Chapter 13 - NORTHBOUND
No mother should know what highway markers look like through panic.
Black desert. Red taillights. Police lights cutting through the night.
I rode with an officer while state police tracked Bonnie’s SUV through traffic cameras.
Caden followed in a separate cruiser.
He had been found at a gas station twenty miles north of Phoenix, bleeding from his lip. Bonnie had shoved him out of the SUV when he tried to take Donovan back.
He looked destroyed.
I did not comfort him.
At 3:17 a.m., the SUV left the interstate near Black Canyon City.
At 3:29, it was spotted near a closed roadside motel.
At 3:34, officers surrounded the parking lot.
Bonnie sat inside the SUV with Donovan asleep in the back seat.
She refused to open the door.
I stood behind a patrol vehicle while a negotiator spoke to her through a loudspeaker.
“Bonnie, unlock the doors.”
She shouted through the glass, “That woman stole my son’s life!”
Caden stepped forward.
“Mom, stop.”
Bonnie saw him and began crying.
“I did all of this for you.”
“No,” he said. “You did it because you couldn’t stand not being in control.”
Her face twisted.
“You’re weak.”
“Maybe. But I’m done being your excuse.”
For thirty seconds, nothing moved.
Then Donovan woke up.
He began pounding the window.
“Mommy!”
I lost whatever careful distance police wanted me to keep.
I stepped into view.
“Donovan! I’m right here!”
Bonnie looked at me.
Something changed in her face.
Maybe she finally saw how far she had gone.
Maybe she only saw that she had lost.
The rear door unlocked.
An officer pulled Donovan out.
I caught him against my chest.
He shook so hard his teeth clicked.
“I thought you couldn’t find me.”
“I will always look for you.”
Bonnie was arrested.
Caden sat on the curb with his head in his hands.
At sunrise, a detective pulled me aside.
“We searched Bonnie’s vehicle.”
He handed me a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a passport.
Donovan’s passport.
And beneath it were two airline tickets to Costa Rica.
May you like
One for Bonnie.
One for my son.
