Chapter 9 - THE SILVER TRUCK
Amanda’s body rolled across the hood.
She struck the pavement near the courthouse steps.
The truck kept moving.
Officer Holloway pulled me behind a concrete barrier.
People screamed.
A deputy fired toward the rear tires.
The truck disappeared through traffic.
Amanda was conscious when paramedics reached her.
Her left leg was broken.
Her head was bleeding.
She gripped my sleeve.
“Abigail.”
“She is safe.”
“Paul knows where she is.”
“What do you mean?”
“He took her from school before the hearing.”
Agent Bell arrived within minutes.
A statewide alert was issued.
Paul’s phone was turned off.
His home was empty.
His passport was gone.
Abigail’s bedroom looked untouched.
A stuffed horse remained on the pillow.
A half-finished drawing lay on the desk.
The truck that struck Amanda was found abandoned behind a warehouse.
It had been stolen.
A witness saw a woman leave the vehicle.
The description matched Lorraine.
She had cut her hair.
She had changed clothes.
But the witness recognized the metal file hanging from her belt.
Police rushed to the rental house.
Lorraine was gone.
Daniel claimed he had not seen her.
His ankle monitor showed he had remained inside.
He stood behind the screen door while officers searched.
“Elena is doing this.”
“She turned my mother into a fugitive.”
Officer Holloway looked at him.
“Your mother drove a truck onto a courthouse sidewalk.”
“You cannot prove that.”
“We found her fingerprints.”
Daniel smiled.
“Then arrest her.”
The smile revealed something.
He knew where she was.
He expected police to focus on Lorraine while he did something else.
Agent Bell searched the house again.
The locked room had been emptied after Daniel’s release.
The ledger was already in evidence.
But the photographs were gone.
So were several maps.
A detective found a small scrap of paper inside the furnace.
Most of it had burned.
One line remained readable.
Mercer Ranch.
South well.
Female inventory transfer.
Agent Bell looked at me.
“Do you know the ranch?”
“Daniel said the family sold it years ago.”
“Property records show it still belongs to a trust.”
The ranch sat near the border.
Hundreds of acres.
Abandoned buildings.
Private roads.
A place where a child could disappear.
Federal agents prepared to search it.
Then Daniel’s ankle monitor stopped transmitting.
The front door alarm sounded.
Officers rushed inside.
They found the monitor strapped around a frozen package of meat.
Daniel had escaped through a tunnel beneath the kitchen floor.
The tunnel led toward the backyard.
May you like
It opened beside the porch pillar.
The place where he tied me every morning had hidden his exit the entire time.
