Chapter 29 - The Road Out
I dragged myself up to my feet, my muscles screaming in protest. My breath came in ragged, wheezing gasps as I stumbled into the nursery.
"I’m here, Emma. Mommy's here," I sobbed, lifting her out of the crib. She was shaking, her tiny face flushed red, her little fists beating against the air. As soon as I pressed her against my chest, feeling the wild, fragile flutter of her heart against mine, she burrowed her face into my neck, her cries turning into small, shuddering hiccups.
"I’ve got you," I whispered into her downy hair. "I’ve got you."
I grabbed the heavy wool diaper bag, shoved the charred lockbox papers and the medical records inside, and pulled my heavy winter parka over both of us, zipping it up around Emma so only her face was exposed to the biting air.
I crept back down the stairs, stepping carefully over Marcus's outstretched legs. I checked his wrist. There was a pulse—faint, slow, but there. He was alive, but he wouldn't be standing anytime soon.
The cabin was a ruin. The front door was splintered, the window shattered, the living room coated in a layer of soot, snow, and blood. There was no safety here. If Marcus had found me, others would, too. Evelyn had lawyers, private investigators, and offshore fixers who had been living off the Vance trust for decades.
I stepped out into the freezing night.
The blizzard had subsided into a thick, silent snowfall. The forest was an eerie landscape of black pine and white drifts. At the edge of the gravel drive, sitting half-hidden behind the snow-draped rhododendrons, was Marcus's black Lincoln sedan. The engine was running, exhaust billowing into the frosty air in thick gray clouds. The driver's door was slightly ajar.
He had left it running so he could make a quick exit with Emma.
I reached the car, pulled open the rear door, and secured Emma’s car seat with shaking hands, double-checking every buckle. Then I climbed into the driver's seat, locked all four doors, and dropped the gear shift into reverse.
The tires spun on the ice for a terrifying second before catching gravel. The sedan surged backward, whipping around in the circular turnaround before I threw it into drive and floored the gas.
The car tore through the snowbanks, its high beams slicing through the wall of white pine.
As we reached the intersection of the private road and Route 9, where the state police cruiser was supposed to be stationed, my headlights illuminated something that made my stomach drop into a bottomless pit.
The cruiser was there.
It was pushed halfway into the drainage ditch, its light bar smashed, its windshield spider-webbed with cracks from an impact. The driver’s side door hung open, flapping in the wind. The cabin of the police car was completely empty.
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And standing in the middle of the dark, two-lane highway, illuminated by the harsh glare of my headlights, was a lone figure wearing a high-visibility highway patrol slicker.
He raised a gloved hand, signaling me to stop.
