Chapter 106 - The Logging Spur
The culvert was three feet high, choked with damp pine roots and ice that clung to the stonework like jagged glass. I crawled on my belly, dragging the oilcloth bundle behind me, my knees scraping against the frozen gravel. Every breath tasted like frost and copper.
After twenty agonizing yards, the ceiling gave way, and I tumbled out into the ravine behind the ridge. The wind hit me instantly—a bitter, howling gale sweeping down from Mount Washington, driving needles of sleet directly into my face.
Above me, the ridge cabin was already engulfed in flames. The sweep team hadn't bothered searching the cellar; they had simply tossed incendiary canisters into the wreckage to erase whatever remained of Alistair, the files, and the blood on the floorboards. Orange fire roared against the black New Hampshire sky, painting the snow on the hemlock boughs in bloody streaks.
They thought I was inside that furnace.
I stayed low, keeping to the shadow of the snowbanks, and scrambled down the steep embankment toward the old timber spur. My boots sank six inches into the untracked drift with every step. My hands were numb, the skin on my knuckles cracked and bleeding, but I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.
At the bottom of the gulley, half-buried under a drift of blown snow behind an abandoned logging shed, sat the vehicle Alistair had told me about: an ancient, rusted Subaru wagon, its plates coated in grease and road salt.
I scraped the crust of ice from the driver's side door with the blade of the pocketknife, wrenched the handle until the frozen latch gave way with a sickening screech, and dove inside.
The interior smelled of mouse droppings and stale tobacco. I reached beneath the steering column, felt along the metal housing as Alistair had instructed, and found the magnetic key box taped behind the heater duct.
The ignition turned. The old four-cylinder engine groaned, spat a cloud of gray exhaust into the darkness, and sputtered to life with a mechanical rattle that shook the rusty dashboard.
May you like
I didn't turn on the headlights. I slipped the transmission into reverse, backed out into the logging rut by the pale moonlight filtering through the storm clouds, and pointed the hood toward Route 16.
Toward Boston. Toward Logan Airport. Toward the children Arthur had used as collateral.
