Appalachian Peril

by Debbie Herbert

  “Too dangerous.”

  Without waiting for an argument, he ran past her. Sammy pulled off his T-shirt and covered his mouth and nose. At the gaping door, precariously tilted to the right, he blinked against the plumes of ash and smoke. His keys, cell phone and two-way radio were located on the far left end of the den on the coffee table they’d pushed against the wall last night so they could sleep in front of the fire. Among other things they’d done there. If they hadn’t made love and slept together, if Beth had slept in the bedroom as she had the previous night, she’d be dead.

  A chill racked his body—one that had nothing to do with winter. His professional training kicked in. Deal with that later; there’s work to be done. He sucked in a chest full of air and entered the smoky cabin. Acrid fumes assaulted his nose and eyes. Blinking wildly, he put one hand along the wall to move forward without becoming disoriented by the thick curtain of smoke. Sammy crouched low and tried to ignore the heat emanating from the blistered wood that burned his hand and feet.

  Even though he tried not to take deep breaths, smoke filled his lungs and he coughed, struggling for oxygen. The hair on his arms bristled painfully from the heat. Fire roared and crackled and pieces of wood haphazardly fell from the ceiling.

  Just a few more steps.

  Pain shot through the arch of his right foot as a large glass shard cut through flesh. Sammy kept going. He had no choice; they had to pursue whoever had tried to kill them. This might be their only chance to capture the bastard.

  He felt the edge of the coffee table before he saw it. Would the radio and phones already be destroyed by heat and smoke? They were fiery in his palms, but he pocketed the items. Where were those damn keys? He brushed the surface of the table, scorching the bare skin of his right forearm. Nothing. They must have fallen on the floor. Still keeping one hand in contact with the wall, he got on all fours and swept his free hand along the floor until they brushed against jagged metal.

  Feeling victorious, he stuffed them in his pocket and started to rise back up on his feet. His head bumped against something solid. The easel clattered to the ground.

  Beth’s paintings! Her stunning, elegant snowscapes.

  Violent coughing seized his lungs. Get out, brain and body urged. But he couldn’t let Beth’s art burn to smithereens. All that work, all that beauty. He slid his left foot over until it thumped against the wall, his anchor in the sea of flames and smoke, and then he gathered the canvases that had fallen to the ground, praying that the thick cloth she’d thrown over the paintings had kept her work from being destroyed.

  A large beam fell from the ceiling, landing only a foot from where he stood. It was past time to get the hell out of the cabin. Sammy sprinted toward the door, enduring the gauntlet of the hot floor littered with broken glass. At last he hobbled outside and gulped crisp mountain air down his parched lungs. Snow numbed the bottoms of his burning feet that were laced with gashes.

  He thrust the paintings into Beth’s arms and turned back to make a mad dash for their jackets and shoes, but the singed door frame buckled, and the overhead wooden strip of the frame dangled precariously in the opening.

  Barefoot it was.

  And there was no time to waste if they wanted to catch a killer.

  Chapter Ten

  Beth gaped as Sammy shoved her oil paintings into her arms. She hadn’t given them a moment’s thought. After all, how many had she painted over the years? Dozens and dozens. And although painting was her profession—one of the ways she made a living, along with teaching art—no one would ever believe her work so valuable that they would risk death by fire to save them.

  Not her father, who, though proud, had viewed her “hobby” with an indulgence she’d found more condescending than appreciative,

  Not Cynthia, who filtered everything and everybody through the lens of their monetary value.

  Not Aiden, who mostly regarded the world from the same perspective as his mother, mixed with an intellectual vigor that her father had favored and encouraged.

  If Mom had lived, Beth felt certain she would have understood and appreciated her daughter’s artistic success, modest though it was. Mom had always insisted on Beth receiving art lessons and had proudly displayed her childhood drawings. But Mom had died a long, long time ago and Beth still missed her love and encouragement. Since a young teen, she’d felt like a misunderstood, undervalued changeling in the Wynngate family.

