Jackson guns the car through the rain-black streets, the evidence case thudding between knees and seat frames. On the radio, a clipped dispatcher repeats Miller's name, then mentions a stop order on any vehicle leaving Pier Nine.
Ahead, red and blue blooms smear across wet pavement. A cruiser noses into the avenue, half-formed like a guillotine in the fog. The city is trying to close its hand around them.
Dallas Fontaine
The net is already up.
Jackson cuts hard before the blockade can square up, and the tires scream. Murderbone braces in the back, teeth bared at the side window. Calabash clutches the dash as the car leaps into a service lane lined with dead warehouses.
Jackson Temple
Miller's being leaned on. We do not get a clean road, Dallas. We get minutes.
At the next intersection, a dark sedan idles beneath a streetlamp, its driver still and patient. Not police. Worse. The Clean Collar has already found the route out.
Calabash
Then we do not take the road. We take the ugly way.
Jackson swerves toward the harbor service tunnels, the evidence case jostling as the city folds behind them and the escape becomes one narrow, filthy line.