Chapter 4 - Flight into the Fog
The drive was a blur of gray highway and heavy autumn fog. Detective Vance drove like a woman possessed, weaving through the morning commuter traffic on I-294 without her sirens on. "If we use sirens, we're a beacon," she muttered, her eyes constantly checking the rearview mirror.
In the back seat, Lily and Leo had finally cried themselves to sleep, exhausted by terror. The duffel bag of money was in the trunk, a ticking time bomb wrapped in blue canvas.
"Where are we going?" I asked, my knuckles white as I gripped the passenger grab handle.
"A safehouse in Wisconsin. It's unregistered, used for high-level federal witnesses. The Morettis have ears in the Chicago PD, but they don't have access to this grid," Vance explained, her jaw tight.
"What about Rachel?" I asked, the anger returning, mixing with a deep, painful grief. "How could she do this to them? To me?"
"Rachel was in deep, Sarah. We found texts on a burner phone near the burning car. She was trying to buy her way out of a contract. The four million... it wasn't just a random heist. She stole it from a vault that was supposed to pay off a rival cartel."
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"She used her kids as a distraction," I whispered, the bitter truth settling in. Rachel knew that if she left the kids with me, the police would focus on protecting them, buying her time to run. She had traded her children’s safety for her own survival.
Suddenly, a heavy black SUV appeared in the fog behind us. It didn't have license plates. It accelerated, ramming our rear bumper with a violent, metal-shrieking crunch.
