Chapter 4 - The Road Nobody Knew
The logging road was barely a road.
It was two muddy trenches twisting through miles of black forest.
Branches slapped the Jeep.
Rain hammered the roof.
Roman drove with one hand pressed against his bleeding abdomen.
Natalie noticed the dark stain spreading across the sweatshirt.
“You’re reopening the wound.”
“I know.”
“Pull over.”
“No.”
“You pass out, we all die.”
“If I pull over, they catch us.”
The headlights behind them disappeared.
Then returned.
They were gaining.
Natalie twisted around.
Liam crouched low in the back seat with Goliath pressed against him.
“You okay?”
He nodded.
He wasn’t.
His face had gone pale.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Is Dad going to jail?”
Natalie’s throat tightened.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he really know those men?”
“Yes.”
The truth felt cruel.
But lies had already damaged their family enough.
Liam looked down.
Goliath rested his enormous head across the boy’s lap.
Roman glanced at them.
“Seat belt.”
Liam clicked it.
A shot cracked through the forest.
Something struck the Jeep’s rear panel.
Roman swore.
Natalie stared at him.
“They’re shooting at a car with a child in it.”
Roman’s expression hardened into something lethal.
“That means Derek has lost control of whatever agreement he thought he had.”
“You think he wanted us alive?”
“Derek wanted money. Men like the ones behind us wanted convenience.”
Another shot.
Roman suddenly killed the headlights.
Natalie grabbed the dashboard.
“What are you doing?”
“Trust me.”
“You are the last person I trust.”
“Then trust physics.”
He yanked the steering wheel.
The Jeep left the road.
Liam gasped.
They plunged down a narrow slope through brush and saplings.
Natalie was certain they were about to roll.
Then the tires hit gravel.
An abandoned rail service path.
Roman turned sharply and accelerated.
Above them, the pursuing SUV continued along the logging road.
Its headlights vanished.
Natalie stared.
“How did you know this was here?”
“I didn’t.”
“You just drove us off a cliff hoping?”
“I saw the drainage cut.”
“You are insane.”
“Possibly.”
Liam whispered, “That was awesome.”
Natalie looked back.
“No, it was not.”
Roman smiled despite himself.
Five minutes later, he almost collapsed over the wheel.
Natalie grabbed it.
“Stop.”
This time he obeyed.
The Jeep rolled beneath an abandoned railroad bridge.
Roman opened the door and nearly fell onto the gravel.
Natalie rushed around.
His bandage was saturated.
“You tore something.”
“I’m fine.”
“If you say that one more time, I’m going to let Goliath diagnose you.”
Roman looked toward the mastiff.
“I’ll cooperate.”
Natalie spread the trauma kit on the hood.
Under the light from a small lantern, she removed the ruined dressing.
The stab wound had started bleeding again.
Not arterial.
But enough.
She packed it.
Roman clenched his jaw.
Liam stayed several feet away, holding Goliath’s collar.
Natalie lowered her voice.
“Who betrayed you?”
Roman’s eyes opened.
“You keep avoiding the question.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It means I know who was physically present, not who ordered it.”
“Who was present?”
Roman stared at the bridge above them.
“My chief of security.”
“Name?”
“Calvin Reed.”
“Anyone else?”
“A county deputy. Two men from Philadelphia. And Derek.”
Natalie pressed harder against the gauze.
Roman flinched.
“Sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“No.”
For the first time, Roman almost looked amused.
Then Natalie asked, “Why were you here?”
His amusement vanished.
“I came to meet someone.”
“In Blackwood Forest?”
“A confidential informant.”
“About what?”
Roman hesitated.
Natalie pressed the wound harder.
“Talk.”
“You enjoy that.”
“I enjoy answers.”
Roman exhaled.
“For the last year, someone inside my organization has been moving product through legitimate medical supply companies.”
“What kind of product?”
“Counterfeit medication. Stolen narcotics. Fentanyl.”
Natalie’s hand stopped.
Roman noticed.
“What?”
She stared at him.
“Three months ago, my hospital had four overdoses in one night.”
“That’s not unusual.”
“They weren’t street overdoses.”
Roman went quiet.
Natalie continued.
“Postoperative patients. All four received medication from sealed hospital stock. Pharmacy said the packaging looked legitimate.”
Roman’s expression changed.
“One died?”
“Two.”
He looked away.
Natalie’s anger rose.
“You knew?”
“I knew counterfeit hospital inventory existed. I didn’t know where it landed.”
“Your organization sold it.”
“Someone using my routes sold it.”
“That distinction won’t matter to the families.”
“No.”
Again, he refused to defend himself.
It was infuriating.
And somehow worse.
Roman continued.
“I was shutting it down.”
“Because you suddenly grew a conscience?”
“Because poisoning hospital patients is bad for business.”
Natalie laughed bitterly.
“At least you’re honest.”
Roman met her gaze.
“And because my sister died from counterfeit pills when she was nineteen.”
Natalie stopped.
The storm filled the silence.
Roman looked toward nothing.
