hear the annoyance build in her voice.
She hates it when he dances around the point.
So he comes out and says it.
I mean something forensic.
Like a hair, or skin under fingernails.
The bitch didnt claw at me.
She got in a lucky punch.
It was a frenzied couple of minutes, thats for sure.
The idea was to catch the Shelbys right before they sat down to dinner.
If somebody was going to kill us, when would they do it?
Luke had understood what she was getting at right away.
So the two of them watched the Shelbys long enough to establish their pattern.
They both arrived home between 5:45 and 6 p.m.
This meant that dinner a.)
would be ready within ten minutes or b.)
would not arrive before 6:30 at the earliest.
Which was a generous window of time, considering most murders barely stretch beyond the 10-second mark.
Tonight had been a wine-and-microwaved meal kind of night.
The distraction, and then the kill.
The husband was the Evo.
The rumor was that he could manipulate microwave and cell-phone radiation and wireless signals.
(Pro-tip: if youre an Evo, dont show off to friends with Facebook accounts.
No matter how cool you think you are.)
He looked like a faith healer trying to exorcise demons from his suppereyes closed, hands trembling a little.
The creepy thing was, the dinner was cooking under his hands.
Plastic cover trembling, sauce bubbling.
Luke could smell the heavy aroma of cheese, even through the glass.
Luke saw the box on the counter and noticed that the couple was eating vegetarian tonight.
Pasta, brie, and asparagus.
Trying to keep the middle-aged flab off, he supposed.
Well, consider the battle won.
You two wont gain another pound.
Especially after youre brain-dead.
The hit went off just as plannedat first.
Joanne knocked, distracting the wife, sending her to the front door.
The moment she walked away, Luke slid pop pop the deck door, startling Mr. Microwave.
The double impact of the bullets sent the husband flying backwards.
He reached out towards his half-cooked supper as though it might save him.
His body landed among the remains of his intended meal.
Dinners ready, honey.
Mrs. Shelby, however, was much more quick-witted than her husband.
Shed just opened the front door when the shots rang out.
The plan was for Joanne to do the same to the wifetake her out with two torso shots.
But before Joanne could lift her gun, the wife slammed the door shut in her face.
She lowered her gun and blasted apart the doorknob, then kicked the door in.
The wife was waiting for her.
Which just pissed her off.
This Evo-harboring bitch was going down.
But Luke had already cleared the distance between the kitchen and the living room.
As far as they knew, Mrs. Shelby didnt have any powers.
But that might just mean she was better at hiding them.
So the double murder is fresh in his mind as they inch along the highway.
Luke feels no remorse about the Shelbys.
But because the hit went a little sideways, he finds himself endlessly picking over each moment.
Perhaps even leave a useable shoe print that the police could trace back to him?
(No, the fire would take care of that…
Round and round he goes until the sound of panic in Joannes voice snaps him out of it.
Oh, bloody hell, she says.
I cant see…
A police checkpoint.
How is that even possible?
Calm down, she says.
We dont know its for us.
Should I attempt to find an exit?
There are no exits.
Besides, that would look more than a little suspicious, dont you think?
Careening through traffic in a desperate bolt for a ramp?
Maybe one of us really has to use the bathroom… Aw, shit!
This is not good.
Not good at all.
Will you calm down?
As they edge towards the checkpointLuke can see it nowits impossible for him to remain calm.
On the plus side, hes no longer obsessing over the crime scene.
Instead, he finds himself imagining ways they might escape a police checkpoint.
There was theram-our-way-throughmethod, in the hope that the cops havent set up strips of spikes on the asphalt.
There was also theshoot-our-way-outmethod, though theyd almost certainly be outmanned and outgunned.
Or there was simply surrender and arrest.
But that wasnt a real option, because that would be admitting that everythingincluding his marriagewas over.
This road trip is the only thing keeping it together.
Weve got to do something, Luke says.
Just wait until were closer, Joanne says.
See what were up against.
Were up against the police, thats what were up against!
But as they inch closer, they see that isnt quite the case.
Sure, its technically the Atlanta PD bringing traffic to a crawl.
And theyre stopping every third caror fourth.
The selection seems random.
Then the swab is handed back to check the result.
The test seems to work fast.
The test to see if anyone traveling along this highway happens to be an Evo.
What are they doing?
Ive read about this, Luke says.
Theyve just started doing it in major cities.
Random searches for Evos.
They can tell that with a swab of your cheek now, huh?
I wish we could get a hold of some of those testing kits.
It would make our job a lot easier.
As if this is what they do for a living.
In a sense, though, it is.
And with some quick counting, he realizes theyll probably be fine.
They pass through the checkpoint without a swab or even a lingering stare.
No one suspects a thing.
A cop waves them on.
They continue up the highway.
All of Lukes fretting about being arrested was for nothing.
Of course, the point isnt merely to stay free.
The point is to stay free so they can find their next target.