  And then there was Sammy. The man who had arrested her as a teenager. The man she’d blamed for over a decade for exiling her from her family. She’d misjudged him as uncaring, arrogant.

  Beth forgot the horrific explosion, the burning cabin her father had loved, the chill seeping in her bones and bare feet, and the knowledge that someone was trying to kill her. There was only Sammy, covered with ash and grime, rescuing her canvases as though Dad’s cabin was a museum on fire and her work was Van Gogh’s.

  She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak past the pinch in her heart.

  “Let’s go!” Sammy ran past her, limping and still coughing violently.

  Beth blinked away the hot tears that had unexpectedly arisen. “You’re hurt. I’ll drive.”

  Without argument, Sammy dug in his jeans pocket and tossed her the keys. Beth tossed her paintings in the back seat, got in and started the motor. It took a couple of seconds to find the light switch on the dashboard panel and get her bearings with a strange vehicle, then the Jeep lurched forward as she hit the accelerator. She bounced in her seat as they crossed over the uneven land of the small clearing and then onto a dirt road. Only one way out of here and then onto the main road.

  She had to catch up to the bomber. If they didn’t, she could never feel safe again. Each attack grew more aggressive. Next time, she might not escape with her life. How the hell had he found them out here? Was it Dorsey? Sammy had been right. Rayna had no influence on her son—either that, or she hadn’t even tried to get through to him.

  “Maybe I should have wired that fifty thousand dollars,” she said, finding and switching to bright lights. “Or tried to promise them I would get them the money somehow. If I had, they might not have come after me tonight.”

  “Hell, no! You can’t deal with criminals that way.” Sammy fiddled with a dial and a blast of welcome heat fanned her chilled body. “It’s a game you’d never win.”

  Snow silently whirled through the wind. Pine trees crowded the road alongside of the Jeep. They made it to the paved county road. In the distance, she caught the elliptical beam of headlights rounding a curve. The attacker was heading north.

  Beth stayed focused on the twin rays of headlights ahead, steadily gaining on the bomber. Did he know they were in pursuit? She barely registered Sammy’s ongoing radio conversation as he called in their location and requested backup. The static stop-and-go talking provided a comforting backdrop of noise as she sped down the lonely stretch of pavement in the moonlight.

  Miles flew past, and although she seemed to be gaining on the vehicle ahead, it stayed frustratingly out of eyesight. She wanted that tag number. She wanted an arrest. She wanted this ordeal to be over. Tonight. Not only for herself, but for her family and for Sammy. No one in her circle was safe.

  The county road began to twist as they headed back up the mountain and the elevation rose. With every turn and climb, the wind howled stronger. The snow seemed to swirl faster, and the trees flashed by at an alarming rate. But Beth drove on, jaw clenched with determination even as her fingers painfully clenched the steering wheel. Her bare feet vibrated with the rumble of the Jeep’s engine as it strained under the demanding conditions.

  Ahead, she caught a glimpse of a yellow Dodge truck. A little closer and they’d have the tag number. But her jubilation was short-lived as the truck turned sharply onto GA 180—Georgia’s own deadly version of the Tail of the Dragon roadway. Bad enough during the day when motorcyclists and other t
hrill seekers often raced down it. But on a snowy winter night? Despite the continued blast of the heater, her whole body began to tremble.

  “We don’t have to chase him down the mountain,” Sammy said. “If we’re lucky, one of our cops might get here in time to put up a roadblock.”

  If they were lucky. Right now, she didn’t feel like Lady Luck was on her side. “I’m not quitting,” she told Sammy.

  “Want me to drive?”

  “There’s no time to switch places. We could lose him.” Before she could change her mind, Beth turned the Jeep onto GA 180. At least she knew what to expect—a road as narrow as the width of a driveway with miles of blind turns and steep elevation changes. As a teenager, she’d driven down it a time or two, only to prove to Aiden that she wasn’t a chicken. Whoever they were pursuing must also be a local to even attempt the ride.

  She began the descent down the Tail of the Dragon. At the first blind turn, the Jeep’s tires skidded on a sudden icy patch and the vehicle slid several feet to the very edge of the bank. Beth’s heart beat painfully against her ribs, even after she righted course and prepared for the next turn.

