"Driver of vehicle plate Golf-Eight-Four-Seven-One, pull over immediately. Cease all aggressive driving. Continued behavior of this nature constitutes a violation of traffic law, and you will be charged with reckless endangerment."

Hope surged through me. I grabbed the radio.

"Officer, I have a critically ill passenger in my vehicle. I cannot stop. The car ahead of me is my wife. She's in a dispute with me and is deliberately blocking my lane."

The radio went silent. The officer switched over to negotiate with Gretchen and Cecil.

Then Gretchen's window rolled down. She reached out and angled the side mirror back, adjusting it with deliberate precision until she was certain I could see her reflection from behind.

She raised her middle finger.

Her voice message landed a second later.

"You actually called the cops, Clarence? You've got some nerve."

"When Cecil made a mistake, you didn't call the police then, did you? No, you chose to slap him instead."

"You think calling the cops is going to help? I'll break every law on the books before I let you pass!"

In the mirror ahead, Gretchen's face was twisted with fury. Her speed dropped again, sharp and sudden, and my car was forced to slow with it.

To my right, Cecil lounged in the truck's driver seat, eyes glittering with amusement.

"Scared yet, Clarence? This is what happens when you cross me."

I was pinned in the far-left passing lane. The guardrail ran along my left. Behind me, a growing line of cars crawled at the pace Gretchen dictated.

The navigation screen told the rest of the story. A massive traffic jam had formed behind us, stretching back as far as the map could show.

I was trapped. No way forward. No way back.

My father-in-law's breathing grew more labored by the second. Without warning, his body pitched forward off the back seat and crumpled to the floor, limbs twitching involuntarily.

I slammed the horn over and over, desperate to get someone's attention, but no one paid me any mind.

Panic had me fumbling, useless. I fired off voice message after voice message to my wife.

"Dad is in my car! He's seriously ill, and I need to get him to the hospital. I am not joking with you!"

But Gretchen stayed silent.

Just when despair was closing in, the two-lane stretch suddenly widened into three lanes, and traffic began to flow. Off to the side, there was an exit ramp leading off the highway, and right beside it sat a hospital.