Eggs on Ice

by Laura Childs

  “Get your cell phone out,” Suzanne said. “Call the highway patrol.”

  Toni grabbed her phone, but before she could make her call, the rogue car smashed hard against their rear bumper. The jolt shook them both and caused the phone to fly out of Toni’s hand.

  “Hang on!” Suzanne cried. They’d hit an icy patch and she was fighting desperately to maintain control. She felt her car swerve left and steered into her skid. Then the car smashed against a low metal barrier and swerved right.

  And that’s when it all went to hell.

  Suzanne fought to straighten her car, but it was simply not to be. A split second later, she felt her car’s back end let loose completely and they spun crazily to one side. Then her front end dropped onto the frozen berm and clipped a ridge of hard snow. As if time had slowed to a crawl, the car began to tilt, and then it began a slow-motion, stomach-sickening roll. Suzanne felt her seat belt get uncomfortably tight as they rolled down the hillside and into a ditch far below. One second she was gazing through the windshield; then she was upside down; then she was glimpsing a galaxy of stars through her moonroof. Another flash of white snow, and then stars again.

  Dear Lord, Suzanne thought as her arms flailed helplessly and a cardboard box from the rear seat smacked her in the back of the head. We’re rolling all the way down the embankment!

  CHAPTER 27

  DARKNESS, intense cold, and a jumble of limbs. That was Suzanne’s first impression when she realized they’d finally come to an abrupt, heart-thumping stop. She blinked, drew a sharp breath, and fought to orient herself. She felt muddleheaded and woozy, and she was pretty sure that her car had landed upside down in the ditch. As more comprehension slowly dawned, she saw a huge gash in her windshield, all pointy and jagged like sharks’ teeth. Snow and cold air were rushing in.

  “Toni?” Suzanne cried in a weak voice. She looked around but didn’t see her friend. Had Toni been thrown clear? “Honey, where are you? Are you hurt?”

  There was no answer.

  “Toni?” Suzanne released the seat belt, which was painfully cutting into her chest and shoulder. She dropped with a thud and called out again in what she hoped was a stronger voice. Her airbag hadn’t gone off and she wondered why. Had it malfunctioned? Had the snow cushioned their descent that much? Maybe.

  “I’m here,” came a plaintive mewl.

  “Toni.” Suzanne glanced around and finally located Toni. She scrabbled farther back in the car, where Toni was bent over and huddled. Her airbag had gone off and her seat belt seemed to have released on its own. “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t know,” Toni managed to choke out. “My right arm is crumpled up and feels real funny.”

  “Can you move it?”

  “No way, it hurts just to breathe.”

  “You stay here. I’m going to crawl out and get some help.”

  “Don’t leave me alone, Suzanne. Please. I’m scared.”

  “I’ll only be gone a couple of minutes,” Suzanne said. “I promise. I need to . . . I need to . . . um.” What do I need to do? Because my head is still spinning. Oh yeah, I gotta find a cell phone and call for help.

  Suzanne crawled toward the windshield, hands searching frantically for her purse, wondering if she could kick her way out of the car. Or could she lever open one of the car doors?

  That’s when she heard the sound of boots crunching on snow.

  “Somebody’s coming,” Suzanne said. A flicker of hope kindled inside her chest. A rescue?

  “Who is it?” Toni asked.

  “It must be the guy who hit us. I think he’s coming to help.”

  “Jerk,” Toni said.

  A pair of legs stuck into dark green pac boots came into view and stopped just short of the shattered windshield.

  “Hello?” Suzanne said. Who is this?

  “Help us,” Toni called out weakly. “Get us out of here.”

  The boots shifted. Whoever it was, it looked as if he was about to crouch down and try to pull them to safety.

  “Are you injured?” a man’s voice yelled out.

  Suzanne was about to answer when she was struck with a wave of terror. She recognized that voice. Her mind reeled with fear and she shrank back into the dark recess of the car. Oh man, did she ever know that voice. It belonged to Reverend Ethan Jakes!

  Dear Lord. Is he the one who rammed us from behind and forced us off the road?

  “Get away from us,” Suzanne screamed. Jakes was kneeling down now and Suzanne could see his face as he peered in. He looked worried as he reached a hand in through the broken glass and tried to grab her.

  “No,” Jakes said. “I didn’t hit you . . . I was just driving by and saw your car go plunging off the road. I got the plate number of the car that . . .”

  “I don’t believe you!” Suzanne cried.

  Suddenly, there was another scuffle of boots. As if a second person had just arrived at the crash scene. Suzanne heard Jakes say, “What are you . . . ?” And then there was a soft, muffled sound, like something heavy striking human flesh.

  Right before Suzanne’s startled eyes, Reverend Jakes’s eyes rolled back in his head and he let out a loud groan. Then he toppled to the ground a few feet from her shattered windshield.

