The two girls jumped and hugged one another in joy when they got to the road. Someone would be along soon enough and would pick them up and take them to the nearest town. It was just about all over. Tears streamed down both of their faces as their feet felt the hard road surface.
This all changed however, when the sounds of the first car to come along approached in the distance. They couldn't see it but they knew it was coming. The euphoria lifted so fast that both of them felt it physically.
“What if it’s Spalding?” Ellie said, her voice tinged with fearful certainty. Megan didn’t want to believe it but she felt the same tension growing within her. They stared deep into one another's wide, open eyes, each looking for some fact or reason but not finding it. At the last moment, just before the car rounded the bend in the road and became visible, both Megan and Ellie scrambled in terror to either side of the road.
The car went by, probably speeding for the road it was on, but Megan got a good look at the driver and it wasn’t Spalding. Just for a moment she thought of breaking cover and running into the road behind the car, calling out and waving for him to come back. But fear stopped her. Why was he going so fast? Was it possible he was looking for them on behalf of Spalding? Lord knew he had people doing his dirty work all over the place.
“Was it him?” Ellie’s nervous voice called out from the treeline on the other side of the road.
“No,” Megan said, making her way to the road again. Ellie came out to meet her. She clearly hadn’t seen the driver from where she was hiding but she looked scared still and didn't ask Megan why she didn’t try to hail them if she knew it wasn’t Spalding. Megan felt she had to explain anyway.
“He was going too fast, I wondered if he was looking for us for Spalding.”
“You’re probably right,” Ellie said looking on the road the way the car had gone “This escape is probably going to take longer than we thought.” Megan nodded in agreement with this.
“We just need to keep to the edge of the road and hide when we hear a car coming,” she said.
For many hours they walked the lonely road, coming to the odd off road that looked like it might run to a farm or house. They were too scared to chance going down any of these either. The whole area seemed abandoned and there was no way to tell if anyone might live there or if they did they might be under Spalding’s power too.
Night had fallen by the time they came to a town limits line. The sign said ‘Dover’ and neither of them had ever heard of it.
“It shouldn’t be any more than a few miles from here,” Megan said and Ellie smiled with relief. They were exhausted and both were limping from the long walk on the rough road surface.
“Race ya,” Ellie said breathlessly and Megan smiled at her. It was a pure joy to see Ellie could still have a sense of humour after all they had been through. It was an uplifting moment and it brought fresh tears to Megan’s eyes. Ellie threw an arm around her shoulders and they set to walking again. They had an appointment with the Dover Sheriff’s Office to get to.
Thirty minutes later they were in the tiny town of Dover. There wasn’t much to it and the Sheriff’s Office stood out in town like it was a place of business. Megan felt suspicious eyes from behind blinds and twitching curtains as they passed the few houses on the way. This place seemed so quiet that two strangers rolling in looking like she and Ellie did was probably the closest thing to scandal or trouble the place had seen in twenty years. Some had probably already called the law to report them by now.
They entered the Office and as soon as they were inside, Megan’s knees crumpled and she fell to the floor. Ellie leaned over and the strain seemed to do the same to her and they both lay there on the dusty wooden floor, tears streaming down both of their faces as they embraced. For the first time in so very, very long, they felt they were safe. It was not something they had ever thought they were going to ever feel again.
Chapter 44
IT WAS DRINK DRIVING, there were no two ways about it. It didn’t matter that she was an agent of law enforcement, she was guilty of an offence but right now she didn’t care. Sarah was angry about a lot of things. A lot of unsolved cases, a lot of personal struggles and most recently of all a semi drunk call to her ex Marcus who she could tell was very eager to get off the phone. Why had she called him; weren’t things fine now, wasn’t she past that? She had thought so, and knew she didn’t have a place in her life for a man right now, not until her mission was over. And yet she had done it, she picked up the phone, looked at it, told herself not to do it, that it was stupid and then dialled. She had the chance to hang up as he took so long to answer but still she held on knowing it was not the right thing to do, that she was going to make a fool of herself. And that was what had happened, and now she wanted to blame someone. Tyler Ford was the cause of it all and he was the one who was going to pay for it. Sarah was on her way to his house and she was going to tear him a new asshole when she
