"Dad? Dad! Talk to me!" Sarah’s voice was a frantic, tinny whisper radiating from the rubber floorboards.
I reached down, my fingers scrambling blindly in the dark until I found the burner phone. "I'm here," I rasped, wiping a thick smear of blood from my forehead. "I'm in the ditch. He ran me off the road."
"Get out of the cab," she commanded, her voice dropping into pure survival protocol. "Leave your main phone in the cup holder. Take the burner. If he finds you trapped in there, he controls the entire narrative."
I moved fast, ignoring the sharp, blinding pain flaring in my ribs. I reached up, popped the tiny SD card out of the dashcam, and shoved it deep into the reinforced heel of my work boot. That tiny square of plastic held the unprovoked ramming, the dangerous speed of the pursuit, and the absolute lack of any aggressive action from my vehicle. It was the first piece of undeniable physical evidence outside the stolen cash, and I was not going to let Cole destroy it.
I kicked my door open. The damaged hinges groaned in loud protest, but the door gave way, spilling me out into the knee-high brush. I crawled away from the wrecked truck, keeping my head completely beneath the glow of the cruiser’s sweeping spotlights.
I scrambled up the opposite side of the steep embankment, putting a thick, natural cluster of limestone boulders between myself and the smoking Ford. I crouched in the freezing desert air, clutching the live phone to my chest, forcing my ragged breathing to slow.
Fifty yards away, Officer Cole walked to the edge of the jagged asphalt. He held his heavy metal flashlight in his left hand, the powerful beam cutting through the settling dust, and his service weapon tightly in his right.
I raised the phone's microphone to my lips. "Sarah, are you receiving?"
"Loud and clear. State backup realized the pileup was a decoy, but they have to double back. They are twelve minutes out."
"Twelve minutes is a lifetime out here," I whispered.
Down by the road, Cole reached up and keyed the radio microphone clipped to his broad shoulder. In the dead quiet of the desert, his voice carried perfectly over the limestone rocks.
"Dispatch, this is Unit Four," Cole said, his tone entirely calm, completely devoid of the manic rage I had seen at my window. "Suspect vehicle crashed out at mile marker forty-four. I am initiating a felony stop. Be advised, the suspect leaned out his window and fired two rounds at my cruiser during the pursuit. I have a bullet strike on my hood. Proceeding with extreme caution."
A cold, absolute dread settled in the pit of my stomach. The bullet strike on his hood. He had shot his own vehicle to manufacture a lethal-force justification. He wasn't just planning to beat me and take the money; he had just established the official county record that I was an armed, attempted cop-killer. When he found me in the dark, he wouldn't ask to see my hands. He would simply pull the trigger and let the county coroner validate his heroic survival story.
"Did you get that, Sarah?" I murmured into the phone.
"I have it," she said, her voice shaking with a terrifying, raw fury. "He just lied on a recorded federal dispatch band. It's locked in the master IA recording. But Dad, if he finds you before the troopers arrive, that recording won't save your life tonight."
I looked down at the dark, jagged expanse of the deep desert canyon stretching out behind me. I could stay hidden in these immediate rocks, pray his flashlight missed my boots, and hope the state police arrived before he crossed the drainage ditch. Or I could move deeper into the treacherous terrain, dragging the corrupt cop away from his cruiser, away from his radio, and deep into a place where a combat veteran knew exactly how to disappear.
If I stayed, I was a victim waiting to be executed. If I moved, I became the bait once again.
Cole’s flashlight beam swept slowly across the crushed hood of my truck, moving steadily toward the open driver-side door.
"I'm going dark on the screen," I told my daughter, lowering the brightness on the burner phone to zero. "Keep the audio line open. I’m pulling him into the canyon."
"Dad, don't—"
I slid the phone into my canvas jacket pocket, turned my back on the illuminated highway, and began a silent, agonizing crawl into the blackness of the scrub. I was bleeding, my ribs were screaming, and a corrupt deputy with a badge and a gun was hunting me. But he was walking into a trap he still didn't fully comprehend, and I was going to ensure he dragged his entire corrupt precinct down with him.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
Behind me, the sweeping beam of Officer Cole’s flashlight cut through the settling dust. It hit the crushed tailgate of my Ford, illuminating the ragged bullet hole he had put through the steel.