The grocery bags in the passenger seat rattled as the Volvo hit a pothole near the entrance of The Gables. It was a small sound, domestic and irritating—the clinking of glass jar against glass jar—but in the silence of the car, it sounded like a gavel striking a desk.
Maya gripped the steering wheel at ten and two. Her knuckles were white.
She wasn’t just driving; she was patrolling. Since the block party last night—since the moment a stranger had slipped a note into her pocket that read Stop or you die—Maya had treated every transition space as a kill zone.
She checked the rearview mirror. Empty.
She checked the side mirrors. Clear.
The road ahead, Elm Creek Drive, wound through the topography of the old limestone quarry like a black ribbon. It was picturesque, lined with ancient oaks and the pristine white fences that defined the community’s aesthetic. It was also steep, curving downward toward the intersection with the main county highway.
Maya took a breath, trying to unclench her jaw. She glanced at the dashboard clock: 4:15 PM. She had to pick up Leo from daycare in twenty minutes. She needed to drop off the milk, change her shirt, and put on the face of a mother who wasn’t hunting a murderer.
The car picked up speed as the gradient increased. The speedometer needle climbed past thirty-five.
Too fast, she thought. Slow down.
She shifted her foot from the gas to the brake pedal. It was a muscle memory she had performed a million times. The Volvo was a tank, a fortress of Swedish engineering designed to protect her family from the chaos of the world.
She pressed down.
There was no resistance.
The pedal didn’t engage. It didn’t firm up. It sank all the way to the floor mat with a hollow, sickening thump.
Maya frowned, confusion hitting her before the panic. That’s weird.
She lifted her foot and stomped again. Harder.
Thump.
Nothing. No friction. No deceleration. The car was a sled on ice, gravity taking the wheel.
“Come on,” she whispered, pumping the pedal frantically. “Come on, come on.”
The speedometer hit forty-five. The trees on either side of the road began to blur into a tunnel of green and brown. The wind noise outside the cabin rose to a roar.
Maya grabbed the emergency brake lever on the center console. She yanked it up.
A horrific grinding noise tore through the chassis—metal shrieking against metal—but the car didn’t stop. The cable snapped with a loud pop, the tension handle going limp in her hand.
“Oh my god,” Maya gasped. The air left her lungs.
This wasn’t a mechanical failure. This was the note. This was the promise.
The curve was coming up. Dead Man’s Curve, the teenagers called it. A sharp ninety-degree turn that bordered the edge of the wetlands. Beyond the curve was a steep embankment leading down into the Sinks.
She was doing fifty now. The SUV felt heavy, a missile of steel and glass hurtling toward destruction.
Maya gripped the wheel, her mind fracturing into two distinct voices. One was screaming, a primal, animalistic wail of terror. The other was cold, analytical, the voice of the journalist recording the facts of her own death.
Option A: Take the curve at speed. You will flip. You will roll. The roof will crush. Option B: Go straight. You hit the oak tree. Dead on impact. Option C: The ditch.
She saw the drainage ditch to her right. It was deep, muddy, and lined with tall reeds. It was a crash landing, but it was soft ground.
A car appeared in the opposite lane—a minivan, a mother driving a carpool.
“Move!” Maya screamed, slamming her hand on the horn.
The minivan swerved, honking back, a blur of terrified faces in the windows as Maya shot past them, crossing the center line.
She had seconds.
She looked at the passenger seat. The grocery bags. The milk. The mundane debris of a life she was about to lose.
“I’m sorry, Leo,” she whispered.
She yanked the wheel hard to the right.
The tires screamed, fighting the asphalt. The car drifted, sliding sideways. The world tilted.
The front bumper smashed through the white picket fence. Wood splintered, exploding into the air like shrapnel.
Then the ground disappeared.
The Volvo plunged nose-first into the embankment.
The impact wasn’t a sound; it was a physical blow that rearranged her skeleton. The seatbelt locked across her chest, snapping her collarbone with a dry crack. The airbag detonated—a punch of white hot powder to the face.
Glass shattered. The windshield turned into a thousand diamonds, raining inward.
The car bucked, the rear end lifting into the air, defying gravity for a heartbeat, before slamming down into the mud with a wet, heavy crunch.
Steam hissed. Metal groaned.
And then, silence.
The world came back in fragments.
White.
Beeping.
The smell of rubbing alcohol and stale coffee.
Maya opened her eyes. The light was blinding. She tried to lift her hand to shield her face, but something stopped her. A heaviness. A restraint?
“She’s coming round.”
A voice. Familiar. But distorted, as if hearing it underwater.
“Maya? Can you hear me?”
She blinked, forcing her eyes to focus. A face hovered above her. Not Dan. Not the killer.
Elena.
Elena Russo was wearing her white coat, a stethoscope around her neck. Her face was pale, her usual composure fractured by genuine fear.
“Elena?” Maya croaked. Her throat felt like she had swallowed broken glass.
“Don’t try to talk,” Elena said, putting a cool hand on Maya’s forehead. “You’re at Gables General. You’re safe.”
“Leo,” Maya rasped. Panic surged through the fog of painkillers. “Leo.”
