Chapter 7 - The Roadblock at Black River
The flashing lights cut through the morning mist like warning blades. Three state trooper cruisers blocked both lanes of the Black River Bridge, their officers standing behind open car doors, hands resting on holstered sidearms.
""Hold on to him,"" Clara muttered, downshifting the truck. The engine whined in protest.
""Clara, you can't ram through state troopers!"" Eleanor warned, pressing Liam down beneath the dashboard. ""They will shoot!""
""I’m not ramming them,"" Clara said, teeth gritted. Fifty yards before the roadblock, she wrenched the steering wheel hard to the right.
The pickup leaped off the asphalt, plunging down an overgrown logging trail that bordered the riverbank. Tree branches whipped violently against the cracked windshield, screeching along the metal doors. Behind them, sirens wailed as the cruisers scrambled to turn around, but their low-clearance sedans were instantly bogged down in the mud of the logging entrance.
The truck bounced violently over rocks and fallen timber before skidding to a halt inside a grove of weeping willows near an abandoned ferry dock. The engine gave a final, wheezing sputter and died, white steam hissing from beneath the buckled hood.
""The radiator’s blown,"" Clara said, coughing on the rising steam. ""We move on foot from here.""
Eleanor bundled Liam into her coat. The boy was breathing heavily, his forehead burning with fever. ""Where are we going? We have no phone, no car, and the entire state is looking for us.""
""To the marsh cottage where I hid Liam all those years ago,"" Clara said, pulling a canvas backpack from behind the driver's seat. ""There's a boat house half a mile downstream. Julian thinks I abandoned the cottage after the storm. He never looked for it again because he assumed the sea reclaimed the whole sandbar.""
They moved through the dense, wet marshland, the smell of salt and rotting reeds thick in the air. Liam grew heavier with every step, his consciousness slipping in and out. Eleanor’s legs burned, her evening gown torn to shreds beneath her coat, ruined by mud and brambles.
After twenty agonizing minutes, the rusted tin roof of an old boathouse emerged through the cattails. Clara unbolted the rusted padlock with a key from her pack. Inside sat a wooden skiff fitted with an old outboard motor.
Just as Clara reached to untie the mooring line, a distinct metallic click sounded from the shadowed rafters above.
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""I wondered how long it would take you to remember this place, Clara,"" a cold voice echoed from the gloom.
Stepping down from the wooden catwalk was Julian, a sleek 9mm pistol pointed directly at Eleanor’s chest.
