Chapter 1 - When He Pulled Away
I had barely understood that we were leaving the traffic stop when the deputy moved out of our path.
One moment he was beside the vehicle, and the next I was being pressed back against my seat.
We had been stopped for speeding in Castle Pines that January night, and I had expected an uncomfortable wait followed by a ticket.
I had not expected to watch an officer jump away from the car I was sitting in.
“Zakary, stop.”
I said it before I understood how quickly the lights behind us were falling back.
My seat belt caught against my shoulder as I turned toward him.
He kept driving.
“Please pull over.”
I looked ahead because looking at him had done nothing.
There were other cars on the road, people who had no reason to expect us to come toward them the way we did.
I remember headlights more clearly than I remember intersections.
Some stayed where headlights belonged, across the divide from us.
Others were suddenly in front of us.
When we crossed a median, the movement threw me sideways against the belt.
I braced my hand against the door and waited for the vehicle to settle.
“Those cars are coming this way.”
I cannot tell you whether he answered that particular sentence.
I remember my own voice becoming louder, and I remember that the car did not stop.
Later, investigators described a pursuit through Highlands Ranch and Littleton at speeds exceeding a hundred miles an hour.
I did not measure our speed from the passenger seat.
I knew only that there was too little time between seeing something ahead and reaching it.
At first, I tried to make my requests sound reasonable.
“You can still pull over.”
Then I stopped trying to sound reasonable.
“Please, just stop the car.”
I kept my hands away from the steering wheel because I was afraid of making the car turn into someone else.
I pressed my feet into the floor instead, as though there were something on my side that could slow us down.
There was nowhere useful to look.
If I watched the road, I saw what we might hit.
If I looked away, every change in direction came without warning.
I settled on watching ahead and repeating the same few words.
I wanted him to hear a person sitting beside him, not just another sound competing with the sirens.
“I'm asking you to stop.”
There are stretches of that drive I cannot arrange in order.
I will not fill them in just because a complete account would be easier to tell.
What I remember clearly is that I was still waiting for him to pull over when we collided with another vehicle.
The impact cut across everything I had been saying.
For a moment, I stayed braced in the position I had held before it happened.
I looked down at my hands before I looked toward the driver's seat.
Zakary was getting out.
I thought he might be going to check the damage until I saw him running away.
Then I understood that he was leaving me there.
I reached for the seat belt release, missed it, and made myself look before trying again.
Outside, someone was calling instructions.
When a deputy came toward me, I lifted my empty hands where he could see them.
“I was the passenger,” I said.
This time, I needed someone to hear me before anything else happened.
