Chapter 3 - The Highway West
The rhythmic thump of the windshield wipers was the only sound inside the cab of the truck for the first forty miles. Mia had curled herself into a small ball between them, her head resting against Nora’s thigh, fast asleep from sheer exhaustion. In her tiny fist, she still clutched the broken yellow spoiler of the crushed toy car.
Frank adjusted the rearview mirror, his grey eyes darting between the rain-swept highway and Nora’s pale face. “You look like hell, Nora.”
“I’ve looked worse,” she said, her voice thin. She touched the bruised bridge of her nose. “Did you get the file out of the lockbox?”
Frank nodded slowly, reaching down to tap a water-damaged leather briefcase resting against the floorboard. “The complete paper trial from 2018 to last month. Patient logs, the altered liver toxicity reports, and your father’s handwritten journals before his ‘accident.’ It’s all here. But Nora, you can’t just walk into the federal building in D.C. with this. Vance has judges on retainer. They have senators who sit on the oversight committees.”
“I’m not going to D.C.,” Nora said, looking out at the endless blur of pine trees lining Interstate 76. “Not yet. They expect me to head south toward the regulators. Victoria has already stationed people along the Maryland corridor. We’re going north. We’re crossing into the Allegheny plateau.”
Frank frowned. “There’s nothing out there but ghost towns and limestone quarries.”
“Exactly,” Nora replied. “And people who don’t look at television screens or answer phones from corporate attorneys. My grandmother had a house outside of Kane. It’s been empty for ten years, off the grid, no utility meters registered in our name. We stay there until I can secure legal counsel from outside Pennsylvania.”
Frank glanced down at the sleeping child. “She’s tough. Just like her mother.”
“She shouldn’t have to be tough,” Nora said softly, her fingers gently untangling a knot in Mia’s damp hair. “She should be playing with toy cars on a living room carpet, complaining about eating her vegetables. She shouldn’t know what a corporate enforcer looks like. She shouldn’t know how to lie to keep her mother alive.”
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“You did what you had to do to expose the truth,” Frank said gently.
“The truth isn't worth her childhood, Frank,” Nora murmured, turning her eyes to the darkening road ahead. “If keeping her safe means burning every piece of evidence and running for the rest of our lives, I’ll do it without hesitating.”
