Freed from the dead weight, I kicked upward, breaking the surface with a desperate, choking gasp.
Thirty feet above me, standing on the rim of the steep muddy embankment, Chief Deputy Riker’s tactical flashlight sliced through the darkness. The intense white beam swept erratically across the churning water, missing my head by mere inches.
"He's in the river!" Riker’s voice echoed down the narrow canyon, distorted by the roar of the rapids. "Get the spotlights on the banks! Cut him off at the shallows!"
I didn't try to swim against the massive flow of water. I let the relentless pull of the Washita take me. I rolled onto my back, crossing my arms tightly over my chest to protect the thick, leather-bound impound ledger zipped safely inside my jacket. The sharp, rigid corners of the heavy book dug mercilessly into my bruised ribs with every wave, but I didn't adjust it. That master intake log was the only thing keeping me out of a federal penitentiary, and it was going to cross the county line with me or go to the bottom of the river with my corpse.
The current dragged me rapidly downstream, spinning me like useless driftwood. The river bent sharply to the east, carrying me away from the burning smoke of the impound lot and directly toward the concrete pillars of the Route 9 overpass.
Through the dense pine tree line, the flashing red and blue lights of Hollister's barricade strobed against the underside of the bridge. I was approaching the heavily guarded choke point from fifteen feet below the asphalt.
I fought to angle my body toward the northern bank—the state side of the jurisdictional line. My arms were entirely numb, heavy blocks of ice hanging from my shoulders. My seventy-two-year-old heart pounded a frantic, erratic rhythm against my breastbone. Every necessary kick sent a jagged spike of blinding heat up my spine, but I couldn't stop moving. If I drifted past the bridge, the cold would stop my heart before I reached the next shallow bend.
The dark, muddy embankment rushed up out of the shadows. I slammed hard into a submerged tangle of thick willow roots. I grabbed a slick root with both hands, my frozen, stiff fingers slipping against the algae, and hauled my chest out of the freezing water.
I collapsed into the freezing mud, panting heavily, listening to the wail of county sirens echoing across the bridge directly above me. Hollister’s deputies were locked down on the asphalt, watching the road, waiting for a battered Ford F-150 to attempt a ramming maneuver. They never expected an old mechanic with broken ribs to bypass their four-ton steel blockade by riding the rapids.
I dragged myself up the steep, slick bank, my soaked clothes weighing thirty extra pounds. I breached the tree line and staggered onto the gravel shoulder of Route 9, a hundred yards past the bridge's northern edge.
I was completely out of the county. I was standing on state asphalt.
Three black Ford Explorers were parked shoulder-to-shoulder across the two-lane highway, their headlights cut, their engines idling with a low, menacing hum. State police.
I stumbled out of the shadows, raising my empty, shivering hands. The blinding beam of a mounted spotlight instantly hit me center mass, pinning me against the dark tree line.
"Hold it right there!" a voice commanded sharply over an amplified PA system. "Keep your hands perfectly still."
I didn't stop limping forward. I walked directly into the glaring center of the light.
"Investigator Miller!" I shouted, my voice cracking, raw and ruined from the river water. "I need Investigator Miller right now!"
Two men in dark windbreakers and tactical vests stepped out from behind the lead SUV, their hands resting cautiously on their holstered sidearms. The taller of the two, a man with graying hair and sharp, analytical eyes, raised a gloved hand to lower the spotlight.
"Walter?" he asked, his tone tight with shock.
I reached the front bumper of his vehicle and collapsed heavily against the warm metal grille, my legs finally giving out. I unzipped my soaked jacket with violently shaking fingers.
"Don't reach inside your coat!" one of the state troopers barked, drawing his weapon halfway from the holster.
"Stand down, both of you," Miller ordered, stepping rapidly closer.
I pulled the heavy, waterlogged impound ledger from my chest. The official gold county seal embossed on the leather cover was warped by the river water, but the thick bindings had kept the interior pages dry. I shoved the heavy book directly into Miller's hands.