Chapter 4 - Red and Blue Lights in the Snow
The man named Carl didn't hesitate. He pulled a heavy tactical flashlight from his belt, clicked on the beam, and drew a black handgun from his coat.
"Julian’s mother?" Carl called out in a low, chillingly calm voice that carried over the wind. "Mrs. Evelyn Vance? There is nowhere for you to run. The road is two miles out through dense marsh. Give me the girl, and you can walk away."
My heart hammered in my throat. They weren't just going to cremate an empty box; they had hired an assassin to dispose of any loose ends. Julian and Victoria had planned this with methodical, psychopathic precision.
"Grandma... it hurts to breathe," Chloe gasped in my ear, her voice growing dangerously weak.
I couldn't stay in the woods. Hypothermia and the sedative would kill Chloe before the police could ever track us through the forest. I had to gamble on reaching the county road where the patrol cars would arrive.
I took a deep breath, shifted Chloe securely onto my left hip, and broke into a full sprint across the open gravel driveway toward the tall brick pillars of the estate's front gate.
"There she is!" Victoria screamed from the patio.
PANG!
A bullet chipped the brick pillar three feet above my head, showering my hair with stone dust. Carl was firing at an unarmed grandmother and a child.
"Carl, don't shoot to kill the old woman yet! Make her sign the custody release first!" Victoria screamed in madness.
I didn't stop. I rounded the gate and threw myself into the ditch beside the county highway just as the piercing wail of police sirens split the stormy night.
From the crest of the hill half a mile away, blinding red and blue strobe lights cut through the rain. Four Illinois State Police cruisers, followed by an ambulance with blaring sirens, came roaring down the slick asphalt at over eighty miles per hour.
"Over here! HELP!" I shrieked, scrambling out of the ditch and waving my bleeding hand into the glare of the approaching headlights.
Carl turned on his heel and sprinted back toward his SUV, tires screaming as he attempted to reverse away. But the lead police cruiser slammed directly into the front quarter-panel of his Mercedes, pinning the SUV against the iron fence.
Four armed state troopers jumped out, guns drawn. "DRIVER, STEP OUT OF THE VEHICLE! HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!"
Two paramedics in yellow rain slickers sprinted toward me as I collapsed onto the asphalt, my strength completely giving out.
"Ma'am, let us take her!" the female paramedic yelled, gently taking Chloe from my arms.
"She was in the casket... they gave her heavy sedatives... she's burning up!" I gasped, clutching the paramedic's sleeve. "Please... save my baby!"
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"We have a pediatric female, unresponsive, profound respiratory depression, core temp 104!" the paramedic shouted into her radio. "Prep the intubation kit and push Narcan and broad-spectrum reversal right now!"
As the ambulance doors slammed shut and the sirens wailed toward Northwestern Memorial Hospital, I watched four officers tackle my son Julian to the mud as he ran out the front gates, screaming curses into the storm.
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