Chapter 17 - Red Lights in the Rearview
The baby monitor shrieked.
It wasn't the sound of crying. It was the piercing, high-pitched squeal of a shattered window upstairs in the twins’ nursery.
"Sophie! Lucas!" I screamed, bolting toward the stairs.
Ryan was faster. He tackled me around the waist, shoving me behind the reinforced steel door of our kitchen pantry. "Stay down! Clara, stay down!"
"My babies are up there!" I fought him with every ounce of strength in my body, clawing at his chest, sobbing hysterically.
"I’m getting them!" Ryan roared. He ripped a heavy iron cast-iron skillet from the hanging rack and sprinted up the stairs three at a time.
A sickening thump sounded above our heads, followed by the sound of splintering wood and an unfamiliar, guttural curse.
I didn't stay in the pantry. I grabbed the chef’s knife from the wooden block on the counter and flew up the stairs behind him.
In the nursery, the rain was blowing through the shattered window, soaking the yellow curtains and the worn rabbit book on the rug.
A massive man dressed in black tactical gear was pinned against the wall. Ryan had him by the throat, driving the heavy iron skillet into his ribs with terrifying, primal ferocity.
In their toddler beds, Sophie and Lucas were screaming, clutching their blankets, paralyzed with terror.
"Clara! Take them! Go!" Ryan bellowed, ducking as the intruder swung a heavy metal pry bar at his head.
The bar cracked into the nursery doorframe, taking out a chunk of wood inches from Ryan’s skull.
I didn't hesitate. I dropped the knife, scooped Sophie into my left arm and Lucas into my right, their little arms wrapping around my neck in desperate, suffocating grips. "I’ve got them! Ryan, come on!"
Ryan landed one final, brutal blow against the intruder’s knee. The man collapsed with a wet snap of bone, howling in agony on the nursery floor.
Ryan didn't try to finish him. He grabbed my arm, shoving us down the hallway, down the stairs, and straight through the garage fire door.
We didn't grab coats. We didn't grab shoes for the children. Ryan hit the garage door opener, threw the twins into their car seats in the back of our SUV, and slammed the doors shut.
The garage door wasn't even halfway open when Ryan shoved the transmission into reverse and floored the accelerator. The tires shrieked against the concrete, the rear bumper clipping the metal tracks of the garage door as we rocketed backward into the driveway.
He spun the wheel, shifted into drive, and launched the SUV down the dark, rain-drenched suburban street.
In the back seat, Lucas was sobbing hysterically, while Sophie was trembling so hard her teeth chattered.
"Call 911!" Ryan yelled, his hands gripping the steering wheel so hard the leather groaned. Blood was dripping down his left temple where the intruder’s pry bar had grazed his scalp.
I dialed with shaking, slick fingers.
"911, what is your emergency?"
"We’ve just been attacked in our home!" I shouted over the twins’ cries. "2418 Elmwood Terrace! An armed intruder broke through the second-floor nursery window! My husband fought him off, we are fleeing in our car!"
"Ma'am, officers are being dispatched to that address right now," the dispatcher said calmly. "Are you in a safe location?"
"No, we’re driving down Route 9 toward the highway—"
Suddenly, the entire interior of our SUV lit up in blinding, violent illumination.
I looked in the side mirror.
Behind us, less than twenty feet from our bumper, was a heavy, lifted pickup truck. Its high beams were blazing, cutting through the rain like searchlights. It had appeared out of nowhere from a side street, and it was accelerating fast.
"Ryan!" I screamed. "Behind us!"
The truck rammed our rear bumper with a deafening metallic crunch.
The impact threw my head back against the headrest. The twins screamed in terror as the SUV fishtailed violently across the slick, wet asphalt.
Ryan fought the steering wheel, his muscles straining as he brought the vehicle back under control just before we spun into the drainage ditch.
"Hang on!" Ryan roared.
The truck rammed us again. This time harder. The rear window of our SUV shattered, showering the cargo area with tempered glass cubes.
"Dispatcher!" I screamed into the phone. "They’re chasing us! A black pickup truck is trying to run us off Route 9 near the interstate junction!"
"Officers are responding, ma'am, stay on the line—"
Ahead of us, the road curved sharply near the river bridge.
The pickup pulled into the oncoming lane, surging forward until its massive steel bumper was aligned with our driver’s side door.
Through the rain-streaked tinted glass, I saw the driver.
It wasn't an anonymous hitman.
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It was Evelyn Vance’s personal estate manager, a man who had served their family for twenty-five years. His jaw was set in cold, emotionless determination as he swung the steering wheel hard to the right, aiming to pit-maneuver our SUV directly off the bridge embankment into the roaring black water below.
***