  Stunned, Suzanne peered through the darkness at Reverend Jakes. Blood trickled down the side of his face and his eyes were scrunched closed now. The lights had definitely gone out. Someone had clobbered him on the head with something heavy. A tire iron maybe?

  “But who?” Suzanne managed to stammer out loud. Who else was out there? A savior . . . or something else?

  Snow scuffed as a man walked closer to the car and then knelt down next to the fallen Jakes. Seconds later, Don Shinder’s face peered in at her.

  “I didn’t count on him coming along,” Shinder said in an almost matter-of-fact tone of voice. “I thought I’d be killing two birds with one stone, not three.” He sighed deeply. “Oh well.”

  Even in the dark Suzanne could see that Shinder was holding a tire iron. He was the one who’d clobbered Jakes on the head.

  “Come on out of there,” Shinder said. He clanged the tire iron noisily against the front bumper of her car and then poked it through the broken windshield, trying to prod her. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Suzanne pulled farther back into the wreck, trying to tug Toni along.

  “No,” Toni moaned. “Hurts too much.”

  “Hang on, Toni.” Suzanne grabbed Toni under her arms and inched her back into the scatter of junk—mostly Junior’s tools—that had been dislodged during the crash.

  “Hurts,” Toni muttered again.

  Seconds later, a flashlight beam probed the darkness.

  “I know you’re in there,” Shinder said.

  “Get away from us!” Suzanne shouted. In the reflected light from the flashlight, Suzanne could see that Shinder had two black eyes and a puffed lip. Was he the one she’d seen being beaten up outside the casino? Yes, it had to have been him. She recognized the burnt orange parka!

  “I’m just here to help,” Shinder said. “To bat cleanup.”

  “Get away from us,” Suzanne cried again.

  “Or what?” Shinder asked. “You’ll crawl out and throw a snowball at me? In case you haven’t noticed, you don’t exactly have a lot of negotiating power. You’re basically rats in a trap.”

  “And you’re a killer,” Suzanne flung at him, reacting with both fear and rage. “You’re the monster! Just wait until Sheriff Doogie gets his hands on you!”

  “It’s never going to happen, little lady. This time I hold all the cards.”

  “It was you back at the casino, wasn’t it?” Suzanne said. “Getting the crap beat out of you.”

  “And it’s all your fault!” Shinder bellowed, his voice rising in a horrifying shriek. “If you’d left well enough
alone, I could have collected the business insurance on Allan and been just fine. Could have paid off my gambling debts and had plenty left over. But you . . . you had to poke your nose in my business every step of the way.”

  Suzanne digested his words and thought: Oh shit! I’m right. Shinder really is the killer! He stabbed his own partner and then . . . he killed Teddy Hardwick?

  Now what?

  Keep him talking?

  I can try. I have to try.

  “I can understand stabbing Allan Sharp to collect the insurance,” Suzanne said, trying to keep her voice from quavering. “But why kill Hardwick?”

  “To throw everyone off track,” Shinder said. “Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? Amber Payson was about to go down for all of this.”

  Without warning, Shinder smashed his tire iron against the windshield. More glass cracked and popped as he moved the tire iron around, probing, dislodging hunks of glass, trying to create a larger hole. A hole that would be big enough for him to fit through. So he could crawl in and kill them!

  “You’re insane,” Suzanne flung at him.

  For some reason, her remark made Shinder chuckle softly. “I’m actually very clever and cunning,” he said as he pulled the tire iron back and thumped it against his leather mitten. “Because I found out that people will do anything you want when you point a gun at them. Even slip their head through a noose.”

  “You won’t get away with this.”

  “Of course I will. In about ten seconds I’m going to split your heads open like those poor dead squirrels you see lying on the highway. That’s right, after I give you both a good hard knock, it’ll look exactly like you lost control of your car, flipped into the ditch, and crushed your skulls in the ensuing wreck.”

  Suzanne tried to scrabble backward some more. She knew she had to do something. But what?

  “Toni,” she whispered. “Do you have your cell phone?”

  “I . . . I think so,” Toni said. “It should be here somewhere, only my arm hurts too much to try and find it.”

  “Let me . . .” Suzanne shifted her weight, trying to feel around.

  Shinder, meanwhile, was getting even more ugly and restless. He started swearing and stomping around, poking at them. He was struggling to get enough leverage so he could take a swing.

  What can we do? Suzanne wondered as Shinder dropped to his knees, huffing and puffing, sticking his face and now an arm through the broken windshield. He swung his heavy tire iron closer and closer to them. It was only a matter of time before he’d connect and bash their heads in.

  Suzanne continued to search around inside her wrecked car, looking for something, anything, she could use to defend against him. Her fingers touched Toni’s curling iron, but it had cooled off, so no good.

  Shinder was crouched down on his hands and knees now. Gingerly, he thrust his head through the hole in the windshield and gazed at her. Then his shoulders slid in.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Shinder said in a taunting singsong voice.

