Chapter 7 - The Desert Highway
The Ford F-250 ate up the asphalt of Interstate 20 at eighty-five miles per hour, its twin-turbo diesel engine humming with a steady, deep-throated roar that vibrated through the floorboards.
Gavin gripped the steering wheel with both hands, his eyes locked on the white dashed lines of the highway as they flicked beneath the truck’s halogen headlights like falling stars.
The radio was tuned to an AM news station out of Midland, broadcasting emergency bulletins every ten minutes.
“...breaking news regarding the ongoing manhunt for Evelyn Miller, seventy-two, wanted in connection with the federal obstruction probe into the 2021 Cole capital murder case. State police report a sighting of a white twenty-four-foot rental truck matching the suspect’s description near Odessa, heading west toward the Guadalupe Mountains...”
Gavin pressed his foot harder against the accelerator. The truck surged forward, its digital speedometer ticking up to ninety, ninety-five, one hundred.
The West Texas landscape became a blur of dark scrub oak, flat mesas, and the occasional neon sign of an all-night truck stop glowing against the ink-black horizon.
He didn't think about the five years in the concrete box. He didn't think about the trial, or the jury, or the prosecutor whose career was currently evaporating in a cloud of televised disgrace back in Austin.
He only thought of Chloe’s face in the tiny visitation booth—her small hands pulling the sleeves of her oversized coat over her wrists, her hazel-green eyes looking at him with that terrifying, adult courage as she pushed the crumpled Polaroid across the laminate table.
“Tell him I’m sorry. Tell him I had to run.”
Where was Clara?
That was the question burning a hole in the center of his chest. If Clara was alive—if she had been hidden away or driven underground by her mother’s fanatical control—why hadn't she come forward? Why hadn't she called the police, or walked into a precinct, or sent a letter that couldn't be intercepted by Evelyn’s iron-fisted household?
Because she was terrified, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. If Evelyn could fake a murder, frame her own son-in-law, and bury a stranger under her daughter’s name, what would she do to Clara if she tried to go back?
At 1:40 AM, the GPS navigation screen on the dashboard flashed a warning: Approaching state highway 62 junction, Dell City exit. Traffic advisory ahead: Roadblock established by Texas Department of Public Safety.
Gavin slowed the truck down as amber light bars began to paint the desert night ahead of him in rhythmic flashes of orange and blue.
A quarter-mile down the road, a line of state police cruisers blocked both lanes of the highway, their headlights blinding oncoming traffic. Troopers in high-visibility yellow vests stood by the shoulder with shotguns slung over their shoulders, waving cars off onto the gravel frontage road one by one.
Gavin pulled the Ford F-250 to a stop behind a red semi-truck idling near the checkpoint.
A state trooper with a wide-brim Stetson hat and a flashlight walked over to the driver’s side window, shining a beam of intense white light across Gavin’s face.
“Turn off the high beams, driver. Let’s see your license and registration.”
Gavin rolled the window down, the cool desert air rushing into the cab smelling of sagebrush and hot engine oil. He didn't hand over a driver’s license. He held up the red plastic tag with the warden’s brass keys attached to it.
“I’m Gavin Cole,” he said, his voice steady and hard as granite. “I’m looking for a white U-Box rental truck driven by a seventy-two-year-old woman named Evelyn Miller.”
The trooper lowered his flashlight, his eyes narrowing as he recognized the face from the breaking news alerts broadcasting on every tablet and smartphone across the state for the last six hours.
“Mr. Cole,” the trooper said, his tone shifting from routine suspicion to immediate professional deference. “We got a report from a rancher ten miles west of here about twenty minutes ago. A white box truck matching the description blew through a barbed-wire gate on a private ranch road near Sierra Blanca. They’re heading off-road toward the foothills of the Guadalupe range.”
Gavin’s hand tightened on the steering wheel. “Are they boxed in?”
“The road ends at an old gypsum quarry,” the trooper said, tapping the brim of his hat. “There’s no way out except back through here or over the ridge. We’ve got a chopper up with thermal imaging, but it won’t reach the quarry for another fifteen minutes.”
“I’m going,” Gavin said.
“Mr. Cole, that’s federal territory, and—”
“That’s my daughter in that truck,” Gavin interrupted, his voice dropping into a tone that made the trooper step back half a step. “Open the gate.”
The trooper looked at the brass keys, then at the hard, unblinking glare in Gavin’s eyes.
May you like
He turned around, waved his hand at the roadblock sergeant standing by the cruiser, and shouted into his shoulder radio.
“Raise the cones! Let the Ford through!”
