Chapter 16 - Highway Sixty-One
The garage door screeched upward on its metal tracks as the Audi Q7 roared to life. Claire didn't wait for the door to clear the roof rack; she slammed the transmission into reverse and gunned the accelerator. The rear bumper smashed through the bottom aluminum panel with a grinding crunch of twisted metal, shooting the SUV backward into the dark, rain-slicked alleyway.
Lily was curled in the footwell of the passenger seat, hands clamped over her ears, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Mommy, where is Daddy? Why was the man bleeding?"
"Daddy is handling things, sweetie," Claire lied, her hands gripping the leather steering wheel so hard her knuckles turned chalk-white. She swung the vehicle onto Fullerton Parkway, merging into the evening commuter traffic just as the flashing blue lights of private security cruisers appeared in her rearview mirror.
They weren't city cops. They were sleek, unmarked black Suburbans with grill strobes.
Claire cut across three lanes of traffic, tires screaming against wet asphalt, eliciting a chorus of angry car horns. She checked the dashboard navigation screen. Robert’s words rang in her ears: *Every camera from here to the interstate is running facial recognition.*
She reached out and punched the touchscreen, disabling the vehicle’s GPS tracking, OnStar link, and cellular connectivity. Then she ripped her cracked smartphone from her pocket, rolled down the driver’s side window, and hurled the phone into a storm drain as they crossed over the North Branch of the Chicago River.
They were blind. But so was Apex.
The rain was falling in torrential sheets now, drumming against the windshield like a thousand tiny hammers. Claire navigated through the industrial corridors of Goose Island, weaving through delivery trucks and abandoned rail yards, keeping her headlights off until she was certain the black Suburbans had lost their trail in the traffic snarl of the Kennedy Expressway.
Her breath came in ragged, burning gasps. She reached down, brushing her hand against Lily’s trembling head. "You’re safe, Lily. I’ve got you. I’ve got you."
"Mommy?" Lily’s voice was small, muffled against the carpet of the car floor.
"Yes, baby?"
"The bracelet."
Claire glanced down. "What about the bracelet, honey?"
Lily sat up slowly, opening her small fist. In her palm lay the silver charm bracelet from the penthouse—the one Claire thought was just a piece of jewelry recovered from the rooftop. But Lily wasn't looking at the charms. She was holding a tiny, razor-thin micro-SD card that had been concealed inside the hollow locket charm.
"The lady gave it to me," Lily whispered.
Claire slammed on the brakes, pulling the SUV into the shadow of an abandoned brick warehouse beneath the elevated tracks. "What lady, Lily? Vanessa?"
May you like
Lily shook her head, her eyes wide in the dashboard glow. "No. The lady in the bathroom before the party started. The lady with the red hair who said she was your sister’s best friend. She told me to hide it in the locket and only give it to you if Daddy stopped smiling."
***
