At my 6-year-old granddaughter's funeral, I leaned over her casket to say a final goodbye. Then I heard a faint, desperate scrape from inside. "Daddy said if I woke up, I would ruin everything," she whispered. I froze. My son and his wife had told everyone she died from a sudden contagion. I pried the lid open. As I lifted my breathing grandchild, heavy footsteps rushed down the stairs...

The wind from the semi-truck knocked Eleanor off balance, sending her sliding down the wet gravel slope of the highway embankment. She scrambled to her feet, her hands bloody and caked in mud, and pulled Chloe out of the drainage ditch just as another set of blinding headlights bore down upon them from the north.

"Stay on the shoulder! Wave your arms!" Eleanor shouted over the roar of the engines.

She ripped a red emergency reflector triangle out of the trunk of a disabled sedan parked fifty yards up the road—or rather, spotted it lying near a discarded trash heap—and began waving it furiously at an oncoming Ford F-250 pickup truck.

The truck’s brakes screeched with a deafening wail of metal on wet pavement, tires sliding ten feet on the slick asphalt before coming to a smoking halt ten feet away from them.

The driver’s side door flew open, and a burly man in a high-visibility construction vest jumped out into the rain, holding a heavy flashlight.

"What the hell are you doing in the middle of the highway?! You trying to get yourselves killed?!" the driver yelled over the storm, before his eyes locked onto Eleanor—bareheaded, shivering in a wet silk blouse, holding a small child wrapped in a soaking black wool coat who was crying uncontrollably.

The man’s angry expression vanished instantly, replaced by stunned shock.

"Lady, what happened to you? Get in the truck. Right now. Both of you."

"Listen to me," Eleanor said, grabbing the man’s heavy canvas jacket with both muddy hands, her voice trembling with an intensity that brooked no argument. "You need to lock your doors. There is a man coming through the woods behind us. He is dangerous. Call the Illinois State Police—not the local county precinct, the State Police downtown. Tell them Dr. Eleanor Vance and her granddaughter Chloe are here, and that Julian Vance is trying to kill us."

Before the driver could even ask a question, a figure burst out of the tree line on the embankment above them.

It was Julian.

He stood on the edge of the asphalt, his face twisted in fury, water dripping from his dark hair. In his right hand, he held his heavy metal flashlight like a club.

"Get away from them!" Julian roared, charging down the slope toward the truck. "That’s my mother! That’s my daughter! They’re having a mental breakdown!"

"Get in the truck, lady!" the driver yelled, shoving Eleanor and Chloe into the passenger seat of the cab and slamming the heavy door shut just as Julian reached the side of the vehicle.

Bang! Bang!

Julian slammed his fists against the passenger window, his face pressed against the glass, his eyes wild and desperate.

"Open this door! That’s my kid!" Julian screamed, his voice muffled by the thick safety glass.

The construction worker didn't hesitate. He threw the truck into reverse, spun the steering wheel hard to the left, and hit the gas pedal with a roar of diesel engines. The truck fishtailed on the wet asphalt before rocketing forward down the highway toward the interstate entrance ramp, leaving Julian standing alone in the pouring rain, beating his fists against the empty air.

Inside the warm cab of the truck, Chloe curled up on the center console, burying her face against Eleanor’s wet shoulder, finally letting out a long, shuddering sigh of relief.

Eleanor pulled the heavy wool coat tighter around her granddaughter, her eyes fixed on the dashboard glow of the truck’s radio as the driver fumbled with his cell phone, dialing emergency services with trembling fingers.

"State Police dispatch," a calm voice answered through the speakerphone. "State your emergency."

"Yeah, listen to me," the truck driver said, glancing nervously at Eleanor in the dashboard light. "I picked up two refugees on Route 45 near the forest preserve. The grandmother says her son is trying to murder them, and they need State Police protection immediately. We’re heading south toward the I-90 interchange now."

"Copy that," the dispatcher’s voice replied crisply. "Stay on the line. We have a unit three miles north of your position. Pull over near the toll plaza and keep your hazard lights on."

Eleanor closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the truck seat.