“I am in the middle of Lake Michigan. There’s a bridge right off 75th Street that connects to the giant island.”
The dispatcher paused again. “I’m not finding the island you’re talking about.”
“The one right off Chicago! With two bridges! I’m on the south bridge!”
“Ma’am, have you been drinking tonight?”
I hung up and squeezed my phone in rage, which accidently prompted Google Assistant to pop up with a message: “Hi, how can I help?”
My eyes clouded with tears, but I was desperate. Maybe it would have an answer. “Where am I?” I muttered weakly.
“Your current location is Lake Michigan, Illinois,” Google Assistant said in a cheerful voice.
Mid-curse, rolling blue and white lights flashed in my rearview mirror. The cops. Every muscle in my body relaxed. Apparently, the dispatcher had figured things out.
The white police cruiser rolled past and pulled to a stop in front of me. It had Magic Side Police written in big red letters beneath a blue stripe.
At least I was in the right place. I eagerly cranked down my window.
A female cop got out of the car, flicked on a flashlight, and sauntered over. She pointed it in my face, rather unnecessarily. “You’re sitting in the dark with your lights off in the middle of a busy bridge. Are you in need of assistance?”
Pretty obvious, yeah.
I kept my hands on the steering wheel, not knowing what these city cops were like. Probably not like old Sheriff Kepler. “Yes, please. My car stalled, and I can’t turn on the emergency flashers.”
The cop nodded, returned to her car, and dug some flares out of the trunk. She made a perimeter around my car and came back to the window. “License and registration.”
I had them ready and handed them over.
The cop looked at them and then handed them back. “I’ll need to see your other ID.”
“What other ID?”
She sighed. “I’m guessing this is your first time coming to Magic Side?”
I nodded.
She typed something into a tablet. “Reason for visit?”
God, it was like going to another country. Magic Side wasn’t part of Canada, was it? Did I need a passport? I shrugged, searching for a response. “I have family here. I’m visiting my aunt.”
The cop looked at her tablet. “Any weapons or dangerous concoctions in the vehicle?”
“What? No!”
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to stay in your car and hand over your keys. I’ve got an alert on your license plate, and I need to hold you here until the proper authorities arrive.”
I handed my keys over in a daze. The Grand Fury wasn’t even running. It didn’t matter.
She walked back to her car, calling in something on her radio. I couldn’t hear the words over the pounding of my heart.
What was happening?
Then the hard truth hit me like a brick.
Somehow, I’d just stumbled onto a government black site. It all added up. The city wasn’t on the map. I needed another kind of ID, probably military. The cop was acting weird and asking strange questions. And they already had an alert on my license plate.
That meant one thing. They knew I was coming. The man in the black truck—Jaxson, if that was his real name—had tipped them off.