Chapter 7 Amelia
SEVEN
AMELIA
The car jostled to a stop.
Nothing came.
No mangled mess of metal.
No broken glass.
Just the sirens screaming up the hill and Amelia’s breaths exploding from her lips. She cracked her eyes and peeked through the sliver of space between her arms.
On the shoulder of the road, the car had missed the guardrail by mere inches.
Amelia peered over the edge to the lake water lapping at jagged rocks below.
They sat in heavy darkness and even heavier silence.
Amelia didn’t know how long it lasted, long enough that her panting breaths slowed and Brian’s hands mostly ceased their shaking.
“What the fuck happened?” he asked so softly Amelia wasn’t certain if she was meant to hear, much less answer.
“The storm knocked the trees—”
“I don’t mean that.”
Acidity hit the back of her throat as horror snapped into focus. Amelia spun in her seat and ignored the sharp sting of glass that’d buried in her arms and legs.
“My mom! Give me your phone!”
She held out her hand, but tears wet Brian’s cheeks as he shook his head.
“I dropped it when they started shooting. Maybe she got out.”
Out.
The word gutted in a way Amelia hadn’t accounted for. Her mom had been upstairs. She could have hidden from the gunmen, but the fire was inescapable. Amelia’s hand flew to her mouth and muffled a gasp.
“Oh God. This isn’t happening.”
In a daze, she stared out the windshield. Reality escaped her, and she tried to anchor herself to anything tangible. Even pain eluded her, buried beneath surreal detachment. She bit her lip hard just to prove it wasn’t a dream but to no avail.
The wipers struggled to keep up with rain pelting the glass and, across the road, trees thrashed with the wind. The night had gained shades of dark with thick clouds and streetlights knocked out by the storm.
“You said there were people at the party who shouldn’t have been there,” Brian said. “What did you mean?”
Amelia rubbed her arms to drive in warmth, but her icy fingers accomplished little. Neither did her mouth that couldn’t summon an answer. It was too much to explain with her head a mess and thoughts muddled.
“I—I don’t know.”
A flash of lightning illuminated Brian’s scowl. In the dark again, she still felt his heavy stare.
“You knew something, Amelia.”
Yes, she did, enough to know they needed to leave, enough that she could’ve done more, said more. Weighed down with shame, she slouched in her seat.
“There were people there who didn’t belong. Richard panicked when he saw them.”
Brian hesitated and, for a moment, nothing manifested on his parted lips.
“They didn’t just come in right off the bat killing everyone. I think they were looking for certain people.”
For me. Amelia studied the empty road. It offered no reassurance but unnerved with eerie exposure. Her stomach soured and hands wrung in a grip so tight her knuckles ached.
“Brian, I think I’m in trouble.”
The leather seat crackled as he fidgeted. “Trouble how?”
“Burt knew things he wasn’t supposed to, information about the Moriartys and the Velascos. War plans, apparently. It was in a folder. I saw it by accident.”
“Why would he have that?”
A question for the ages, Amelia shook her head. Another police car barreled past them in a blur of whirling lights. We need to leave.
“Who else knows?”
“No one. Burt made me swear not to tell anyone. I didn’t, but I don’t think that matters now. They already know I’ve seen it.”
“Who? The Velascos or Moriartys?”
“I don’t know. Probably both.”
Brian fixed his eyes on the rearview mirror as a downpour battered the car.
“The tall guy with the black hair. I know you know him. Who is he?”
“Emory Holt,” Amelia whispered and instantly understood the contempt her father put on his name. “He’s Chief of the Moriartys.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. What if…”
The thought hung unspoken like forbidden fruit neither would pluck. There were too many “what ifs” to ponder.
What if Emory found her? What if they planned to do to her what they did to Burt? What if it wasn’t the end?
That seemed certain. The events were connected in a fated tapestry and Amelia could follow the thread that warned it wasn’t a tragic one-off.
“We need to leave,” she said. “You can drop me off at home.”
Brian gaped at her. “Are you out of your fucking mind? I’m not doing that!”
“And I’m not putting you in danger! If they want me—”
“Then they’ll find you exactly where they expect you to go. Something awful is going on. We both know that much. It’s not safe to go home.”
Amelia battled the instinct to argue. It was the watershed moment that read from the margins the thing they hadn’t yet said. Only the hunted hide. There was no going back.
“We should go,” Amelia said and glimpsed the lake waters below that churned in tandem with a restless sky. “We’ll get as far as we can until we’re safe and then reach out for help.”
“As long as we stay together, we’ll be fine.”
Brian said it like a pact as he pulled from the shoulder, but it resonated like an ill omen. Along the lake road, the comedown from adrenaline abandoned them both in static shock. Warm air blasted from the vents, but Amelia couldn’t shake the chill that soaked to the bone.
“South?” Brian asked when they approached the main highway bisecting Portland.
She fiddled with her purse strap. North meant passing the exit to her house. Everything she loved was north. South led nowhere.
“Yeah,” she whispered and rested her head against the window. The condensation wet her throbbing temple.
Brian navigated the on-ramp, and they journeyed with a gulf of silence between them. It continued past Eugene and farther still when the radio crackled with the twang of a lovelorn cowboy.
