Chapter 3 - Flight Into the Fog
I pulled the SUV into the parking lot of a dilapidated, twenty-four-hour diner about twenty miles outside of town. The neon sign buzzed erratically through the thick, gray fog that had rolled in over the fields. The parking lot was mostly empty, save for a couple of rusted pickup trucks belonging to early-shift workers.
"Stay here for just a second, Lily," I said, keeping the engine running.
I reached for my phone, my fingers slick with sweat. I needed to check the vehicle. If Derek had tampered with the car, driving it any further was a death sentence. I opened the door, stepped out into the freezing rain, and popped the hood.
I didn't know much about mechanics, but I knew what a clean engine bay looked like. I shone my phone’s flashlight over the hoses, the brake fluid reservoir, and the battery terminals. Everything looked intact. I knelt on the wet asphalt and looked underneath the chassis. No dripping fluids, no strange wires hanging down.
Then, my eyes caught something tucked into the rear wheel well.
A small, black plastic box, no larger than a deck of cards, was magnetically attached to the frame. A tiny, faint green LED light flashed rhythmically every few seconds.
My breath caught in my throat. A GPS tracker.
Derek hadn't tampered with the mechanics of the car to cause an accident here. He was tracking us. He knew exactly where we were, or at least, whoever he had hired did. The realization hit me like a physical blow. The "accident" wasn't meant to happen on the road; it was meant to happen wherever we fled to, making it look like a tragic mishap on a stressful trip.
With a surge of adrenaline, I reached in and yanked the black box off the metal frame. My heart pounded as I looked at it. If I threw it away here, they would know I found it. They would know we were running.
I looked around the empty parking lot. My eyes landed on an eighteen-wheeler truck idling near the edge of the diner lot, its driver inside drinking coffee. The mudflaps were caked in dirt, and a magnetic metal bar ran across the back of the trailer.
Stealthily, keeping low beneath the fog, I jogged over to the truck. I slapped the magnetic tracker onto the highest, most concealed part of the truck's rear frame. The truck’s mudflaps bore a logo for a shipping company based in Chicago—hundreds of miles in the opposite direction of where I intended to go.
I hurried back to my SUV, slipped into the driver's seat, and put the car in gear. Within minutes, the eighteen-wheeler pulled out of the diner lot, heading north toward the interstate. I watched its red taillights disappear into the fog, carrying Derek's digital eyes with it.
"Mommy, you're wet," Lily said, reaching forward to touch my damp shoulder.
"I'm okay, baby," I said, wiping a mixture of rain and tears from my face. "We're safe. We're going to see Grandma."
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My mother lived in a secluded cabin nestled in the Appalachian foothills, three hours away. She didn't have a smartphone, she barely used the internet, and Derek had always loathed visiting her because of the lack of cell service. It was the perfect place to hide, think, and plan our next move.
As I drove, the weight of my reality began to settle in. My marriage had been a facade. For years, Derek had isolated me, subtly convincing me that my anxieties were imagined, that his long absences were purely professional, and that I was lucky to have a provider like him. Now, I realized the terrifying truth: I wasn't just a wife to him. I was a liability, an obstacle, or perhaps an insurance policy he was ready to cash in.
