Chapter 11: Ghosts on the Highway
By dawn, Mendocino was fifty miles in her rearview mirror. She drove a stolen 1998 Ford pickup, keeping to the backroads. Barnaby shivered in the passenger seat. Elena knew she couldn't keep him; a dog was a liability, a tether to humanity she could no longer afford.
She stopped at a diner in Eureka, leaving the truck running. She handed the diner owner, an elderly woman with kind eyes, three hundred dollars in cash and Barnaby's leash. "Take care of him," she whispered, her voice cracking. "Please."
She drove away alone, feeling the familiar, icy detachment of 'Evelyn' washing over her. She was no longer Elena the environmental consultant. She was the architect of the Thorne collapse, and she was going back to work.
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