Chapter 17 - The Voice on the Other End
I scrambled into the thick brush on the far side of the road, submerging myself in the ditch until the SUV sped past, its tires throwing sheets of water into the night.
Soaked to the bone, shivering violently from shock and hypothermia, I dragged myself two miles down the unpaved back road until I reached a closed 24-hour gas station near the highway turnoff. Beside the darkened pump bays stood an old coin-operated payphone—a forgotten relic in a digital world.
My hands shook so severely that I dropped the emergency quarter twice into the gravel before shoving it into the slot. I dialed the private direct line of Detective Miller, my father’s oldest friend in the state police department, the man who had promised to protect me if anything ever went wrong.
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times.
"Miller," a gruff voice answered on the fourth ring.
"Uncle Miller... it's Clara," I gasped, tears finally cutting hot tracks through the mud on my cheeks. "It’s Ethan. He’s trying to kill me. He forged my death certificate... he’s drugging me... I have the medical case, the passports, the offshore accounts—"
A heavy silence fell over the receiver. For five agonizing seconds, all I heard was the steady hiss of the line and the rhythmic tap of fingers against a desk.
May you like
Then, a cold, smooth voice responded from the other end. It was not Detective Miller.
"I know, Clara," Ethan said softly into the earpiece. "Miller gave me his phone twenty minutes ago. Now... tell me exactly which payphone you’re standing at, or we finish this the hard way."
