Chapter 5 - The Mountain Road Blockade
The SUV crashed back onto the lower logging road with a bone-jarring thud, bottoming out against the packed earth before surging forward.
Through the rear-view mirror, I watched my father’s black pickup scrambling to turn around on the narrow ridge, its tires spinning wildly in the dirt as Daniel leaped back into the passenger seat. They were trying to chase us down, but the terrain was working against them now.
Up ahead, rounding the final hairpin turn before the open highway, two Park County Sheriff cruisers came barreling up the mountain, their emergency strobes strobing blinding white and red against the twilight pines.
I flashed my headlights rapidly twice, hit the brakes, and pulled the SUV to a sliding stop right across the center of the road.
The lead cruiser slammed on its brakes, spraying gravel across our hood. Two deputies leaped out instantly, service weapons drawn, taking defensive positions behind their open doors.
“Step out of the vehicle with your hands where we can see them!” a sharp voice barked over the cruiser's P.A. system.
“I’m the one who triggered the satellite SOS!” I shouted, pushing my door open and stepping out onto the asphalt with my hands raised high. “I’m Melissa Hale! My eight-year-old daughter is in the passenger seat! My father and brother are coming down the ridge road right behind us in a black Ford pickup—they just tried to murder us!”
The lead deputy—a stocky, middle-aged officer with sharp eyes and a silver badge reading Sheriff Miller—lowered his weapon slightly, scanning my bruised face, torn jacket, and the dirt smeared across my skin.
“Ms. Hale? The emergency center dispatched us ten minutes ago based on your satellite ping. Are you injured?”
“My ribs are bruised, and my daughter is shaken up, but we’re alive,” I said, my voice shaking with adrenaline. “And the men who threw us down a mine shaft are about to drive around that bend.”
As if on cue, the roar of a powerful engine echoed around the hairpin turn above us.
Sheriff Miller spun around, raising his hand toward the second cruiser. “Halt! Block the road!”
A second later, my father’s black pickup rounded the bend, speeding down the slope. When Richard saw the two police cruisers blocking the narrow mountain road with their emergency lights flashing, he slammed on his brakes. The truck skidded sideways on the loose gravel, coming to a violent halt ten feet away from the police barricade.
Car doors flew open.
Sheriff Miller and three armed deputies swarmed the truck before my father or Daniel could even put it in reverse.
“Hands on the steering wheel! Do it now!” Miller roared, his hand resting on his holster.
Daniel shoved his hands up instantly, his face turning the color of skim milk. My father, Richard, gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white, his jaw working furiously as he stared past the deputies, locking eyes with me across the hood of my SUV.
Even now, trapped and cornered, his expression wasn't remorseful. It was pure, burning venom.
“You stupid, treacherous girl,” Richard muttered loudly enough for the deputies to hear as they yanked his door open and dragged him out onto the gravel.
“Mr. Richard Hale, and Mr. Daniel Hale,” Sheriff Miller stated coldly, snapping steel handcuffs onto my father’s wrists with practiced efficiency. “You’re under arrest for attempted premeditated murder, conspiracy, and reckless endangerment. You have the right to remain silent...”
I stood by the open door of my SUV, watching them get cuffed and shoved into the back of separate cruisers.
Sophie stepped out of the passenger seat, walking slowly over to my side. She reached out and took my hand, her grip warm and steady.
“Are they going away for a very long time, Mom?” she asked quietly, watching her grandfather and uncle get locked into the metal cages of the police cars.
May you like
I looked down at my daughter, feeling the last remaining weight of thirty years of family tyranny finally lift off my shoulders and vanish into the mountain wind.
“Yes, baby,” I said, pulling her close against my side. “They’re never going to hurt us again.”
