Chapter 33 - The Amber Alert That Never Was
The Subaru’s rear bumper tore through the bottom panel of the wooden garage door with a deafening crash of splintering cedar. Tires shrieked as David whipped the steering wheel hard to the left, pivoting the car on the gravel driveway and sending stones ricocheting against the undercarriage.
Through the side mirrors, David saw two men in dark suits sprint around the corner of the house. One of them reached under his tailored coat, drawing a semi-automatic weapon, but the other caught his arm, shouting and pointing down the road. They couldn't shoot—not in broad daylight, not in a wealthy coastal neighborhood.
David slammed the pedal to the floor. The Subaru surged down the driveway, hit the main asphalt road, and blasted north toward the coastal highway.
"David! Your phone!" Leah screamed, pointing at the dashboard console.
The car’s touchscreen had suddenly lit up with a blinding emergency broadcast banner. The piercing, multi-frequency tone of an Amber Alert filled the cabin, shrieking like a dying bird.
*EMERGENCY ALERT: CHILD ABDUCTION. Maya Vance, age 1. Suspects: David Vance and Leah Vance. Driving a silver Subaru Outback, Oregon Plate 792-MKL. Suspects considered armed and extremely dangerous. Call 911 immediately.*
David stared at the screen, bile rising in the back of his throat.
"They hijacked the state alert system," he snarled, slamming his fist against the wheel. "Evelyn’s network reaches into the state telecommunications hub. Every cop between here and Portland is going to be hunting us within five minutes."
"How can she do this from an asylum?!" Leah cried, tears finally spilling over her cheeks as she turned around to touch Maya’s small, warm cheek. "She’s locked in a maximum-security ward! She has twenty-five years!"
"She has money," David said, his jaw locked tight. "And she has people on payroll who were loyal to whatever she and my father built thirty years ago."
He reached out, grabbed his smartphone, and hurled it out the cracked window. It smashed into a hundred pieces against the coastal rocks.
"Toss yours, Leah. Right now."
Leah didn't hesitate. She threw her phone out behind his.
Ahead of them, the coastal highway split. To the right lay the interstate heading toward the safety of Seattle. To the left lay Route 6—an abandoned logging route cutting through hundreds of square miles of dense, ancient redwood forest, leading to the coordinates Arthur had sent.
In his rearview mirror, two flashing red-and-blue light bars materialized over the crest of the hill.
State troopers.
"Hold on," David whispered.
May you like
Instead of staying on the asphalt, David jerked the wheel sharply to the left, cutting straight through an overgrown dirt embankment. The Subaru bounded violently, mud spraying over the windshield as they plunged off the highway and into the suffocating green canopy of the deep woods.
***
