Chapter 3 - The Toll Road to Hell
The glass separated me from a predator by less than an inch.
“Keep Maya covered,” I told Sophie in a low, level voice. My hands, which had been shaking uncontrollably thirty seconds earlier, suddenly locked into granite. The maternal rage that floods a woman’s veins when her cub is cornered took over every synapse in my brain.
I rolled the window down exactly two inches.
The humid outdoor air swept in, carrying the scent of Sterling’s expensive sandalwood cologne mixed with stale tobacco.
“Afternoon, Mrs. Anderson,” Sterling said smoothly. His smile was warm, practiced, and utterly dead behind his cold blue eyes. “I see Sophie made it to the parking turnaround. I was hoping to catch her before she left. There seems to be an administrative discrepancy with her final seasonal checkout.”
“We’re on a tight schedule, Mr. Sterling,” I said, keeping my gaze locked directly on his face, refusing to glance down at the clipboard or back toward the rear seat. “Traffic on Interstate 35 is backed up near Hinckley. If there’s a discrepancy with her paycheck, mail it to our forwarding address in St. Paul.”
Sterling rested his forearm against the roof of my car, leaning down until his eyes were level with mine. The smile vanished, replaced by an expression of cold, predatory entitlement.
“I’m not talking about a paycheck, Karen,” he murmured, dropping the polite pretense. “Sophie has some personal property that belongs to the Whispering Pines corporation. A delicate item left behind by a former employee who failed to fulfill her contractual obligations.”
Behind me, Sophie let out a strangled gasp, pulling the yellow blanket tighter around Maya.
Sterling’s eyes flicked to the back seat, tracking the movement. A small, cruel smirk curled the corner of his lips.
“You see, Karen, your daughter is a very impressionable girl,” Sterling continued, his voice dropping into an intimate, menacing drawl. “She got attached to something that doesn't belong to her. That infant is the child of a non-citizen ward of our international guest program. As the sponsoring agency, Whispering Pines has legal custodial guardianship until federal immigration authorities execute the formal surrender protocol on Monday.”
“You’re a liar,” I said, every word dripping with absolute contempt. “There is no immigration surrender. There’s a private adoption broker who pays sixty thousand dollars under the table for an undocumented infant with no paper trail.”
Sterling’s smirk didn't waver. He simply tilted his head, tapping his signet ring against the metal door frame.
“You’re a smart woman, Karen. A widow, right? Living alone in that charming two-bedroom bungalow off Grand Avenue? Such a quiet neighborhood. It would be a terrible tragedy if an electrical fire started in your basement while you and Sophie were sleeping.”
He stepped back and tapped the hood of my car with the flat of his hand.
“Here is how this works. You unlock the back door. Sophie hands the package to Vance in the truck. Sophie gets in the front seat, you drive back to the Twin Cities, and we forget this summer ever happened. If that car shifts into reverse, my friend Vance puts that heavy Ford right through your radiator. And by the time the county deputy gets out here—the deputy whose campaign my brother funded—you two will be explaining why you attempted to kidnap an infant from a private commercial estate.”
From the back seat, Maya suddenly stirred. A small, hungry whimper escaped her lips.
Sterling’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Unlock the door, Karen. Right now.”
I looked at the rearview mirror. Sophie was weeping silently, her lips pressed against the baby’s forehead, her entire body trembling in terror.
Then I looked at the gearshift.
My late husband, David, had spent twenty years as an interstate truck driver. Before cancer took him, he had taught me how to drive in blizzards, how to handle blowouts at seventy miles per hour, and how to use the full kinetic weight of a vehicle when someone tried to run you off an unlit county shoulder.
“You’re right, Mr. Sterling,” I said quietly, reaching down toward the center console. “Sophie shouldn't have gotten involved.”
Sterling smiled, reaching for the rear door handle. “Good girl. Sensible girl.”
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My hand didn't touch the door lock.
It slammed the transmission lever straight down into Reverse, and my right foot stomped the gas pedal all the way to the floorboards.
