Chapter 7
Z
The thunder shook the small wooden cabin, vibrating the window panes in their frames. I stood up from the couch, my mind racing through thirty-year-old memory files, trying to reconstruct every calculation, every memo, every conversation I had in October 1994.
"He's bluffing," Carol said, though her voice lacked conviction. "He's desperate, Eugene. He's saying whatever he can to make you break."
"He isn't bluffing about the memo," I said, pacing across the narrow hardwood floor. "I wrote it. I distinctly remember sitting at my drafting table three weeks before the collapse, typing a formal concern memo regarding the foundation's load capacity. I gave it directly to Helen's father, Arthur."
"And Arthur kept it?"
"Arthur was a fox," I replied, the realization dawning on me with cruel clarity. "He kept it as insurance. If the state ever investigated him, he could point to my memo and say his chief engineer assured him the issue was being monitored. When Arthur died ten years ago, Helen went through his estate. She must have taken the memo and locked it in her safe at home."
"And Bradley found it when he cleaned out her bedroom last week," Carol concluded, her jaw tightening. "He didn't just take her jewelry and the legal documents. He took the leverage."
"If he leaks that memo without the accompanying structural repair receipts," I said, looking at Carol, "the public won't care about the legal nuances. They won't care that my signature on the final clearance was forged. They'll see a senior engineer who flagged a structural defect, did nothing to stop construction, and let four men die."
"My husband died in that basement, Eugene," Carol said quietly, her voice steady but deeply emotional. "I know who you are. I've spent fifteen years watching you through Helen's updates. I know you didn't kill my husband."
"The world won't know that," I said softly. "My legacy... my professional license... every building I ever designed in this state will be placed under suspicion. People will look at my name and see a murderer."
My phone buzzed on the table. It was a text message from Mateo.
We tracked Bradley's cell tower signal. He's heading north on Interstate 95 toward Jacksonville. He's driving a rented black sedan. We have highway patrol setting up a roadblock near Daytona, but the storm is slowing down our units.
I stared at the screen. Jacksonville was two hours north. The private airfields there catering to executive charters were notoriously lax with international flight plans if enough cash was thrown around. If Bradley reached that runway and boarded a private jet to a non-extradition country, he would be gone forever—leaving behind a wake of destroyed lives and a forged memo that would ruin me beyond recovery.
"Mateo's setting up a roadblock," I told Carol.
"Good," she said. "They'll catch him."
"Not if he takes the back roads," I argued, my engineering mind mapping the local geography. "I-95 gets completely flooded near the Matanzas River during a storm like this. Anyone who knows the area would cut off at Route 1 and take the old coastal bypass through St. Augustine. Bradley grew up vacationing on these coasts. He knows that route."
I grabbed my heavy canvas jacket from the back of the chair and pulled my truck keys out of my pocket.
"Eugene, what are you doing?" Carol demanded, stepping in front of the door. "You can't go out in this storm! Let the police handle it!"
"The police are looking for him on the main highway," I said firmly, putting my hands on her shoulders. "If he takes the coastal bypass, he'll slip right past them. And if he gets on that plane, Carol... your husband's memory never gets true justice. My name gets destroyed. And Bradley wins."
"You're sixty-two years old, Eugene! You're an engineer, not a cop!"
"I'm his father," I said, my voice dropping into a solemn, heavy tone. "I helped build the path that brought him to this moment. It's my job to block it."
Carol stared at me for a long, tense moment. The storm roared outside, wind whipping the sea oats against the cabin porch. Slowly, she stepped aside, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a heavy, waterproof flashlight. She pressed it into my hand.
"Don't do anything stupid, Eugene," she said, her eyes glistening in the dim light. "Call Mateo. Tell him where you're going."
"I will," I promised.
I opened the front door, stepping out into the blinding sheet of rain. The wind nearly tore the jacket from my back as I scrambled down the steps toward my battered pickup truck. Sand was blowing across the driveway, stinging my face.
I climbed into the driver's seat, slammed the door shut, and fired up the engine. The old V8 roared to life, its headlights cutting two beams of yellow light through the black, torrential storm.
I dialed Mateo's number on speakerphone, setting the phone on the dashboard as I shifted into reverse and backed out onto Driftwood Lane.
"Eugene?" Mateo answered over heavy static. "Where are you? I told you to stay at the cabin!"
"He's not taking I-95, Mateo!" I shouted over the noise of the rain beating against my windshield. "The Matanzas lowlands are flooded. He's taking Route 1 to the St. Augustine coastal bypass. It's the only way to avoid the highway patrol's speed traps during a storm!"
"Are you sure?" Mateo asked, the sound of keyboard clicking audible in the background.
"I've driven these roads for thirty years, Mateo! Send units to the St. Marys river bridge on Route 1!"
"Eugene, stay where you are! We'll redirect the Daytona units, but it's going to take twenty minutes!"
"I don't have twenty minutes!" I shouted back, slamming my foot on the accelerator as I hit the main paved road. "I'm closer to the bypass than your officers are. I'm going to intercept him at the old drawbridge."
"Eugene, don't! He's desperate!"
I cut the call, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.
May you like
The old drawbridge over Pellicer Creek on Route 1 was narrow, built in the 1960s with rusted iron girders and concrete piers. In a heavy storm like this, the county often raised the span to prevent storm surges from tearing the mechanical gears apart.
If the bridge was raised, Bradley would be trapped. And if it wasn't... I was going to park my truck dead in the middle of the lanes and make sure he couldn't pass.
