Chapter 4 - The 40-Mile Gauntlet
The engine roared like an enraged beast. The all-wheel-drive tires shrieked against the gravel, kicking up a hail of dirt, shale, and crushed pine needles that sprayed across Sterling’s designer trousers as the car launched backward.
Sterling yelled in shock, stumbling backward onto his hands and knees in the dust.
I whipped the steering wheel hard to the left, executing a violent J-turn in the middle of the loading circle. The tires caught the asphalt of the main driveway with a sharp, burning whine of rubber. I slammed the gearshift into Drive and floored the accelerator, rocketing toward the rustic timber gate of the resort.
“Mom!” Sophie screamed, bracing Maya with both arms as the g-force pressed her into the upholstery.
“Hold her tight!” I yelled, glancing at the side mirror.
Behind us, the black maintenance truck had already lurched into motion. Vance wasn't bothering with the driveway curves; he cut across the open grass of the golf course putting green, his massive diesel engine billowing black smoke into the pristine blue sky, cutting a diagonal intercept path toward the gate.
“He’s going to ram us!” Sophie cried.
The main resort gates were fifty yards ahead—two heavy cedar timber logs suspended between stone pillars.
Vance’s black truck surged onto the gravel lane twenty feet behind my bumper. His steel bull bar was aimed directly at my rear hatch.
I didn't tap the brakes.
I aimed the center of my crossover directly for the wooden gap. Just as the truck lurched forward to clip my rear quarter panel, I tapped the handbrake for half a second, letting the back end kick out, causing Vance’s massive steel bumper to strike only the glancing plastic of my rear tail light.
The impact sounded like a shotgun blast. The plastic shattered into red confetti, but my car held the line, rocketing through the gates and onto County Road 14 at sixty-five miles per hour.
“Sophie! Give me my phone!” I shouted, my eyes glued to the narrow, winding asphalt bordered by dense walls of white birch and pine trees.
Sophie scrambled across the seat, grabbing my phone from the center cup holder. “It’s locked! What’s the passcode?”
“Your birthday! Dial 911!”
Sophie’s thumbs flew across the screen. She pressed the phone to her ear.
Five seconds passed. Then ten.
“Mom... there’s no service!” Sophie sobbed, waving the phone toward the window. “The bluffs are blocking the cell towers! It’s searching for a network!”
In the rearview mirror, the black grille of the Ford truck appeared around the curve, eating up the distance with terrifying horsepower. Vance was driving like a maniac, his high beams flashing blindingly against my mirrors in broad daylight. He didn't care about witnesses; on this forgotten stretch of northern logging road, there wasn't a house or a gas station for twenty miles.
“He’s gaining on us!” Sophie cried, her voice cracking as Maya began to wail, terrified by the roar of the engines and the violent swaying of the car.
“He has more weight, but I have lower center of gravity,” I said, my teeth clenched so hard my jaw ached. “David always said: when a heavy rig chases you on a two-lane ridge, you let the road do the fighting.”
Ahead of us, the road climbed steeply toward Dead Man’s Ridge—a notorious hairpin turn suspended over a forty-foot rocky ravine that dropped down into the churning rapids of the Kettle River. A single, rusted corrugated metal guardrail stood between the asphalt and the abyss.
Vance pulled up alongside my driver’s side, his massive mud tires spinning inches from my door. Through his tinted window, I could see his weathered, leathery face twisted in murderous determination. He jerked his steering wheel to the right, slamming his passenger door into my front fender.
CRUNCH!
Metal squealed against metal. The impact threw my steering wheel to the right, sending my tires skidding toward the soft dirt shoulder.
“Mom!” Sophie screamed.
I didn't fight the skid. I tapped the gas, steering into the slide just enough to keep the wheels on the dirt, waiting for the road signs.
HAZARD - 15 MPH CURVE AHEAD.
The yellow sign flashed past on my right.
Vance pulled ahead by half a car length, positioning his heavy truck to box me into the rock wall on the inside of the curve. He thought I was going to try to brake. He thought I was going to panic.
Instead, I hit the gas again, pulling level with his rear axle.
As the sharp left turn arrived, I didn't turn with him. I stomped on the antilock brakes with all my strength.
My crossover shuddered, the tires howling as the computerized braking system clamped down, bringing my speed from sixty to twenty-five in the span of thirty feet.
Vance, carrying six thousand pounds of steel and momentum at maximum acceleration, couldn't make the turn.
His front tires locked. He tried to yank the wheel, but the heavy diesel truck had already crossed the centerline. The truck plowed straight through the rusted guardrail with a horrific sound of tearing metal and splintering wood, launching off the edge of the ridge like a missile, crashing down through the pine branches into the rocky creek bed below.
A violent plume of dust, steam, and shattered glass erupted from the ravine.
Then, silence fell over the ridge.
I brought the crossover to a halt in the middle of the empty road, my engine idling roughly, steam hissing from the dented radiator.
In the back seat, Maya was crying loudly, her little lungs working with fierce, undeniable life.
Sophie sat with her head between her knees, sobbing uncontrollably with relief, her hand pressed flat against the baby’s chest.
I looked at the dashboard.
May you like
Five bars of 5G cellular signal had just illuminated on my phone’s screen.
I reached out, picked up the receiver, and dialed the three digits that would bring Marcus Sterling’s empire of blood crashing down into the light.
