Chapter 6 - THE WACO HIGHWAY PURSUIT
“Get in the car,” Vance said, sprinting through the hospital exit.
His Mercedes AMG sedan was parked in the emergency loading zone. We threw ourselves inside, and Vance slammed his foot on the accelerator. The engine roared with 500 horsepower as the car lunged into the morning traffic on Interstate 35 North.
While Vance weaved through highway congestion with white-knuckled focus, I dialed Thomas, the private security operative still guarding my home.
“Thomas,” I said breathlessly. “We have an emergency. Julian dispatched a private medical courier from St. David’s at 6:15 AM to an industrial incinerator in Waco. The manifest lists the courier vehicle as a white Dodge Ram cargo van with commercial plates. Company name: Apex Bio-Logistics.”
“I’m on it,” Thomas replied instantly. “I have access to the Texas Commercial Vehicle Enforcement database through my old Ranger network. Give me two minutes.”
The miles ticked past in an agonizing blur of asphalt and concrete barriers. Georgetown. Round Rock. Jarrell. Every second felt like a drop of Leo’s blood being drained away. Julian had planned this with terrifying precision. He knew that without those tissue samples, any court case would devolve into a battle of circumstantial evidence—a battle that high-priced defense attorneys could drag out for years while he fled the country.
My phone pinged. It was Thomas.
“Clara! The white Dodge van was flagged passing through the Temple toll plaza twenty-two minutes ago,” Thomas said over the speaker. “At their current speed, they will arrive at the Brazos Bio-Hazard Disposal Plant outside Waco by 11:35 AM. You have roughly twenty minutes before those samples go into the secondary burn chamber.”
“Call the McLennan County Sheriff!” Vance shouted at the dashboard mic. “Tell them we have an emergency court order signed by a district judge ordering the immediate seizure of that vehicle!”
“I already tried, Mr. Montgomery,” Thomas said grimly. “The sheriff’s office says they cannot intercept a licensed commercial transport without a direct warrant from a McLennan County magistrate. By the time I get a local judge to review Judge Alvarez’s order from Austin, the incinerator will have completed the burn cycle.”
“Then we stop them ourselves,” I said.
Vance glanced at me, his eyes blazing with the same fierce protective fury that my father used to have. He pushed the speedometer needle past 110 miles per hour. The highway landscape blurred into streaks of green cedar and limestone dust.
At 11:38 AM, we screeched off the interstate onto a desolate industrial frontage road lined with scrap metal yards and chemical storage tanks. At the end of the road stood a squat, corrugated steel building with two towering smokestacks venting thin gray exhaust into the pale sky: Brazos Bio-Hazard Disposal.
In the loading bay sat the white Dodge Ram cargo van, its rear doors wide open.
A burly technician dressed in a yellow protective hazmat suit was wheeling a heavy red metal cooler on a hand truck toward a set of double steel doors marked CRITICAL THERMAL DESTRUCTION AREA - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Vance didn't bother parking. He steered the Mercedes straight through the facility’s open chain-link gate and slammed on the brakes, blocking the loading dock ramp with our car.
Before the tires had stopped smoking, I threw my door open and ran up the concrete ramp.
“Stop!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Do not touch that cooler!”
The technician stopped in his tracks, pulling down his respirator mask with a look of utter bewilderment. “Ma'am, what the hell are you doing? This is a restricted biological disposal area! You can’t be in here!”
The van driver—a wiry man with greasy hair and a clipboard—stepped out of the delivery office, looking panicked. “Hey! You’re trespassing! Get the hell away from that shipment!”
Vance marched up the ramp behind me, holding his gold bar association badge and the stamped judicial preservation order high in the air. “I am Vance Montgomery, Senior Counsel to the Texas Supreme Court Board of Disciplinary Appeals! If that cooler enters that incinerator, every single individual employed at this facility will be charged with first-degree tampering with evidence in a capital murder investigation!”
The word murder froze the dock workers in place.
The technician immediately let go of the hand truck’s handles. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! We don't know anything about murder! We just received a standard commercial burn manifest for hospital biological specimens!”
The van driver’s face drained of color. He dropped his clipboard and reached into his jacket pocket for his cell phone.
I didn't wait. I charged past the technician, dropped to my knees beside the red cooler, and flipped the heavy latches open.
Inside, packed in dry ice, were four translucent medical canisters labeled with barcode stickers:
PATIENT: STERLING, LEO - AGE: 4 - BIOPSY SPECIMENS - ST. DAVID’S PATHOLOGY.
They were intact. They hadn't been burned.
I wrapped my arms around the frozen plastic containers, pulling them against my chest as if I were holding my baby boy in my arms one last time. Tears streamed down my face, freezing against the dry ice fog that drifted upward.
“I have you, Leo,” I sobbed into the cold air. “I have you, baby. Mommy has you.”
Behind me, the van driver was furiously whispering into his phone. “Julian... it’s over. They caught us at the dock. The lawyer is here with a Supreme Court order. The cops are coming.”
I stood up, holding the cooler in my hands.
Vance took the driver’s phone right out of his hand, pressed the speaker button, and held it up to his mouth.
May you like
“Julian,” Vance said in a voice that sounded like thunder rolling across an empty canyon. “I hope you enjoyed your champagne this morning. Because by sundown, you and Chloe will be sleeping on steel cots in the Travis County jail.”
On the other end of the line, Julian’s breath came in ragged, hyperventilating gasps. Then, without a word, he severed the connection.