  “Careful there,” Sammy said tightly. “Didn’t know your real name was Mrs. Mario Andretti.”

  “Who?”

  “Andretti. A legendary race car driver.”

  Beth slowed a fraction. The only worse outcome than the bomber escaping them would be if she crashed the Jeep. Multiple wooden cross memorials alongside the road were a silent testament to the danger.

  The yellow truck ahead didn’t slow. Seemed the bomber was more desperate to escape them than they were to capture him and demand answers. At the next sharp curve, the truck veered so close to the edge of the cliff that it clipped the guardrail. The sound of tire squeals and grinding metal screamed through the snowy gales.

  Down, down she drove, frustrated at the growing distance between the Jeep and the truck but too cautious to try and gain on it again.

  “You’re doing a great job,” Sammy said softly. “We’re over the halfway point down now. It’s almost over.”

  “It won’t be over until we get—”

  Another squeal of tires filled the air—long and shrill. The truck’s driver must have lost control of his vehicle. Beth tapped on the brakes, not knowing what to expect when she emerged from the blind curve. If the driver had crashed into the mountain wall on the right, his truck might be flung back onto the middle of the road, a deadly obstruction for their oncoming Jeep.

  She rounded the bend—to see her worst fear come true. The truck slammed into the mountain with a deafening crash. Sparks mingled with snow and metal debris flew through the air like firecracker missiles.

  “Look out!” Sammy shouted.

  This was no time for mere brake-tapping. “Hold tight,” she warned, slamming her foot on the brake, arms clenched to the steering wheel in a death grip as she braced for possible impact.

  The truck spun out of control and back toward the guardrail. More grinding of metal on metal ensued and an unmistakable human wail of terror rent the air.

  The Jeep grounded to a sudden halt, in time for front-row viewing to a nightmare. The truck toppled over the rail, flipping once before disappearing into darkness. But she heard the crash from the bottom of the mountain as it landed once, then twice, and finally a third time. With each thunderous clap of the tumbling truck, Beth winced. Sammy was back on the two-way radio, barking out their location and requesting an ambulance. Again her body shook so hard that her teeth began to chatter. Sammy flung an arm over her shoulders and squeezed her tight. The solid strength of his arms comforted her and warmed the chilly despair that had momentarily overtaken her body.

  “You did great, Beth. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner tonight. Help’s on the way.”

  Before she could do more than nod in reply, an explosion blasted from below. Tall flames burst high in a column of orange flares. Sirens wailed in the distance. Sammy flung open the passenger door.

  “What are you doing?” she cried in surprise. “You can’t go out there. You’re not even wearing shoes!”

  Sammy’s gaze flicked to the back seat and he leaned over, plucking a towel and a jacket from a gym bag. He hastily pulled out the larger shards in his feet, then wrapped each item on a foot for makeshift shoes. “Keep the headlights pointed straight ahead,” he instructed. “They know we’re here by mile marker eight. I’m just going to stand by the edge of the road and take a quick look.”

  The door shut behind him and she watched as he picked his way through the haphazardly strewn metal wreckage. A compulsion to see the burning truck overcame her common sense. She opened the Jeep door and Sammy spun around.

  “Don’t come out here. There’s glass everywhere.”

  “I want to see.”

  He shook his head and then crossed over to her. “Okay. Just for a minute,” he said, putting an arm under her thighs and then lifting her out of the vehicle. She leaned into his solid warmth as the mountain wind whipped around them. He only took a few steps before stopping, mere inches from the smashed-in guardrail.

  The twisted metal hull of the truck was engulfed by flames. Black plumes of smoke spiraled among the fire. For the second time tonight, the smell of gasoline permeated the air. But now the acrid scent of scorched rubber mixed with the fuel. The Tail of the Dragon was breathing fire tonight as it claimed yet another victim.

  “He couldn’t have survived,” she whispered.

  “No,” he grimly agreed. “So much for that lead.”

