Continue the story and find out what happens next.

-8-

The alley behind the warehouse was slick with morning frost and littered with discarded cardboard boxes from the neighboring commercial district. Across the narrow strip of asphalt sat a row of delivery vans belonging to a local linen and laundry service—ironically, the same company that serviced Briar Glen Maternity Pavilion.

“Look,” Leah pointed with a trembling finger toward a white Ford Transit van parked near the back loading dock. The driver’s side door was slightly ajar, and the engine was idling, puffing small clouds of white exhaust into the chilly autumn air. The driver was inside the loading bay arguing with a warehouse manager over a stack of soiled linens.

Mae stared at Leah, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Are you out of your mind? You want to steal a laundry truck?”

“I want to get my son across state lines before my husband signs a warrant declaring me a fugitive lunatic,” Leah said, marching resolutely down the metal fire escape stairs toward the alley. “Are you coming with me, Mae, or are you staying here to face Doreen’s wrath when she realizes you helped me escape?”

Mae looked back up toward the warehouse roof, then down at Leah. A reckless, exhausted grin slowly spread across the nurse’s face. “If I’m going to lose my medical license anyway, I might as well go out with some style.”

They scrambled down the final steps and darted across the asphalt. Leah climbed into the passenger seat of the van, cradling the baby carefully against her chest, while Mae slid behind the steering wheel and slammed the door shut just as the delivery driver emerged from the loading bay, shouting curses and waving a clipboard.

“Hey! What the hell are you—?”

Mae slammed the van into reverse, tires screeching against the frost-covered asphalt, before shifting into drive and roaring out of the alley onto Front Street just as the driver’s protests faded into the distance.

“That,” Mae panted, gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles as the van accelerated into the pre-dawn traffic, “was either the bravest thing I’ve ever done or the prelude to a very long prison sentence.”

“It’s neither,” Leah said, leaning her head against the cool passenger window as the neon lights of downtown Columbus blurred past them. “It’s just the beginning.”

They drove in silence for twenty minutes, heading northeast toward the interstate. The sun was beginning to break over the horizon, painting the sky in violent shades of orange and bruised violet. In the backseat, wrapped in layers of blankets and spare linens Mae had grabbed from the back of the van, the newborn slept soundly, completely oblivious to the war his parents had just declared.

“We need to ditch this van before we hit the state line,” Mae said, breaking the silence as the highway signs for Interstate 70 appeared ahead. “Every police cruiser in Ohio will be looking for a stolen commercial vehicle within the hour.”

“There’s a small farm supply store about forty miles outside of Zanesville,” Leah said, her memory flashing back to childhood road trips with her father. “My uncle used to keep an old pickup truck parked behind the hay barn. If it’s still there, we can trade up.”