Chapter 4 - THE DASHCAM
Emma installed the dashcam eighteen months earlier after a driver sideswiped her in a parking garage and denied responsibility.
It recorded the road.
A smaller interior lens recorded the cabin.
Tyler did not know.
At least, not until several minutes into the drive.
Emma tried to grab her phone from the floor.
Tyler saw the blinking light near the mirror.
“What’s that?”
“Drive.”
“Is that recording?”
“Tyler, slow down.”
He reached upward.
Emma caught his wrist.
The car drifted across the center line.
An oncoming driver honked.
Tyler jerked back into the lane.
Then he became fixated on the camera.
“Turn it off.”
“No.”
“Turn it off!”
“Stop the car.”
The recording captured every word.
Including Tyler’s next one.
“If this gets back to my lawyer, I’m screwed.”
There it was.
Awareness.
Not confusion.
Not drunken ignorance.
He understood exactly what another driving incident could cost him.
Emma begged him again to pull over.
Instead he turned onto a narrow county road.
Rain had started.
The pavement shone beneath the headlights.
Tyler drove faster.
Then blue lights appeared far behind them.
Not police pursuing him.
Another emergency vehicle on a different road.
Tyler saw them in the mirror and panicked anyway.
He thought he was being followed.
“I’m not going back.”
“Back where?”
“To court. Jail. Whatever.”
“Nobody is following us!”
He looked behind him again.
The car drifted.
Emma shouted.
A curve approached.
Then Tyler did something Emma could not understand even after watching the recording later.
He opened his door.
“What are you doing?”
He slowed just enough to make the jump survivable.
Twenty-five.
Maybe thirty miles per hour.
Then he released the wheel.
And jumped.
Emma reached across.
Too late.
The car continued downhill.
Her seat belt locked as she twisted.
She could not reach the brake.
May you like
The dashcam captured her screaming Tyler’s name until the vehicle struck the guardrail.
Then black.
