Chapter 4 - THE RIVER ROAD
The rain had turned into a steady, freezing downpour by three in the morning.
Two black-and-white patrol cars sat parked in the tall weeds at the edge of Route 9, three miles south of town, their lights dark.
Detective Brooks stood beside his gray sedan, wearing his dark raincoat, a heavy tactical vest pulled tight over his suit jacket. In his right hand, he held his service weapon—a Glock 19—and in his left, he held a heavy steel flashlight.
Rachel sat in the front passenger seat of Brooks' car, despite his repeated orders for her to stay at the station.
She had refused to leave.
"If Mark has that girl and her baby at the farm," Rachel had told him in the station parking lot, "I'm going. Daniel died because he found out what Mark was doing. I'm not sitting in a plastic chair waiting for a phone call."
Brooks had looked at her heavy stomach, at the fierce, dark light in her eyes, and he hadn't argued further.
Now, looking through the rain-streaked windshield, Rachel could see the dark outline of the old Halston dairy farm sitting two hundred yards off the main road, nestled in a low pocket of land near the riverbank.
It was an ancient, decaying place.
The main barn had collapsed inward years ago, its gray cedar timbers lying like broken ribs in the mud. The farmhouse was a two-story Victorian structure with sagging porches, peeled white paint, and boarded-up first-floor windows.
A single light was burning in the cellar window at the side of the house—a low, yellowish glow that flickered faintly against the wet foundation stones.
"We don't have back-up from the county yet," the sergeant muttered, stepping up to Brooks' window. "State police are twenty minutes out."
"We aren't waiting twenty minutes," Brooks said grimly. "If Halston realizes Eli gave up the farm, he'll clear that cellar out before four AM."
He tapped the glass of Rachel's window. "Stay in the car, Rachel. Lock the doors from the inside. If you see anyone approach this vehicle who isn't wearing a uniform, hit the horn and hold it down."
Rachel nodded, her knuckles white as she gripped the door handle. "Be careful, Caleb."
Brooks pulled his radio from his belt. "Units one and two, move in on foot from the west side. Maintain radio silence until we reach the perimeter."
Rachel watched through the rain as Brooks and three uniformed officers disappeared into the high corn stubble that lined the driveway.
The rain beat against the roof of the car—tap, tap, tap, tap—a endless, hypnotic sound that felt like time running out.
Five minutes passed. Then ten.
Down at the farmhouse, the low light in the cellar window suddenly went dark.
Rachel’s heart leaped into her throat.
She leaned forward, her face pressed against the cold glass of the passenger window.
Out of the darkness behind the collapsed barn, a set of dark, round shapes moved through the mud.
It was a car—a heavy, old-model diesel Mercedes sedan, creeping along the old tractor path that led toward the river road without turning on its headlights.
It was bypassing the main driveway where Brooks and his officers were approaching on foot.
"No," Rachel whispered.
The sedan was heading straight for the narrow service lane that exited onto Route 9 just fifty yards from where Brooks' car was parked.
Rachel looked at the dashboard.
The keys were hanging in the ignition; Brooks had left the engine idling to keep the heater running for her.
Rachel didn't think about her ribs. She didn't think about her unborn child. She didn't think about the eight months of grief and terror that had stripped her life down to a hollow shell.
She threw off her seatbelt, slid across the center console into the driver's seat, and slammed her foot onto the gas pedal.
The gray Ford sedan lurched forward, its tires spinning wildly in the wet gravel before catching traction.
She roared down the shoulder of Route 9, turning the wheel hard to the right just as the dark Mercedes nose pulled out of the service lane.
CRASH!
The heavy steel front bumper of Brooks' car slammed into the driver's side door of the Mercedes with a deafening screech of tearing metal and shattering glass.
The impact threw Rachel forward against her seatbelt, the air bag deploying with a loud BANG, filling the cabin with white chemical dust and the hot smell of singed nylon.
The Mercedes was knocked sideways into the ditch, its rear wheels spinning helplessly in the deep, water-logged mud.
Rachel gasped for air, her stomach aching terribly where the lower strap of the belt had caught her, but her hands were steady.
She threw her door open and tumbled out into the freezing rain.
The driver's door of the Mercedes was jammed shut by the impact, but inside the dark cabin, a man was violently kicking at the frame.
With a loud crack, the door gave way, and Mark Halston tumbled out into the mud.
His expensive suit was covered in grease and rainwater. His forehead was bleeding from a deep cut where his head had struck the side window, but in his right hand, he was holding a heavy blue steel revolver.
He scrambled to his feet, wiping the blood from his eyes, his revolver rising toward Rachel.
"You stupid, miserable bitch!" Halston roared over the sound of the rain. "You should have stayed in your dead husband's house!"
Rachel stood her ground in the middle of the road, her bathrobe soaked through, her heavy belly exposed to the freezing wind.
"Where is Clara?" Rachel screamed at him. "Where is the baby?"
Halston pulled the hammer back on the revolver with a sharp, heavy click.
"They're in the trunk," Halston spat, his face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated venom. "And now you're going in there with them."
Before his finger could tighten on the trigger, a brilliant, blinding white light cut through the rain from fifty yards down the path.
"POLICE! DROP THE WEAPON!"
Brooks was running across the muddy field, his Glock raised in both hands, his heavy boots throwing up clouds of wet soil.
Halston spun around toward the voice, raising his revolver to fire into the dark.
THWACK-THWACK!
Two rapid gunshots echoed through the night air.
Halston’s body jerked violently. His arms flew outward, the revolver slipping from his fingers and dropping into the mud, before his knees gave way and he collapsed face-first into the flooded ditch.
Brooks didn't even check the man's pulse.
He sprinted past Halston's body, reached the rear of the Mercedes, and pulled a heavy tire iron from his coat pocket.
He jammed the iron into the seam of the trunk lid and leaned his whole body weight onto it.
With a sharp screech of metal, the lock snapped open.
The trunk popped up six inches.
Rachel stepped forward, leaning over the back of the car as Brooks threw the trunk lid wide.
Lying inside the cramped, dark space, curled around a small, shivering shape wrapped in a wet yellow blanket, was a young woman with hollow, dark eyes and pale, blue lips.
In her arms, pressed against her neck to keep it warm, was a tiny newborn baby—its eyes open, its tiny chest rising and falling in shallow, desperate breaths.
"I have her," the girl whispered, her voice cracking with cold and terror as she looked up at Rachel. "I held onto her..."
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Rachel dropped to her knees in the mud beside the trunk, reaching out with both hands to wrap the girl and her child in her warm, dry arms.
"It's over," Rachel sobbed, tears mixing with the rain on her face as she pulled the baby close against her own beating heart. "You're safe now. You're both safe."