“I was twenty-four. She injured her back in a car accident. Someone gave her what she thought was oxycodone.”
Natalie knew the rest.
“She overdosed.”
“One tablet.”
Roman’s voice stayed controlled.
Too controlled.
“That was when my father still ran the family. He found the dealer.”
Natalie waited.
Roman didn’t explain what happened to him.
He didn’t need to.
“I swore our people would never touch counterfeit medicine,” Roman said. “Someone decided my rule cost too much money.”
“And your informant knew who?”
“Yes.”
“Did you meet?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Calvin ambushed me first.”
Natalie secured the dressing.
“Who knew about the meeting?”
Roman looked at her.
“Three people.”
“Calvin?”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
“My attorney.”
“And?”
His expression darkened.
“My brother.”
Natalie stared.
“You think your brother buried you?”
“I said he knew.”
“What’s his name?”
“Anthony.”
“You trust him?”
Roman took too long to answer.
“More than anyone alive.”
“Maybe that’s your problem.”
He looked at her sharply.
Natalie shrugged.
“My ex-husband just sold my address to people burying bodies. I’m revising my position on trust.”
Roman couldn’t argue.
A branch snapped nearby.
Goliath stood instantly.
Roman reached for the pistol.
Natalie extinguished the lantern.
They waited.
Nothing.
Then Liam said, “Mom.”
His voice sounded frightened.
Natalie turned.
“What?”
He pointed toward Goliath.
The mastiff was not looking into the woods.
He was staring at the Jeep.
More specifically, beneath the Jeep.
Roman crawled down.
“What are you doing?”
He reached beneath the rear bumper.
His fingers closed around something.
When he stood again, he held a small black magnetic device.
Natalie’s stomach dropped.
“What is that?”
“A tracker.”
“How?”
Roman looked toward the forest road they had just escaped.
“They weren’t following our tires.”
He smashed the device against the bridge support.
Plastic shattered.
Roman removed a tiny circuit board.
“They were following us.”
Liam whispered, “Dad put it there?”
Natalie remembered Derek approaching the shed before the others arrived.
He had been beside the Jeep.
Long enough.
Her anger turned cold.
Roman threw the tracker into the creek.
“We have maybe ten minutes before they reach the last signal.”
Natalie packed the supplies.
“Then we move.”
Roman stood.
He swayed.
Natalie caught him.
For a moment they were inches apart.
His gray eyes searched hers.
“You should take Liam and disappear.”
“And you?”
“I draw them away.”
“No.”
“Natalie.”
“No.”
“You don’t owe me anything.”
“This stopped being about you when Derek put a tracker on a vehicle carrying my son.”
Roman stared.
Natalie stepped closer.
“You want to survive long enough to find out who betrayed you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m getting you to my father’s cabin.”
She handed him the Jeep keys.
“But I drive.”
Roman looked offended.
“You nearly sent us off a mountain.”
“It worked.”
“You’re bleeding through a sweatshirt with a cartoon eagle on it.”
He looked down.
“Fair.”
They climbed back into the Jeep.
Natalie drove.
The rain finally began to weaken.
Dawn remained hours away.
The mountains rose dark around them.
Forty-three minutes later, an old cabin appeared beyond a stand of hemlocks.
Natalie had not seen it since she was nineteen.
The porch sagged.
One shutter hung crookedly.
But it was standing.
More importantly, nobody should know it existed.
Natalie parked behind the structure.
They entered.
The cabin smelled like dust, pine, and memories.
Liam wandered toward an old framed photograph on the mantel.
“Is that Grandpa?”
Natalie followed his gaze.
Her father smiled from the faded picture.
Thomas Reed.
Standing beside a younger Natalie.
She felt the familiar ache.
“Yes.”
Roman stopped behind her.
His entire body went rigid.
Natalie noticed.
“What?”
Roman stared at the photograph.
Not at Natalie.
At her father.
His face lost every trace of color.
“Where did you say your father worked?”
“I didn’t.”
“Tell me.”
“He was an accountant.”
Roman moved closer to the photograph.
“For who?”
“I don’t know. Different companies. Why?”
Roman’s breathing changed.
Natalie grabbed his arm.
“You know him.”
Roman slowly turned.
The terror in his expression was different now.
Not fear for himself.
Recognition.
“My father kept one photograph locked in his office for twenty years.”
Natalie’s pulse began pounding.
Roman pointed toward Thomas Reed.
“It was of that man.”
Natalie stared at him.
“No.”
“Natalie.”
“My father was an accountant.”
Roman’s voice dropped.
“Your father was the reason mine escaped federal prison.”
The cabin seemed to disappear around her.
Roman continued.
“And according to everything I was told, Thomas Reed died because he stole something from the Bellandi family.”
Natalie could barely speak.
“What did he steal?”
Roman looked around the abandoned cabin.
Then at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
A long silence followed.
Then Goliath began scratching furiously at the boards beneath the fireplace.
Natalie and Roman looked at each other.
May you like
The dog had already dug one impossible secret out of the ground that night.
Now he had found another.
