by Jason Mason
In this weather the cops were going to be far too busy dealing with accidents to set up any speed traps. He slowed down when he saw approaching headlights in any event but none of them turned out to be cops. The only lights he was worried about now were the ones behind him.
Without using any turn signals, he cut across two lanes of empty traffic in order to take the turn off onto the Anthony Henday ring road highway. Much to his annoyance the little red car took both lanes as well and was still behind him… still following him. He looked back into his rear-view mirror at Cassidy who was now half asleep on his back seat staring out the window.
“I know how to get rid of them,” he told himself.
◆◆◆
“Do you have any charge yet?”
“It still won’t turn on,” Connie replied checking her phone.
“Damnit,” Baker slammed his fist on the steering wheel as he merged onto the ring road. This highway circles the entire city so he was completely at the mercy of the pickup truck. The other driver could turn and go back into the city or take one of the many back highways that could lead anywhere in the province. Or he could get on the main highway going north to Yellowknife or south to Calgary. He had a lot of options while Baker had just one. Follow.
He kept his distance back from the truck as the highway was basically empty except for the two vehicles involved in the chase and the snow was blowing horizontal. The one thing he wanted to avoid was the truck taking a sudden turnoff that he would miss. It almost happened when the truck crossed two lanes to get onto the Henday in the first place.
The car skidded down the road at 140 km/h, barely gripping the surface. Baker could feel his vehicle hydroplaning but as long as the pickup truck was driving this reckless speed, so would he. The lack of other vehicles on the road and the speed made the blowing blizzard look like an automatic shotgun full of snow that was continually being blasted at his windshield. The heat was on max and blowing on that windshield with the wipers flying on their top speed but it was a losing battle with the elements.
Then on the Manning street exit the truck without warning jumped two lanes again onto the exit ramp. Baker followed close behind and the car stayed right and drove away from the city, going on one of the back highways in a northerly direction. The roads were less clear here and the pickup truck with its all-wheel drive had a definite advantage over the little sedan, which had a very tenuous grip on the road. As they continued, Baker noticed another little sedan that looked like a Tesla in the ditch to the side of the highway with tire tracks showing its route to its current location. The lights were off and the occupants had probably long before called for a ride home, but it still served as a warning to him that the conditions were nothing to take lightly.
Again and again the pickup turned down more and more remote roads, and these were back county lanes that Baker had never even seen before. Though the snow was packed tightly on this lane, he assumed this tree lined road with no lights would have been a dirt road in the summer. Out of nowhere brake lights appeared on the back of the truck as it slowed down just ahead of him.
“What is he doing?” Connie asked.
“I don’t know,” Baker responded as he slowed down and pulled in behind the truck. “But watch yourself.”
The side door of the truck opened up and the woman Baker saw get in to the vehicle jumped out, although without a jacket. It looks like she was barely conscious, because as she left the truck she fell and rolled down a short decline into a ditch. When she hit the bottom she didn’t move but stayed lying down. The moment she left the truck, the man started driving again, leaving her stranded, face down in the snow. But still alive.
“Holy…” Baker started and looked back at Connie. She was witnessing the same thing he was.
“She’ll freeze to death in minutes!” Connie exclaimed.
“Frigging hell!” he cried. “He’s won. We need to pick her up and bring her back to town… At least he won’t be getting away with another one.”
“Like hell he’s going to get away,” Connie told him with clear determination in her voice. “My phone’s at 15%, that’s more than enough charge to call the police and get us picked up.”
She reached on the seats and grabbed a blanket that was used to protect the interior. It had some dog fur laced into it from her parent’s two huskies that she and Baker used to walk.
“I have this, and she can use my coat. We’ll be ok. You go find my sister!”
Connie opened the door and got out, unable to be reasoned with. Baker didn’t want to try to reason with her anyways though. He liked her attitude and knew this could be their only chance to ever find her sister alive again. He quickly undid his seatbelt and took off his own Canada Goose jacket, throwing it out the passenger window.
“Here, take this,” he told Connie as he started driving away. With one eye he could still make out the tail lights of the pick-up truck and with the other he caught Connie smiling at him from the rear-view mirror.
This was it. No turning back now.
Chapter 20
Cornered and Scared
Baker felt bad about leaving Connie and that woman behind, but he mentally made an image of where they were so he could go back and get them after he was done with this chase, but if there was any chance Mary was still alive – though Baker really didn’t believe she was – he couldn’t afford to lose that truck. Even if she was dead, Baker didn’t want to let her killer get away.
Pushing the gas pedal to the floor and having almost no grip on the road, Baker was able to catch up to the truck just as it made a sharp left turn. The brakes were not having any effect so Baker yanked on the e-brake and cut the wheel sharply to the left spinning the car one full rotation before coming to a stop past the turn but facing the way he came. He was quickly able to disengage the brake and cut down the road to follow the truck again.
“Still got it,” he told himself with a smile.
