Chapter 12: The Chase

The driver of Chisolm's car was a thick-necked man who never turned his head.

Chisolm sat beside me with his hands on his knees, humming.

I looked out the window at Sheridan Road sliding by, lit and wet.

Under the silk of my bodice I slid two fingers inside and found the flip phone.

My thumb knew the keys by now.

Not Evanston. Registry downtown. Michigan Ave. 9:40.

I pressed send against my ribs and felt it buzz.

"What's that?" Chisolm said.

"My heart."

He looked at the bead on my chest.

"Nerves," he said kindly. "They pass."

We came down onto Lake Shore Drive with the lake black on our left.

The skyline came up.

I counted the lights.

Every red one was a gift.

At 9:46, the car turned onto Michigan Avenue and slowed for the bridge.

The traffic ahead stopped in a long red line.

The sidewalks were crowded.

It was a Friday night.

Theater people in good clothes were spilling onto the corners with their phones in their hands.

Chisolm checked his watch.

"The judge is on Clark Street. We'll be there in ten minutes."

"Of course," I said.

And behind us, somebody laid on a horn.

A long, furious, endless horn.

I turned around in the white silk.

A dark car had come up the bridge approach the wrong way, across two lanes of traffic, with its hazards flashing.

It slewed sideways in front of Chisolm's sedan, bumper to bumper, and stopped, and every car around us began to scream.

The door flew open.

Rhodri got out into the road.

He wore a black sweater and no coat, and he had been running his hands through his hair for an hour.

"Drive," Chisolm said to the driver. "Go around him."

"Sir," said the driver, "there's a man in the road."

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