Chapter 3 - The Ghost Highway
The utility truck tore through the unplowed drifts on Route 146, throwing twin waves of white powder high into the midnight air.
The road north toward Worcester was completely dead, devoid of headlights, salt trucks, or any sign of civil life.
High above them, overhead highway signs groaned under the weight of wet snow and sixty-mile-an-hour gale winds.
Rafe drove with an easy, rhythmic precision born from years of navigating back-alley drop-offs and unmarked deliveries.
Mave sat beside him, the heater finally blasting warm air against her frozen shins, thawing the damp canvas of her bag.
"Let me see Keterman’s ledger," Rafe said, not taking his eyes off the dark strip of asphalt ahead.
Mave hesitated for a single heartbeat, then reached inside the bag and pulled the leather-bound book onto her lap.
She turned the brittle pages with her good hand, using her bandaged thumb to hold down the edge.
"There are three columns per page," Mave explained, her voice steady against the hum of the engine.
"The first is the patient’s administrative identification number from the central intake system," Mave said.
"The second is the property transfer date and the corresponding county registry book number," she continued.
"The third column is the liquidation value after the title was cleared through Doyle’s probate firm," Mave whispered.
She flipped the page back to the year 2021 and stopped her finger beneath a name written in faded blue ink.
"Balandi, Teresa," Mave read aloud.
The cabin of the truck fell into a silence so heavy that only the ticking of the heater remained.
Rafe’s left hand gripped the steering wheel so hard the black leather covering creaked beneath his palm.
"What’s the number beside it?" Rafe asked quietly.
"Four hundred and eighty thousand," Mave answered softly, not looking up from the page.
"The property was registered as a single-family residential structure on DePasquale Square," Mave read from the notes.
"It was sold to a shell company named North Shore Development within forty-eight hours of her death," Mave continued.
"And the notary seal?" Rafe asked.
Mave pulled the heavy brass embossing seal from her coat pocket and held it in the dashboard’s faint light.
"Arthur Lindquist," she said.
"The same retired notary whose stamp appeared on Nathaniel Pike’s deed two years later," Mave confirmed.
"My mother lived in that house for fifty-four years," Rafe said, his voice flat and terrifyingly calm.
"She had a garden behind the garage where she grew tomatoes and mint every summer," Rafe remembered.
"After she died, Doyle told me the house had been condemned by the city building inspector due to dry rot and foundation collapse," Rafe said.
"He said the demolition costs ate whatever equity remained in the estate," Rafe added.
"The house is still standing," Gio spoke from the rear jump seat, leaning his head between them.
"I drove down DePasquale two weeks ago, Boss," Gio said.
"There’s a boutique law firm operating out of the ground floor and two luxury apartments upstairs," Gio revealed.
"Doyle owns the holding company that collects the rent," Gio stated plainly.
Mave closed the ledger with a quiet thud that sounded like a coffin lid dropping shut.
"They don't just steal the money, Raphael," Mave said, using his full name for the first time.
"They steal the memory of who these people were," she said.
"By the time they finish with the records, it looks like these men and women were penniless dependents who died of natural exhaustion," Mave explained.
Suddenly, a set of high-intensity halogen beams flared in the rearview mirror, slicing through the blowing snow behind them.
Gio cursed sharply and dropped his hand toward his holster.
"Black Tahoe," Gio reported, pressing his forehead against the frosted rear glass.
"No municipal plates, no front brush guard, tinted glass," Gio observed.
"He was waiting at the rest stop near Uxbridge," Gio said.
"He came out of the dark the second we passed the exit ramp," Gio added.
"Hold on," Rafe commanded, shifting the truck into four-wheel drive with a sharp jerk of the transfer lever.
He floored the accelerator, sending all eight cylinders roaring as the truck climbed toward eighty miles per hour on the treacherous road.
The black Tahoe surged behind them, its four-wheel-drive platform handling the deep snow with terrifying agility.
A sudden flash erupted from the passenger side of the trailing vehicle, followed by the dull, hollow crack of a rifle shot.
The right side mirror of the utility truck shattered into a hundred plastic fragments, showering the door with shrapnel.
"Get down on the floorboards, Mave," Rafe commanded without raising his voice.
Mave slid down into the narrow footwell, shielding the canvas bag with her entire body and pressing her face against her knees.
Gio kicked out the small sliding rear window of the truck cab, letting in an icy vortex of snow and wind.
He leveled his semi-automatic pistol across the truck’s rear bed, lining up his sights through the swirling white chaos.
"They’ve got commercial night optics," Gio shouted over the roaring wind.
"They aren't state cops, Boss!" Gio yelled.
"Contractors," Rafe spat out, cutting the wheel hard to the left across the median divider.
The truck slammed into an eighteen-inch snowdrift, the heavy front bumper plowing through the packed drift like an icebreaker.
The vehicle violently fishtailed, tires screaming against hidden patches of black ice beneath the powder.
Rafe fought the steering wheel, his muscles straining against the hydraulic resistance as he wrestled the truck back into line.
Behind them, the Tahoe attempted the same maneuver, but its lower ground clearance betrayed it.
The black SUV hit the frozen ridge at seventy miles an hour, its nose digging deep into the hard-packed drift.
The rear end of the Tahoe rose violently into the air, flipping over twice in a spectacular explosion of twisted metal, shattered glass, and flying snow.
It came to rest on its roof against the guardrail, its wheels still spinning helplessly against the freezing night.
Gio pulled himself back through the rear window, his face covered in white frost and his jacket dusted with snow.
"That’s one down," Gio said, breathing hard as he reholstered his weapon.
"There will be more," Rafe said, watching the speedometer climb again.
"Doyle knows which road leads to Boston," Rafe said.
"He knows where Naomi Whitcomb’s office is located, and he knows we have forty-eight hours before that senate vote," Rafe stated.
Down in the footwell, Mave pressed her hand against her throbbing knuckles, her fingers touching the cold brass seal.
May you like
She realized then that there was no longer any path back to her old life as a quiet nurse in an anonymous ward.
She was strapped to the front seat of a mobster’s war wagon, barreling toward the Massachusetts line with a dead man’s secrets clutched in her arms.