He still wasn’t sure what he would do if he caught the man. If he had a gun, Baker would be a sitting duck but if he didn’t then Baker had a chance. One of his few distractions from work was going down to the gym in his office building and working out for an hour every day to relieve the stress. While had hadn’t got into a fist fight with anyone since his university days playing hockey, he was pretty confident in his ability to win one on one.
Looking at his fuel gauge he realized he didn’t have much time to catch the truck either. He was down to a quarter of a tank and combined with having no charge on his phone, running out of gas out here could be a death sentence. Hopefully for Connie and the woman they were able to get a hold of the police. If not it could be a death sentence for them as well.
After another ten minutes of going down this lonely dark road through a blinding blizzard the truck made another left turn, but this time into a driveway. Unless this was a trick the man was trapped. This was it!
The truck was able to turn a lot quicker than Baker so he missed the driveway and had to reverse and back up to make it. Once he got to the end of the windy driveway he observed the attached garage door closing with the truck still inside. Outside the garage and covered in snow was a black newer model sedan.
“That’s the Corolla,” Baker told himself as he put the car in park and turned it off.
He had to plan his next move carefully. He wanted to call the police but his phone was dead, and he didn’t want to risk a standoff with the police that might scare the man into doing something drastic. He searched the car for a weapon, and under the passenger seat found the tire-iron which was going to be his best chance. At that point he wished he was more like the American attorneys from the movies who always had a little .38 special with them for times like this.
Looking up at the two-story house he wasn’t sure how he was going to get in. There was a garage door, a small door that lead into the garage on the side, and a main entrance. If the man had a gun, which he very likely did, he’d be going to grab it and load it right now.
Baker had to think.
He started his car up again and backed up a few feet. Then, hitting the gas hard he sped the vehicle up over the thirty some odd feet and smashed the front end of Connie’s car into the side of the Toyota Corolla. It wasn’t fast enough to really damage Connie’s car too badly – he was going to owe her for the repairs anyways – but it did set off the alarm of the Corolla, with the lights flashing and the siren blazing. He then turned around and drove out of the driveway.
◆◆◆
“What the hell is he doing?” Elijah asked no one as he looked out of his window.
It was that damn lawyer… he followed him all the way home. Of course he didn’t want to go home, preferring to lose the lawyer first, but he was running low on fuel and had no other option. The new plan now was just to kill the bloody lawyer instead. And then get the hell out of here before the police come.
Slowly feeding some more rounds into his twelve-gauge shotgun he cursed the fact he only had his last two slugs for loading this weapon. It’s a lot more difficult to kill a man using buckshot, so he only had these two shots to kill this lawyer. At least if he was going to try and kill him from any real range. But instead of coming in the house like Elijah expected, the bastard just hit his car and then drove off. Did he do that to stop him from getting away? If so, it partially worked as he would have to act fast on the plan now because the police would not be far away. He was going to have to quickly switch the licence plate out and get Sophie in the truck before he left. If there was anything left of Mary in her, he would have to find someone in Yellowknife to finish the job.
But first he had to go kill the alarm on his damn car. That was the kind of beacon that would ensure he got caught long before he could get onto the road. Unfortunately he left the keys to the Corolla in the car so he was going to have to go out there and turn it off himself.
After opening the front door he looked left and right, and not seeing anyone, he walked over to the car. It was freezing out and he was barely dressed for the weather, only able to make out the car through the blinding blizzard because of the flashing lights. Otherwise he couldn’t see more than five feet ahead of him even using his cellphone as a flashlight. As he approached the car he heard a coyote howl.
“Get out of here you little bastard,” he shouted as he blasted a shotgun round into the trees above the dog. The coyote was almost certainly hiding out the storm under his car and the accident spooked him out of it.
Looking around nervously he still didn’t see anyone but he still couldn’t see very far from him. That damn lawyer! If he ever had the chance to come back to Edmonton, he was certainly going to pay that stupid lawyer a visit he would never forget.
“Where is that stupid thing?” he asked as he opened the car door and searched for the key. In order to see a little better he set down the shotgun on the roof of the car and used his phone’s flashlight to look around the interior of the car. He had always left the keys tucked under the sun-visor, but the strike from the lawyer’s car must have shaken it loose. Still no luck. He got on his knees and felt around in between the driver’s seat and the centre console, which was the most likely place for the key to have fallen.
Behind you.
Elijah turned around just as a metal rod swung towards his face. He was barely able to block it with his left forearm, instantly breaking the bone and screaming out in pain.
“What the hell?!” he spun around on the seat and kicked blindly with both feet, feeling his feet connect with a target he couldn’t see and push it backwards into the snow. Turning around again he crawled over to the passenger seat and out through the side door so he could rush back into the house as fast as he could. The frigging lawyer got the jump on him, and nearly took his head off just then. He slammed the door behind him and twisted the deadbolt locked.
“Aw hell!” he shouted as he realized the shotgun as still out there. He ran back upstairs to grab another. If there was one thing Elijah was short on in this house, it definitely was not firearms.
