Chapter 7: Twenty Miles

I dropped the granola bar and ran.

Hector was already running beside me, faster than a man his size had any right to be.

"Stay with them," I shouted at Rafael's man by the fountain. "Don't let go of their hands."

The black Escalade was parked at the curb on Stockton.

Hector threw me the keys without a word.

He knew I drove better.

I'd learned on the dirt roads outside Las Cruces, running supplies at night with the lights off.

I had the engine going before his door shut.

The white van was two blocks ahead, stuck behind a city bus.

Then the bus pulled over, and the van shot through.

I put my foot down.

We went through a red light on Fullerton with three horns screaming at us.

Hector was on the phone to Rafael in rapid Spanish.

"White van. Illinois plate, starts with K. Heading for the Drive."

The van swung onto the ramp for Lake Shore Drive.

It fishtailed on the curve.

Through the back window, I saw something move.

A small shape. A kicking foot.

Then the van's back window cracked into a white spiderweb from the inside.

"That's my boy," Hector said.

The van swerved across two lanes.

It clipped a Honda, bounced off the concrete divider, and slowed.

Traffic at the bottom of the ramp was stopped for a light under the Fullerton overpass.

The van had nowhere to go.

I pulled the Escalade in front of it and stood on the brake.

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