PART 4 – Flight into the Night
The deafening sound of the gunshot echoed through the small study. With a dull thud, the bullet lodged itself into the wooden clock right next to my head, sending wood splinters flying everywhere. My ears rang intensely.
Daniel didn't wait a second. He grabbed a heavy copper desk lamp and hurls it with all his strength at the armed man. The lamp struck Vance full in the chest, making him step back and lose his balance.
"Now!" Daniel yelled.
He grabbed the chair by the window, smashed the glass in a single motion, and pulled me toward the frame. Shards glinted on the carpet. Outside, the biting winter air immediately struck my face.
"Onto the roof, Arthur! Now!"
I didn't think about my age, my stiff knees, or the height anymore. Fear gave me a strength I hadn't felt in years. I climbed through the broken window frame and dropped onto the flat roof of the utility room, which was covered in a thin layer of ice and snow. I slipped and fell onto my hands and knees, but Daniel was already beside me. He helped me up and quickly led me to the edge of the roof, where an old drainpipe and a makeshift step of stacked firewood logs stood.
Behind us, Vance shouted curses through the broken window. Another shot rang out, but the bullet ricocheted off the roofing felt.
We lowered ourselves from the edge of the flat roof and landed in the deep snow of the backyard. The cold immediately penetrated my thin slippers. I had no jacket on, only my thick winter cardigan. Seeing me shiver, Daniel immediately took off his own heavy wool coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. It was just like the winter of 1981, but now the roles were reversed.
"We have to head into the woods," Daniel said urgently. He took my hand. "Their cars are blocking the driveway. We can't reach my car."
At the back of my property began the dense pine forest that stretched for miles along the old bus route. We ran—as fast as my body allowed—through the deep snow toward the cover of the trees. Branches slapped our faces and the icy wind cut into our lungs.
Behind us, we heard the voices of several men shouting each other's names. They had entered the garden and were following our tracks in the fresh snow.
"They'll keep following us as long as we leave footprints," I said out of breath, leaning against a thick oak tree to catch my breath. My heart was beating so hard it hurt my chest. "Daniel... I can't run fast anymore. Leave me here. Take that notebook."
Daniel looked at me angrily, though there was a deep warmth in his eyes. "Thirty years ago, you didn't leave me out in the cold either, Arthur. I am never leaving you alone. We're getting through this together."
He looked around and spotted the bed of a small, frozen stream winding through the forest. The ice was partially covered in snow, but the running water beneath had thinned the ice in some spots.
"If we walk through the streambed, our tracks will fade in the melting ice and water," he said. "It will be cold, but it's our only chance to shake them."
I nodded. We stepped into the streambed. The ice-cold water immediately soaked through my shoes. The pain was biting, but we trudged on, deeper into the dark forest, as daylight slowly began to fade.
After about twenty minutes of walking, we stopped beneath an overturned fir tree. The sounds of the pursuers had died down. We seemed to have lost them, but darkness fell quickly and the temperature dropped far below freezing.
Daniel pulled the black notebook from his pocket and carefully opened it by the light of his cell phone.
"Let's see what Thomas left behind," he whispered.
He flipped through pages filled with handwritten numbers, code names, and dates. But when he reached the last page, his breath hitched. A folded photograph lay between the pages.
Daniel unfolded the photo and held his phone light to it.
It was an old picture of myself sitting behind the wheel of school bus route 5, smiling at the camera. But on the back of the photo, something was written in the clear handwriting of my husband Thomas:
If you are reading this, Daniel... she was never just a bus driver. And you were never just a random boy.
Daniel stared at the text. I felt the ground slip away from under my feet once again.
"What... what does that mean?" I whispered in a choked voice.
Before Daniel could answer, the sound of a hovering helicopter suddenly echoed above the treetops, and a bright spotlight cut through the darkness of the forest, aiming straight at our hiding place.