“Leo is fine,” Elena promised. “He’s with Chloe. She picked him up from daycare. He’s eating pizza and watching Bluey. He’s fine.”
Maya slumped back against the pillow. The relief was so intense it felt like another crash.
“The car,” Maya whispered. “The brakes…”
“We know,” a deep voice said from the corner of the room.
Maya turned her head. The movement sent a spike of agony through her neck.
A police officer stood by the door. It wasn’t Chief Garrett. It was a younger officer—Detective Miller. He looked uncomfortable, his hat in his hands.
“Ms. Lin-Baker,” Miller said, stepping into the light. “You’re lucky to be alive. The Volvo took a beating.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Maya said. Her voice was weak, but the conviction was steel. “My brakes. They didn’t work.”
Miller exchanged a look with Elena.
“We had the car towed to the impound,” Miller said. “The mechanics did a preliminary review while they were cutting you out.”
“Cutting me out?” Maya asked, touching her chest. Her collarbone was taped.
“The door was jammed,” Miller said. “But about the brakes… the master cylinder didn’t fail, Ma’am.”
He pulled a small notepad from his pocket.
“The hydraulic lines were severed,” Miller said. “Clean cuts. Both lines. Just behind the wheel wells.”
Maya closed her eyes.
Stop or you die.
“Who did it?” she asked.
“We’re dusting for prints,” Miller said, but his tone suggested he didn’t expect to find any. “But given the precision… whoever did this knew exactly where to cut to ensure total failure, but leave enough fluid for you to get up to speed first.”
“It was a timer,” Elena murmured. “A mechanical timer.”
“Do you have any enemies, Ms. Lin-Baker?” Miller asked. The standard question. The useless question.
Maya laughed. It hurt her ribs. “Enemies? I have a podcast fan club, Detective.”
“The Chief mentioned you might say that,” Miller said, shifting his weight. “He told me to take your statement personally.”
“The Chief,” Maya spat. “Did he send you to see if I was dead?”
Miller stiffened. “He sent me to investigate an attempted vehicular homicide. Look, I know you and the Chief have… history. But someone tried to kill you today. If you know who—”
“I don’t know who,” Maya lied. She wasn’t going to give Miller a name. Not yet. If she said “Elias Thorne” or “Rick Vance,” Garrett would bury it. She needed proof.
“Get the car to an independent mechanic,” Maya said. “Do not let the police mechanic keep it.”
“It’s evidence,” Miller argued.
“It’s my property,” Maya countered. “And I want a second opinion.”
The door to the hospital room burst open.
Dan rushed in. He looked disheveled, his tie askew, his eyes wild. He smelled of sweat and fear.
“Maya!”
He ran to the bed, ignoring the detective and Elena. He grabbed Maya’s hand—the one without the IV.
“I got the call… I thought…” His voice broke. He buried his face in the mattress near her hip. He was shaking.
Maya looked down at her husband. The man who had lied about living in the neighborhood in 1994. The man who had been at the block party when the note was slipped into her pocket.
“I’m okay, Dan,” she said. Her voice was cool.
Dan looked up. There were tears in his eyes. “The brakes? Miller said the brakes were cut?”
“Someone wants me to stop, Dan,” she said, holding his gaze. “Someone thinks I’m getting too close.”
Dan’s expression shifted. The fear remained, but something else crept in. Guilt? Or realization?
“You have to stop,” Dan whispered. “Maya, please. For Leo. Look at you.”
“I can’t stop,” she said. “If I stop, they win. And next time, they won’t cut the lines on my car. They’ll cut them on yours. With Leo in the back.”
Dan recoiled as if she had slapped him.
Elena stepped forward. “Detective, Mr. Lin-Baker, I think Maya needs to rest. Her vitals are spiking.”
Miller nodded. “I’ll come back tomorrow for a formal statement.” He left the room.
Dan lingered. He kissed Maya’s forehead. His lips were cold. “I’m going to get Leo. I’ll bring him here.”
“No,” Maya said. “Leave him with Chloe. He shouldn’t see me like this. Just… go home, Dan. Check the locks.”
Dan hesitated, then nodded. He walked out, a man defeated.
When the door closed, Maya looked at Elena.
“Did you get it?” Maya asked.
Elena reached into the pocket of her white coat. She pulled out a small, crushed piece of paper.
“It was in your pocket,” Elena said. “The paramedics almost threw it away.”
Maya took the note. It was the death threat from the party. It was stained with her own blood now.
Stop or you die.
She looked at the bloodstain. It bloomed over the word die.
“He missed,” Maya whispered.
“He won’t miss twice,” Elena said grimly.
“Good,” Maya said, closing her fist around the paper. “Because I’m done being a target. I’m the bait now.”
She looked at the window. It was dark outside. Somewhere in the reflection of the glass, she saw the ghost of the woman she used to be—the scared mother, the failed journalist. That woman had died in the ditch on Elm Creek Drive.
The woman in the hospital bed was something else entirely.
“Get Chloe and Sarah,” Maya said. “Tell them to meet us here. We need to record Episode Six before the Podcaster does.”