Chapter 17 - THE HIGHWAY OF GHOSTS
Lake Shore Drive was a blurred streak of gray asphalt, white foam from Lake Michigan crashing over the concrete barrier, and the blinding glare of halogen lights in my rearview mirror.
Rain lashed against the cracked windshield of the Shelby GT500. Every time the heavy V8 engine shifted into fourth gear, the speedometer crept past one hundred miles per hour, the rear end fishtailing wildly across the flooded lanes.
Behind me, the tactical van closed the gap with terrifying momentum.
Julian Sterling was driving like a man possessed. His knee was shattered, his face was burned, his empire was burning behind him, and he had nothing left to live for except the complete annihilation of the woman who had stripped away his ghosthood.
*BAM.*
The van’s reinforced steel bumper slammed into the Shelby’s rear quarter-panel.
The impact detonated through the chassis, sending the antique muscle car into a sickening, sixty-mile-per-hour spin across three lanes of traffic.
Horns blared. Civilian cars swerved onto the median, tires screeching against the wet concrete.
I fought the steering wheel, turning into the skid, my muscles screaming in protest, the bullet graze on my shoulder reopening, warm blood soaking through my scrubs.
I slammed the brakes, dropped into second gear, and dropped the hammer.
The Shelby’s rear tires gripped the road, snapping the car straight just as Julian’s van lunged again, its heavy steel bumper missing my driver’s side door by three inches.
Up ahead, rising through the fog, was the Fullerton Parkway exit—the ramp leading straight into the heart of Lincoln Park, where Daniel and Lily were barricaded in the federal safe house.
If I took that exit, I would lead Julian straight to my child.
I didn't turn.
I floored the accelerator, staying on Lake Shore Drive, heading south toward the heart of the Chicago Loop. Toward the concrete canyons of Michigan Avenue. Toward the federal building where Special Agent Morrison was staging the task force.
I grabbed Julian's satellite phone from the passenger seat, dialing 911, screaming into the speaker:
"This is Elena Hawthorne! I am traveling southbound on Lake Shore Drive at one hundred miles per hour! Black commercial transport van is attempting to execute a vehicular homicide! Notify Special Agent Morrison at the Dirksen Federal Building! Tell her Julian Sterling is driving the van!"
The 911 dispatcher’s voice was frantic: *"Ma'am, stay on the line! State troopers are mobilizing at North Avenue—"*
*CRUNCH.*
Julian rammed the Shelby a second time, this time dead center.
The trunk crumpled inward like a tin can. The rear glass shattered, showering my neck in thousands of diamond fragments. The impact threw my chest violently against the three-point seatbelt, knocking the breath from my lungs and sending the satellite phone flying out the open rear window.
The Shelby’s steering began to pull hard to the right. The rear suspension was broken, the tire rubbing against the twisted sheet metal with an ear-splitting screech of burning rubber.
We cleared the curve near Oak Street Beach.
Ahead of us, where Lake Shore Drive transitioned into the concrete overpass near the Chicago River, four Illinois State Police cruisers had formed a staggered roadblock, their blue and red emergency lights painting the rainy gloom in frantic neon pulses.
"Roadblock!" I yelled to myself, my knuckles turning bone-white on the wheel.
Julian didn't slow down.
Through my cracked side mirror, I saw Julian Sterling behind the wheel of the tactical van. His face was a mask of demonic fury, blood running from his hairline into his open mouth.
He didn't intend to stop at the roadblock.
He was going to use the van as a three-ton battering ram to smash the Shelby straight through the police barrier and over the edge of the elevated overpass into the icy waters of the Chicago River.
"Not today," I whispered.
Fifty yards from the roadblock. Forty. Thirty.
I slammed both feet on the brake and ripped the emergency handbrake upward with all the strength left in my body.
The Shelby spun ninety degrees, executing a violent bootlegger’s turn across the rain-slicked asphalt, sliding sideways into the narrow gap between the concrete barrier and the first state police cruiser.
Julian’s tactical van had too much momentum.
At ninety-five miles per hour, Julian couldn't turn.
The heavy steel bumper of the van clipped the rear bumper of the sliding Shelby, shearing the muscle car’s trunk completely off, but the van couldn't stop.
The van struck the reinforced concrete retaining wall of the overpass head-on.
The sound was like a bomb going off.
The concrete barrier cracked, steel rebar snapping like dry twigs.
The rear end of the tactical van lifted ten feet into the air from the sheer kinetic force, flipping violently over the hood, rolling three times across the pavement, shedding tires, doors, and glass, before slamming upside down against the steel bridge support.
The Shelby came to a halt twenty feet away, its engine hissing steam, its rear tires shredded to the rims.
Silence descended over the highway, broken only by the wailing of police sirens and the steady drumming of the rain.
I kicked open the buckled driver's door and stumbled out onto the freezing asphalt.
My knees gave out. I collapsed onto my hands and knees, vomiting bile and blood onto the road, my chest heaving in ragged, agonizing gasps.
A dozen state troopers with rifles raised rushed toward the scene, screaming commands, taking defensive positions around the overturned van.
Special Agent Morrison’s black suburban screeched to a halt beside my car.
Morrison leaped out of the passenger side, her windbreaker soaked in rain, sprinting toward me and dropping to her knees.
"Elena! Don't move! The paramedics are right behind us!"
"The van..." I choked out, pointing a trembling, blood-covered hand toward the crumpled steel carcass of the transport van. "Julian Sterling is inside..."
Morrison drew her Glock, signaling two tactical troopers to advance on the smoking wreckage.
They approached the crushed cab of the van with ballistic shields raised.
One trooper peered through the shattered windshield, his rifle leveled.
He lowered his weapon.
"Agent Morrison," the trooper called out, his voice solemn. "Driver is non-responsive. Crushed by the steering column. Severe head trauma. No pulse."
Julian Sterling was dead.
The ghost of Lake Superior had finally met his grave.
Morrison exhaled a long, shuddering breath, then turned back to me, wrapping her heavy wool coat around my trembling shoulders.
"It’s over, Elena," Morrison whispered, her hand gently resting on my uninjured shoulder. "It’s finally over."
I sat in the rain on the cold asphalt of Lake Shore Drive, looking up at the gray Chicago sky.
For the first time in fifteen years, the suffocating weight in my chest evaporated.
Clara was avenged.
My mother was avenged.
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And the monsters who had ruled this city from the shadows were nothing more than blood and broken steel on the pavement.
***