◆◆◆
It took Baker a second to get up, that kick knocked the wind right out of him. His plan worked perfect… almost. He was able to see the flashing lights all the way from the road as he made his way through the trees until he got to the car but somehow the man turned at the last minute. He thought he was so quiet but the man must have heard him over the alarm anyways. Or he had some weird sixth sense that let him know Baker was on top of him.
Speaking of which, the alarm was still going off and it was driving Baker nuts. As he got up from the ground he saw the front door slam shut, and knew the man was able to get back inside.
Damnit, he thought to himself. I definitely heard a shotgun fire, if I go in there he’s going to kill me.
Using one of the trees, he pulled himself up to his feet and back up level with the car. He was going to have to go back to his car and get Connie who hopefully had the police with her by now. He pulled himself up by grabbing onto the car and slid forward so he could have a look into the house carefully. No curtains or blinds appeared to be open, so the man might be doing anything right now. Probably looking for Baker from one of the windows so he could shoot him.
As he leaned forward he felt the roof rack of the car. Incidentally really, he wasn’t searching for anything. He was also freezing out here without a jacket, which weighed heavily into planning his next moves.
That’s strange, why would a sedan like this have a roof rack? He thought as he felt the metal bar a little better with his gloves. But it wasn’t a roof rack at all of course, instead it was a gun of some kind. Wait… it was the shotgun! The killer must have left it outside when he was attacked!
Quickly, he grabbed it and pulled it down with him behind the car. Using the glow from the flashing car lights he pulled back the action just enough to see that there was a shell loaded in the gun and quickly pushed the action forward again, readying the weapon.
He wasn’t going to be going back to the car after all.
◆◆◆
What kind of maniac comes after a man with a shotgun?
“I don’t know but that lawyer’s got some balls,” the man replied.
As soon as the front door was locked he ran into the living room to get Sophie, who was chained up to her usual spot and sitting on the couch watching television. She didn’t even seem to have any reaction to anything that happened in the last few minutes. In that time a shotgun blast went off, two cars smashed together and even the car alarm was still going off. Absolutely no reaction to any of it.
“We have to get you out of here,” he told her.
She just looked up and nodded, completely willing to do whatever he asked.
He unchained her and took her with him towards the basement. However his guns were upstairs in the bedroom. He glanced at the front door nervously, there’s no telling what that lawyer would do. He could be trying to get in the house or if he could be standing guard until the police arrived. Elijah wasn’t about to take any chances.
He’s going to kill you.
“Wait here,” he told Sophie ignoring the voice in his head. He attached the chain to a bar by the garage door foregoing the trip to the basement with her. He only had to grab his firearms, then quickly grab the cash box from the basement and then he would drive the hell out of there. He was low on fuel but he could just toss a couple of jerry cans in the back and be fine to fill up with them wherever he ran out.
“I’ll run that bastard over on my way,” he shouted running back up the stairs.
◆◆◆
Which door do I take? Baker thought to himself.
There was still the garage door, the front door, and probably a back door. He didn’t want to spend too long thinking about it, the shotgun he had was probably the man’s go to weapon but Baker wouldn’t be surprised at all if he had a few more tucked away in there. And probably not legally stored according to the regulations either.
“Screw it,” he said as he ran towards the front door
.
Twisting the handle it was locked, so he took a few steps back and charged at the door as hard as he could with his shoulder. It didn’t move at all. His shoulder, on the other hand, felt like it was knocked out of place.
“Well that didn’t work,” he said out loud, rubbing his shoulder.
Instead he clicks the safety on the shotgun and started smashing it into the door just beside the deadbolt. After only a few hits the wood splinters and he’s able to kick the door in and it broke open. Staying back for just a second to see if any shots were coming Baker cautiously entered the well-lit house – shotgun first – and looked around. In front of him he saw a stairway, to the right he saw what looked like the entryway to a living room, while to the left he saw a few closed doors down a narrow hallway besides the stairs. Nervously he pointed the shotgun up the stairs and moved over to the left to clear out that hallway first.
Opening the doors, gun preceding him into each room, he found a bathroom and two storage closets but no people. At the end of the hallway he saw a framed piece of newspaper that looked very prominently displayed so he walked over where he was able to read it, keeping a close eye on his surroundings. There was a black and white picture of a blond young woman, who was remarkably stunning (though she had an eerie similarity to Mary in her looks) and next to it was the word “Obituary.”
Sophie Mae Manning (nee Revis) Born June 5th 1975, died January 29th, 2012
It is with great sadness that the family of Sophie Mae Manning of Edmonton, Alberta, announces the passing of their beloved daughter, sister, aunt, and wife. She will be greatly missed by the community in which she volunteers and to all those whose hearts she has touched. Sophie will always be remembered for her courage and bravery through the worst of times and by being the kind shoulder whenever her friends and family needed it. She is survived by her husband Elijah, her sister Gail, her brother Marcus, her nephew Taylor, and her parents Fred and Margaret.
