Chapter 2 - The Hands on the Wheel
When Emma reached the Bentley, the sound was deafening. The continuous drone felt like a physical pressure against her chest.
"Mister?" she called out, reaching up to tap on the cold glass. "Mister, are you okay?"
The man didn't move. A shallow, rattling sound came from his throat, barely audible beneath the blare of the horn. His right arm hung limp at his side, his fingers twitching faintly against the dark carpet of the floorboard.
Emma grabbed the heavy chrome handle of the driver’s door and pulled. To her surprise, the door unlocked with a soft, mechanical click and swung open. The dome light clicked on, illuminating the interior in cool white light.
The smell inside was expensive—fine leather, rich tobacco, and a subtle cologne—but underneath it was the sharp, metallic tang of fear and sweat.
Maxwell Sterling was fifty-eight years old, a man whose name appeared on the bronze plaques of hospital wings and museum galleries across the Midwest, but right now he was just a human body losing its battle against its own heart. His face was a sickly, pale gray, beads of cold sweat standing out on his forehead, his lips tinted a faint, terrifying shade of blue.
The car’s engine was still rumbling softly. Worse, the gear shift lever was still in DRIVE. Only the heavy ridge of frozen snow against the front right tire was keeping the two-ton vehicle from rolling slowly forward into the busy intersection of State Street forty yards ahead.
Emma's heart pounded against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"Mister!" she shouted, grabbing his heavy wool sleeve. He was immense compared to her, a mountain of an adult, heavy and unresponsive.
Slowly, carefully, Emma placed her small boots onto the chrome runner board and hoisted herself up into the cabin. She was so short that standing on the runner meant her chin barely cleared the dashboard.
She reached out with both hands, placed them against Maxwell Sterling’s broad shoulder, and shoved with all the strength in her seven-year-old frame.
He didn't move. His weight was settled heavily forward.
"Please," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears that had nothing to do with the cold. "Please wake up."
She shifted her feet, wedging herself into the narrow gap between the driver's seat and the center console. She placed her right shoulder against his ribs and leaned back, using her whole body as a lever.
With a low, wet gasp, Maxwell Sterling’s torso shifted sideways. His forehead slipped off the leather center of the steering wheel, and the deafening roar of the horn cut off instantly.
The sudden silence that fell over the street was almost violent.
In that quiet space, Emma heard the man’s ragged, uneven breathing. His head rolled back against the leather headrest, his eyes half-open, unseeing and unfocused, fixed on the stitched ceiling of the car.
The car gave a small, terrifying lurch forward as the tires slipped two inches deeper into the snow.
Emma didn't know how to drive, but she had sat in the front seat of her father's old pickup truck enough times to know the red letter P.
She reached across Maxwell’s heavy torso, her hand shaking violently, and grabbed the thick leather gear selector. She pressed the thumb release button and shoved the lever upward with all her weight until it clicked firmly into place.
PARK.
Next to it, she spotted the small toggle switch marked with an A and a circle. She pulled it up. The electronic parking brake engaged with a reassuring, high-pitched whir.
The Bentley settled still.
Emma pulled her pink backpack around to her front, her fingers clumsy with cold as she unzipped the broken pocket. She pulled out the index card her father had laminated with clear packing tape—the emergency card that listed his cell phone, her school, and three simple words written in his heavy, dark handwriting: IN EMERGENCY: 911.
Maxwell’s phone was sitting in the glowing cup-holder cradle, its screen illuminated with an incoming text message from someone named Vance.
May you like
Emma grabbed the phone. It was unlocked. Her small fingers tapped the red emergency button at the bottom of the screen, and she pressed three digits she had rehearsed every night before bed since her mother died.
9 - 1 - 1.
