Chapter 2 - The Geometry of Escape
The interstate was a gray ribbon of concrete bordered by dirty snowbanks and the skeleton trees of the Northern Virginia woodlots. I kept the Subaru at sixty-two miles per hour, tucked into the middle lane between a regional delivery truck and a salt spreader that threw small, white crystals against my windshield with the steady, rhythmic sound of gravel hitting a tin bucket.
Lily sat in the passenger seat, her knees pulled up into her chest, her thumb tucked between her teeth. The rescue inhaler had cleared her airway three miles back, but her breathing still had that short, shallow hitch that followed a night of bad dreams. She hadn't looked at me since we cleared the subdivision gate.
"Mommy," she whispered as we passed the sign for the Route 7 bypass. "Is Daddy’s house going to catch fire?"
My fingers were clamped so tightly around the leather wrap of the steering wheel that the stitching had left deep, red indentations across the meat of my palms. "Why did you ask that, Lily?"
"The man on the phone," she said, her voice small against the rumble of the snow tires. "The man asked Daddy if the timer was set for the morning or the night. And Daddy said the morning is better because the neighbors are all inside having breakfast. He said the gas lines in the basement were already loose from the old furnace repair."
The kitchen clock had read 7:23 when I took the picture of the flight itinerary. If Derek had set a timer on the old gas furnace we had been fighting with since November, the house on Elmwood Court was already a bomb with a burning fuse. My mind raced through the details of our home—the rusty shut-off valve behind the dryer, the slow, sweet smell of mercaptan we had noticed near the floorboards on Thursday, the way Derek had insisted on moving the extra propane tanks from the grill into the crawlspace "to keep them out of the sleet."
I pulled the car onto the shoulder of the exit ramp for a commercial truck stop, the gravel crunching under the wheels as I brought the engine to a stop behind a row of shipping containers. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely slide the phone out of my jeans pocket.
I opened the camera roll and pulled up the photo of the itinerary.
Derek Wright. United Airlines Flight 1482. Dulles to O'Hare. Departure: 8:40 AM.
I checked the dashboard clock. It was 7:52 AM. If he was actually on that plane, he was currently sitting at Gate C14, waiting for the first boarding call while his cousin Marcus was trying to clear the blood off his face on Elmwood Court.
I dialed the non-emergency number for the county sheriff’s department. My voice felt dry, the words coming out in short, clinical blocks that didn't sound like they belonged to a woman whose house was wired to explode.
"My name is Elena Wright," I told the dispatcher. "I am currently away from my home at 1412 Elmwood Court. My daughter just informed me that her father made specific statements regarding a gas leak and an intentional ignition sequence scheduled for this morning. His cousin, Marcus Wright, attempted to prevent us from leaving the property twenty minutes ago."
The line went quiet for three seconds, the only sound the faint, mechanical scratching of the dispatcher’s keyboard. "Ma'am, is anyone currently inside the residence?"
"No," I said. "We fled. But the gas lines have been compromised. You need to send a fire unit with a regional gas crew to turn the main valve off at the street link before the furnace cycles."
"We are dispatching units now, Mrs. Wright. Where are you currently located?"
"I’m moving," I said. "I’m not staying on the highway."
I hung up before she could ask for the vehicle description. I looked at Lily, whose eyes were fixed on the blue folder sitting on the floorboard between her feet. The plastic corner was still stained with a faint, dark smudge of Marcus’s blood.
"We’re going to the library, Lily," I said, shifting the car back into drive. "The big one in the city where they have the old computers. We need to look at the other folder."
"The one Daddy keeps in the garage?" she asked.
May you like
I stopped the car at the edge of the ramp. "What folder did Daddy keep in the garage, honey?"
"The silver box behind the winter tires," Lily said, her thumb slipping back between her lips. "The one with the tiny key he keeps on his car ring. He was putting papers in it on Friday night while I was looking for my blue doll. He told me it was just old receipts, but the papers had the same blue stamps as the ones Grandma made you keep."
