Chapter 14 - The Safe Haven
I didn't brake. In high-stakes freight logistics, the golden rule of heavy-vehicle collisions is momentum control.
I gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled intensity, stomped on the gas pedal of my heavy all-wheel-drive SUV, and veered sharply into the gravel turnaround of the municipal water authority building.
The gray sedan, misjudging my speed and weight, attempted to follow the turn too fast. Its bald tires lost traction on the icy gravel. The Malibu fishtailed wildly, its rear quarter-panel violently clipping an industrial concrete barrier with a sickening crunch of tearing sheet metal and shattering glass.
Behind me, Sadie let out a startled whimper, but Theo slept through the impact.
I didn't stop to inspect the damage. I gunned the engine, spun the SUV back onto the asphalt, and sped directly toward the brightly lit entrance of the 4th Precinct police station, just four blocks away.
Within ninety seconds, I pulled into the precinct’s emergency drop zone, leaning hard on the horn.
Four armed officers poured out of the double glass doors, sidearms unholstered, as I jumped out of the vehicle and pointed back toward the access road.
"A gray Malibu just tried to ram my vehicle on Elmwood!" I shouted, holding my hands visible. "My children are in the back seat! The driver is Evelyn Vance or Greg Vance—they have an active felony warrant!"
Two patrol cruisers tore out of the lot, their sirens screaming into the night.
Ten minutes later, the radio dispatch confirmed it: the gray Malibu had been found abandoned three hundred yards from the concrete barrier, high-centered in a drainage ditch.
The driver’s door was hanging open. Inside the glove compartment, officers recovered a loaded snub-nosed revolver, two rolls of industrial duct tape, and two international one-way bus tickets to Toronto.
Evelyn was nowhere to be found. She had fled on foot into the dense suburban woods, swallowed by the freezing dark.
"We have K-9 units sweeping the ravine, Mrs. Vance," the precinct commander told me an hour later, handing me a paper cup of black coffee as I sat in the family support room. Sadie was asleep against my chest, and Theo was curled up in an officer's fleece jacket on the sofa. "She won't last three hours in this temperature without shelter. But your husband wasn't with her."
"Where is Greg?" I asked, my voice deadly level.
"We executed a search warrant on his motel room forty minutes ago," the commander said, his face troubled. "He checked out at noon. He withdrew the final three thousand dollars from an emergency ATM in cash. He’s in the wind, ma'am."
"Then he’s coming to my house," I said. "He knows the layout. He knows where the breaker box is. He knows everything."
"We will station two cruisers at your residence round the clock," the commander promised.
May you like
"No," I replied, standing up with Sadie securely cradled in my arm. "Cruisers outside just mean he’ll wait for an opening. I need an escort back to the house to pack three bags. My children and I are not sleeping there tonight."
***