Eventually, the rain let up, but in its place, thick fog enveloped the road, and the lamp posts dotting the highway thinned. The only light illuminating the car was the dashboard and occasional high beams from passing travelers.
Brian examined the rearview mirror and slowed until a lone car passed. When it did, he flicked off the radio and glanced at Amelia.
“I need to tell you something.”
Amelia sat up and winced as glass cut into her with a painful throb. “What is it?”
“I overheard something at the party. These two guys—cops, I think—were talking about the Velascos. They said there’s something strange going on. It’s like their whole MO changed.”
“Changed how?”
Fear washed over Brian in stunning fashion. It momentarily staid his tongue before dampening his voice.
“It’s dark. Like, bad juju or something. The brutality of the things they’ve done.” He withheld whatever it was for her sake. “They seemed pretty spooked by it.”
It must’ve spooked Brian, too. He nervously cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck.
It didn’t make sense. To Amelia’s father, the Velascos were the known quantity. They were flashy and prone to flaunting their connections and wealth, which meant they got sloppy. The Moriartys were the ones to fear with their doctrine of death and ruthlessness that couldn’t be tamed.
“Are you sure they weren’t talking about the Moriartys?”
“Positive.”
“Did they say why it’s happening?”
“That’s the thing. No one knows what’s changed, just that they’re more violent and depraved, like someone else is calling the shots. Tonight had to be them, right? I mean, did your dad ever mention anything about this?”
Amelia shook her head. “He thought the indictment was a done deal, that he had Philippe Velasco where he wanted him and that was it.”
“Clearly, not.”
Unease crept in with goosebumps that blanketed Amelia’s skin. Headlights flickered behind them once more. The engine roared with Brian’s foot heavy on the pedal until the gas light flicked on. Brian stared at it like the cause of catastrophe.
“It’ll be okay,” Amelia said. “I saw a sign for a station a mile back. It should be coming up.”
At the next exit, Brian pulled off the highway and released a shallow sigh when the car behind them continued into the fog. A mile down a country road, he turned into a vacant gas station.
A corroded tin overhang feebly sheltered four pumps, two of which were out of order.
A metal sign hung on rusted chains and groaned with the wind.
“Frank’s Fuel and Auto Repair,” it announced in paint-chipped letters.
Next to the pumps, a mechanic’s garage looked abandoned with its windows coated in a greasy film.
Brian killed the engine and scrutinized the tiny gas mart attached to the garage.
“Let’s hope someone’s in there,” he said. “We won’t make it to another station.”
Minutes stretched on, but the attendant hadn’t appeared. Brian thumped the steering wheel, and his foot tapped the floorboard. They’d have to go in, that was clear, but he refused to budge.
Amelia patted his knee. “Come on. We’ll go together.”
Outside, her bare legs prickled against the night’s chill. Amelia peered through the garage’s grimy window. A single bulb hung from the ceiling and revealed shelves filled with dented canisters, rusted tools, and piles of junk. Whoever Frank was, he wasn’t repairing cars anymore.
Amelia led the way inside the gas mart where fluorescent light cast a dingy glow.
It looked as though the place had been left to rot.
Dust blanketed a handful of sparsely filled shelves.
The only sign of life was the mournful warble of “Ramblin’ Man” pouring from the speakers.
They loitered at the counter covered in yellowed plastic.
An ashtray next to the register overflowed with stale cigarette butts.
“Hello?” Brian shouted.
Shuffles sounded from behind a door labeled “Employees Only.” It flung open, and a hulking man settled beneath its frame in tattered jeans and a sweat-stained shirt. Greasy grey hair framed a bloated face.
“I’m closed,” he barked but leered at Amelia.
“Sir, we really need gas,” Brian said. “We won’t make it to another station.”
“You got cash? No cash, no gas. And I won’t pump it for you.”
Spittle gathered at the corners of the man’s cracked lips. Brian’s eyes darted to Amelia, and his skin paled as she shook her head. She never carried cash. The attendant pointed to the door for them to leave and turned back to his hovel.
“In case the food sucks and you wanna stop for something on the way home.”
“Wait! I’ve got it,” Amelia called after him and fumbled through her purse.
She handed the attendant two twenty-dollar bills. He snatched them from her, but his beady eyes gleamed with greed.
“All of it.”
“This is all of it,” Amelia insisted.
For a moment, he looked poised to call her bluff, but grumbled to himself and jabbed at the register.
Brian discreetly slipped Amelia the car keys. “Get in and lock the door.”
She obeyed and, from the passenger seat, supervised Brian’s scrimmage with the clerk until a car pulled in. Her eyes shot to the rearview mirror where headlights beamed from a beat-up Buick. The driver rummaged through the glove box before kicking open the door.
Amelia scooted down in her seat to go unnoticed. Gravel crunched in deliberate steps. Maybe they just needed gas. Why then did they park at an out-of-order pump? The steps stopped behind Brian’s car. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Go away. Please go away.
The slow crunch started again, then something lightly tapped the top of Brian’s car.
Tap, crunch, tap, crunch.
The sounds came closer until the driver stopped outside Amelia’s door.