  His harsh words weighed on her. “But won’t you be able to discover who that man was? Or at least who owned the truck?”

  “We will.”

  “Then we’ll be closer to an answer.”

  Blue lights and sirens snaked up the mountain. Sammy carried her back to the Jeep, and she waited inside as he met with law enforcement officers. EMTs scrambled from an ambulance with stretchers and headed down the mountain. Firefighters joined them and somehow the dark corner of the mountain was flooded with light in all directions as emergency responders set to work. Sammy emerged from the crowd of people and returned to the Jeep, an EMT by his side.

  “You need to go with Adam,” Sammy told her gently. “He’ll take you to the Elmore Community Hospital. You need to be checked for shock and to make sure you don’t have any serious wounds.”

  “Wounds?” she asked blankly.

  “You’re covered with cuts,” he explained.

  She glanced down, surprised at the number of bloody scratches crisscrossing her arms and legs. “How...”

  “When the bomb went off, debris flew everywhere. You’ve been too pumped with adrenaline to notice.”

  “What about you? You’ve been limping. Did you burn your feet in the fire?”

  “I’ll be fine—”

  “What’s this?” A deep voice interrupted. “Are you injured, Sammy?” Sheriff Harlan Sampson suddenly stood beside them, frowning and surveying them with his hands on his hips.

  “It’s not bad, mostly a gash on one foot,” Sammy said, obviously trying to minimize the injury.

  Harlan cocked his head toward the ambulance. “Go get it looked at.”

  “But you need my report and—”

  “That can wait. We have enough information for tonight. We’ll get your car down the mountain for you.” Harlan glanced at her thoughtfully. “Besides, someone needs to watch out for Ms. Wynngate at the hospital. My wife would never forgive me if something happened to her friend.”

  His manner was not unkind, but Beth suddenly felt a crushing weight on her chest. She’d placed his officer in danger. Harlan most likely would love to see her hightail it back to Boston, far away from his department’s responsibility. Far away from Lilah. Not that she couldn’t understand his feelings. Danger followed wherever she roamed, no matter how far or remote the locati
on.

  She followed Sammy into the back of another officer’s cruiser, which rushed them to the hospital. Sammy’s foot required stitches and by the time they were fully examined and cleaned up, dawn streaked the sky. Even though the adrenaline had left her body, she felt oddly restless and not in the least tired.

  Lilah burst through the examination room, carrying several large plastic bags. She dropped them to the floor and enveloped Beth in a bear hug. “Are you okay? Harlan told me what happened.” Lilah stepped back and appraised her. “You look horrible.”

  “Why, thank you,” Beth said, attempting a smile.

  “You know what I mean.” Lilah retrieved one of the fallen bags and handed it to her. “I brought clean clothes for you.” She shoved the other bag at Sammy. “And for you. I believe you and Harlan are about the same size, so these should fit.”

  “I can’t wait to change out of these stinky clothes,” Beth said, wondering if the stench of smoke would ever leave her nostrils.

  “Ditto,” Sammy echoed, hobbling over to the men’s room to change.

  Lilah followed her into the ladies’ bathroom. “So what’s the game plan now? You and Sammy should come stay with us until all this mess blows over.”

  Beth’s gaze involuntarily slid to Lilah’s pregnant belly. Much as she would enjoy staying at Lilah’s, she couldn’t put her friend in danger. “I’ve worked it out already. Aiden returned early from his trip and insisted I come stay with him a few days until Lambert’s locked up.”

  After the abysmal failure of the remote cabin to keep her safe, the busy high-rise condo bustling with people felt infinitely more secure. At least someone would hear her scream if Lambert attacked.

  Lilah stuffed the smoke-ruined clothes in an empty plastic bag as Beth changed into jeans and a sweater. “I’ll wash these for you,” Lilah offered.

  “Those old things? Don’t bother. Just dump them in the trash can.”

  Lilah pulled a pair of sneakers and slippers from the bag. “My shoes might be a size too small for you, if I remember right. If nothing else, you can wear these bedroom slippers and stop somewhere on the way to buy a new pair of shoes.”