Chapter 13 - Shadows in the Rearview
The thought that Julian had been parked fifty yards from my daughter turned my stomach to ice.
For the next three days, Marcus lived in the guest room on the ground floor. He refused to let me drive alone, escorting me to the grocery store, to Lily’s pediatrician, and to my meetings with my corporate attorney, David Cole.
On Wednesday afternoon, the rain came down in sheets, drumming against the windshield of Marcus’s truck as we pulled out of Lily’s daycare. Lily was strapped securely in her car seat in the back, happily clutching a soft yellow blanket and babbling to herself.
"Marcus," I said, glancing at the side mirror.
"I see him," he replied without missing a beat.
Two cars back was a beat-up silver sedan with tinted windows and a dented front bumper. It wasn't the luxury car Julian had rented earlier. It was reckless, erratic, swerving slightly every time Marcus braked at a red light.
"Is that Julian?" my voice tightened, my hand reaching back instinctively to touch Lily’s knee.
"No," Marcus muttered, his eyes locked on the rearview mirror. "Julian drives like an arrogant prick, but he values his own skin too much to tailgate this close in the rain. That’s someone else."
The light turned green. Marcus accelerated smoothly, turning onto the bypass that led toward the highway rather than toward our home on Ridgemont.
"Where are we going?" I asked, heart thumping against my ribs.
"Leading them away from the house," he answered calmly. "There’s a highway patrol substation three miles ahead off Exit 14. If they follow us off the ramp, we’ll see who's behind the wheel."
The silver sedan matched our speed, lane for lane. When Marcus signaled right for the exit, the sedan swerved sharply across two lanes of traffic, cutting off an eighteen-wheeler whose horn blasted like a foghorn in the gray downpour.
"Hang on," Marcus commanded. He didn't panic; his hands were rock steady on the steering wheel. Instead of taking the exit ramp, he flicked the wheel hard to the left at the last second, staying on the main interstate.
The sedan couldn't correct in time. It skidded across the slick asphalt, tires screeching, and slammed sideways into the plastic water barrels buffering the exit fork. Water exploded into the air, showering the ramp.
Through the spray and the rain, as we surged past at fifty miles an hour, the silver sedan’s driver door was kicked open.
A woman stumbled out into the torrential rain, her blonde hair matted against her skull, her clothes disheveled, screaming incoherently into the storm.
May you like
It wasn't Julian.
It was Sienna.
