Chapter 10: Shadows Across the State Line
Hundreds of miles away, inside the modest kitchen with its harsh overhead fluorescent lighting, the atmosphere was thick with brooding silence. Mark paced back and forth across the scuffed linoleum floor, his heavy boots making a dull thudding sound that echoed through the empty house. The brown canvas hooded jacket he wore was unzipped, revealing the same frayed plaid shirt. His dark hair was disheveled, and his stubble had grown into a thick, coarse beard over the past two days.
The house felt unnatural without the muffled cries of the baby or the sound of Lily’s small footsteps running down the hallway. It was too quiet, and the silence seemed to mock him, amplifying the raw, jagged edges of his unmanaged anger. He walked over to the wooden kitchen table, his heavy hand slamming down onto the wood surface hard enough to rattle the salt shaker.
She was gone. She had actually done it. After all his warnings, after all his bluster, Clara had packed up the girls and slipped away into the night like a thief.
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Mark grabbed his truck keys from the counter and slammed out the back door, his mind consumed by a dark, obsessive urge to track them down. He climbed into his battered pickup truck, turning the ignition with a vicious twist of his wrist. He didn't care where she went; he was going to find her, drag them back, and restore order to his home.
He drove recklessly toward the interstate, his knuckles white around the steering wheel as he sped through the darkened suburbs. But as the miles ticked by and the highway signs blurred into indistinguishable green rectangles, a cold reality began to sink in through the haze of his rage. He didn't know where Sarah lived in Seattle. He didn't have a reliable lead, and his bank account was just as depleted as hers now that the local credit union had frozen his debit card due to suspicious activity. Pulling his truck over onto the gravel shoulder of the highway, Mark slammed his fists against the steering wheel in a fit of helpless frustration as the engine ticked loudly in the cooling night air.
