Chapter 6 - The Coastal Highway Pursuit
Above ground, the cannery was rapidly transforming into an inferno.
Thick black smoke billowed from the roof vents, blending with the fog and rain. The dry wooden structure, soaked in decades of fish oil, caught fire with terrifying speed.
Outside, Noah and Caleb were standing near Claire’s sedan when the side doors of the cannery burst open.
Mara stumbled out into the rain, coughing violently, her clothes singed, her eyes wild. She held the iron spanner tightly in her right hand.
When she saw the two boys near the car, a look of murderous determination crossed her face.
"Get in the SUV!" Mara screamed toward the white vehicle where the other four children were cowering inside. She sprinted toward Noah and Caleb. "You are coming with me!"
"Run!" Caleb yelled, pushing Noah toward the tree line at the edge of the property.
"I’m not leaving Miss Claire!" Noah screamed, looking back at the burning cannery.
At that exact moment, the lower wooden sea-wall at the back of the building exploded outward under the force of a massive ocean wave.
Through the splintered wood and spraying foam, Claire plunged into the surf, clutching the coat-wrapped ledger in one arm.
She pulled herself out of the freezing water, gasping for air, her clothes soaked, her body bruised, but she was still holding the evidence.
"Miss Claire!" Noah shouted, running down the rocky shore toward her.
"Noah! Caleb! Get in my car! NOW!" Claire screamed, pulling herself up the muddy embankment.
Mara saw Claire emerge with the ledger. Realizing that everything was collapsing, she abandoned the boys, turned around, and ran back to the white SUV.
She yanked open the driver’s door, jumped in, and slammed her foot on the accelerator. The heavy SUV roared to life, spinning its tires in the mud before tearing out of the parking lot toward the main road.
"She’s fleeing!" Caleb cried out.
"She’s taking the other children!" Claire said, her eyes widening in horror as she saw the small, terrified faces of Lily, Grace, and the younger boys pressed against the tinted rear windows of the SUV as it sped away.
"We have to catch them!" Noah pleaded.
Claire didn't waste a second. She unlocked her sedan, ushered Noah and Caleb into the front and back seats, threw the soaked coat containing the ledger onto the floorboards, and slammed the car into drive.
The sedan’s tires shrieked as Claire pulled out onto the narrow, winding coastal highway in pursuit of the white SUV.
The storm had reached its peak. Torrential rain lashed the windshield, and lightning illuminated the jagged cliffs dropping hundreds of feet into the violent Pacific Ocean below.
A mile ahead, Mara was driving like a maniac, swerving across the center line, taking the sharp mountain turns at lethal speeds.
Inside the SUV, the four younger children were screaming, clinging to their seat belts.
"Shut up!" Mara yelled, her eyes bloodshot, watching the headlights of Claire’s sedan gaining on her in the side mirror. "All of you, shut up!"
Evelyn, who had somehow escaped the burning basement through an upper emergency hatch, sat bleeding in the passenger seat, clutching her burned arm. "Mara, slow down! We’re going to go over the cliff!"
"We aren't stopping!" Mara shouted, her voice laced with complete madness. "If they take us, we go to prison for the rest of our lives! I will not spend my life in a cell because of those ungrateful brats!"
Behind them, Claire was pushing her sedan to its absolute limit.
"Miss Claire, she’s not going to stop!" Noah said from the passenger seat, his hands gripping the dashboard. "She’d rather wreck the car than get caught!"
"I know," Claire said grimly, her knuckles white on the wheel. "Caleb, give me my phone!"
"There’s still no signal!" Caleb yelled from the back.
"Keep trying! We’re approaching the top of the ridge! There’s a cell tower near the lighthouse outlook!"
As the two vehicles surged up the steep incline toward the crest of the cliff road, the dark silhouette of the Blackwood Point Lighthouse appeared through the fog.
May you like
Mara’s SUV took the sharp turn near the lighthouse far too fast.
The heavy vehicle skidded on the wet asphalt, its rear end fishtailing wildly. The SUV struck the wooden guardrail with a deafening CRASH, splintering the heavy timbers and hanging dangerously over the precipice, two hundred feet above the churning ocean.
