Chapter 3 - The Tail on Route 9
The speedometer crept past sixty-five as I hugged the curves of Route 9, the dark, winding stretch of highway that connected our quiet suburb to downtown Richmond. In my rearview mirror, the twin headlights of the black Audi remained locked onto my bumper like a pair of predatory eyes.
Marcus knew.
Or worse, Vanessa had called him the second I drove away from the house. They realized that if I reached a lawyer with a recording and a twenty-million-dollar lottery ticket, their entire house of cards would collapse into federal fraud charges.
My hands tightened on the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. For thirty-two years, I had played the quiet, compliant housewife. I had let Ryan believe I couldn't survive without his visits, let my neighbors think I was just a lonely widow tending to her azaleas.
They had mistaken my grief for weakness.
The Audi suddenly surged forward, closing the gap between us. Its high beams flickered on and off in a rapid, aggressive rhythm—a silent demand for me to pull over.
My phone buzzed on the passenger seat. I glanced down. The screen lit up with an incoming call from an unknown number.
I ignored it. It buzzed again immediately. A text message popped up:
Pull over, Margaret. Don't make this harder on Ryan. We can settle this like family.
I let out a bitter, humorless laugh, hit the steering wheel controls, and hit reject.
The road ahead narrowed as it approached the old iron bridge crossing the James River. The streetlights flickered against the damp evening mist, casting long, eerie shadows across the concrete barriers. If Marcus tried to run me off the road out here, there were no houses, no witnesses, and no cell service for miles.
I pressed my foot harder down on the gas. My sedan groaned, the engine roaring as it surged up to seventy-five miles per hour.
The Audi responded instantly, roaring into the left lane, attempting to pull alongside me and force me onto the shoulder.
“Oh, no you don't,” I muttered.
I knew these roads better than Marcus ever would. Just ahead was the old industrial off-ramp—a sharp, unlit hairpin turn that led down toward the abandoned railway yards. Local kids used it for drag racing; cops avoided it because of the potholes.
As the guardrail for the off-ramp approached, I hit my blinker, pretended to drift right as if panicking, and then violently yanked the steering wheel hard left.
The tires squealed in protest, smoking against the asphalt as the sedan fishtailed, jumped the concrete curb of the off-ramp, and plunged down into the dark, winding industrial corridor.
In my side mirror, I saw the Audi overshoot the turn, its brake lights flaring in a shower of sparks as Marcus tried to correct at eighty miles per hour. He missed the ramp entirely, skidding onto the grassy median before slamming to a violent halt against a road sign.
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I didn't slow down. I kept my foot down, weaving through the deserted warehouse district until the familiar brick facade of Arthur Vance’s office building finally loomed into view.
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