Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Sedan
The sedan idled beneath a dead streetlamp with its rear door open.
Rain blurred the person inside.
“Elise, get in.”
The voice belonged to a woman.
Not Mara.
I backed away.
Behind me, a gate slammed open.
Caleb was coming through the neighbors’ yard.
The woman leaned across the back seat, and the dome light caught her face.
Late fifties. Silver-blond hair cut blunt at the jaw. No panic in her expression.
“You have six seconds,” she said. “Your sister sent me.”
“What’s her middle name?”
The woman blinked.
“Celeste.”
Wrong.
Mara did not have a middle name.
I turned to run.
The woman caught my wrist as I passed the open door.
I swung the picture frame I was still somehow holding.
The broken wood struck her shoulder.
She cursed and released me.
Then Caleb emerged from the darkness twenty yards away.
“Elise!”
I ran toward the main road.
My bare feet slapped wet pavement.
Every porch was dark. The neighborhood felt staged, emptied of witnesses.
My phone still had no service.
I reached a corner and nearly collided with a delivery van parked crookedly by the curb.
The driver’s door opened.
A young man in a grocery-store jacket stepped out holding both hands up.
“Whoa. Are you okay?”
I looked behind me.
Caleb had stopped running.
He stood beneath a maple tree, breathing hard.
The sedan rolled slowly into view behind him.
The silver-haired woman got out.
Nobody rushed me.
Nobody needed to.
I looked at the delivery driver.
“Do you have a phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Call 911.”
His eyes flicked past me.
Then back.
“Sure.”
He reached into his jacket.
The old clock ticked inside my pocket.
Tick.
Tick-tick.
The young man’s hand came out holding a black plastic rectangle the size of a car key.
Not a phone.
I jumped backward.
He clicked it.
A sharp pulse of pain ran through my thigh.
My leg folded.
I hit the pavement.
The device was a contactless stun weapon.
Caleb shouted, “I said no force!”
The silver-haired woman answered, “You said a lot of things.”
I tried to crawl, but my leg spasmed.
Caleb reached me first.
He knelt in the rain.
“Look at me.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“Elise, Noah is safe.”
“You don’t get to say his name.”
Something tightened in his face.
The silver-haired woman approached.
“Take the key,” she said.
Caleb did not move.
“Caleb.”
“I heard you.”
I curled my fingers around the steel key in my pocket.
The woman crouched.
“We can do this without frightening your son.”
I stared at her.
“Who are you?”
She smiled faintly.
“Someone who has known you longer than your husband has.”
Then a siren sounded far away.
Everyone looked toward the main road.
The grocery-jacket man swore.
The woman said, “Move.”
Caleb slipped an arm under mine.
I drove my thumb into the soft tissue beneath his jaw.
He grunted and loosened his grip.
I rolled away, reached under the delivery van, and shoved the steel key into the first seam I could find on the black plastic undercarriage.
It fit.
A tiny magnetic compartment popped open.
Inside was a memory card wrapped in clear plastic.
The clock key had opened a hidden case attached to the van.
The van had been waiting here before I escaped.
This was not luck.
This was a route.
Mara’s route.
I grabbed the card.
The silver-haired woman’s expression finally cracked.
“Stop her.”
The sirens grew louder.
The young man lunged.
I rolled beneath the van as tires splashed through the intersection.
Blue lights flashed across the wet road.
A county police cruiser stopped sideways.
Two officers jumped out.
“Hands! Let me see your hands!”
The silver-haired woman immediately raised hers.
So did Caleb.
The young man dropped the stun device.
I crawled out from beneath the van, shaking so badly I could barely stand.
“Help me,” I told the nearest officer. “They broke into my house. My husband—he has fake passports. My sister is FBI.”
The officer looked at Caleb.
Caleb said nothing.
The second officer spoke into his radio.
Then he paused.
His eyes moved to me.
“Elise Morrison?”
“Yes.”
His expression hardened.
“Ma’am, step away from the vehicle.”
“What?”
“Put your hands where I can see them.”
I stared at him.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand there’s an active federal warrant for your arrest.”
Caleb closed his eyes.
The silver-haired woman smiled.
The officer pulled out handcuffs.
“For what?” I asked.
May you like
He looked at the screen in his cruiser.
“Espionage.”
