Ionello and Vass had a ten-minute lead. The roadblocks might slow them some, though not much. Emmett pushed the speedometer to sixty on residential streets, passing and dodging other cars. He had committed the intersections with barricades to memory, circumnavigating all except two of them. At the first, he flashed his shield and flew through. At the second, on Washington and William, he was delayed by traffic. Emmett anxiously tapped his thumb on the steering wheel. He was willing the line to move faster and he was willing Freddie not to go to his mother’s house. The kid had been pining to go home. He shouldn’t have been shocked that Freddie made a break for it. Emmett had just assumed that he got the picture: his apartment was the least safe place for him to be. The line moved up by a single car. The pace was infuriating. With evening approaching, the troopers must have been making the interviews lengthier to dissuade people from entering the Central Ward. Emmett imagined them reciting the speech about the curfew to every driver.