  Suzanne spun around to face him. If she gave Shinder a good swift kick in the head, maybe she could disarm him and hold him off. But for how long?

  As Suzanne drew up both knees and positioned herself, ready to give him a hard, determined kick, she flung both arms out to stabilize herself. And at that exact moment, her fingers touched something . . . vaguely familiar.

  “This is it,” Shinder snarled. “End of story.” He wasn’t fooling around anymore. His mouth was pulled into a vicious snarl and his eyes shone with pure hatred.

  As he stabbed violently at Suzanne with the tire iron, Suzanne wrapped her fingers around Junior’s nail gun. With a hope and a prayer, she whipped the metal contraption in front of her, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 28

  TRAVELING at a velocity of ninety miles an hour, the three-inch steel nail hit Shinder’s left shoulder like a turbocharged hornet.

  “Owww!” Shinder’s bloodcurdling scream warbled pitifully in the still night air, and the impact of the nail sent him careening backward. Driven back outside the car, he landed hard, sprawling on his butt in the snow.

  “Got him,” Suzanne whispered. She felt no triumph, only relief.

  But her relief was short-lived.

  Like the wounded space creature from Alien, Shinder managed to pull himself up, spitting and swearing, saliva frothing and dripping from his mouth. Eyes crazed, a high-pitched bleat twisting out of his gaping mouth, he fumbled up his tire iron, staggered toward them, and came at Suzanne with another drunken jab.

  And that’s when she aimed for his right shoulder.

  As she pulled the trigger a second time, the nail gun stuttered in Suzanne’s hand and made a dull ptuh-ptuh sound.

  That shot did the trick. Shinder let out a high-pitched keening sound as he dropped the tire iron and was driven to the ground. Even better, he stayed on the ground this time, writhing helplessly in the snow. His arms flopped out wide as if he were about to be crucified; then they flailed up and down as if he were trying to beat out a snow angel. Shinder spat out a string of curses, interrupted by pathetic little bleats. His manner of expressing pain.

  Suzanne felt not a whit of sympathy for Shinder. Mostly because she didn’t have time for sympathy. She scrunched forward, kicked a bigger hole in the windshield, then scuttled back to get Toni.

  “I don’t know if I can move,” Toni moaned.

  “Yes, you can,” Suzanne urged. “You have to.”

  “Can you help me?”

  “Of course. Just give it your best and try to crawl a little bit. I’ll help you along.”

  Suzanne crawled out of the car, then turned around and grabbed Toni under her arms. Thirty seconds later they were both standing outside, looking down at Don Shinder, who was moaning pitifully.

  “He tried to kill us,” Toni growled. She was still cradling her arm but looked like she wanted to kick Shinder in the head. “He set Junior’s trailer on fire as a smoke screen. Literally a smoke screen.”

  “Don’t think about Shinder right now; just try to stay positive. Know that we’re safe and out of danger.” Suzanne pulled the crinkle scarf from around her neck and laced it around Toni’s neck and left shoulder. Tried to fashion a sling that would take the pressure off her injured arm.

  Toni stood there, head down, and let Suzanne work on her. Then she blinked a couple of times, as if she was just waking up, and gazed over at Reverend Jakes. “Who’s that?” she asked.

  “Reverend Jakes,” Suzanne said. “He apparently saw the accident and came to try and rescue us. But Shinder smacked him on the head with a tire iron.”

  “Oh no. Is he dead?”

  “I don’t think so. Just knocked out cold.”

  “Well . . . can you do something?” Toni collapsed into a sitting position in the snow.

  Suzanne went over to Reverend Jakes, knelt down, and touched the pulse point at the base of his throat. It felt fairly strong. And his breathing seemed quite regular and steady.

  “I think he’s going to be okay. He just needs a little time to wake up,” Suzanne said.

  Just as she spoke, Jakes slowly opened his eyes and stared up at Suzanne.

  “Where am I?” he asked.

  “You’re in a ditch, lying next to my car. You tried to help me, but Don Shinder whacked you over the head.”

  Jakes blinked a couple of times, then lifted a hand and felt around on the top of his head. When he found the sore spot he winced. “Ouch. Hurts.”

  “I’m sure it does. You got hit pretty hard.”

  “Yeah, I kind of remember now.”

  “Now, just stay down, I’m going to try and find a cell phone. Call for some help.”

  “Use mine,” Jakes said. He shifted slightly. “Jacket pocket.”

  Suzanne dipped a hand into Jakes�
�s jacket pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “Thank God,” she breathed.

  “You better believe he’s watching over us,” Jakes said.

  Still keeping an eye on Don Shinder, Suzanne called dispatch at the Law Enforcement Center and asked to be patched through to Sheriff Doogie.

  “Help!” Suzanne yelled when Doogie finally came on the line. “We’ve been in a car crash!”

  “What? Who?” Doogie asked. He was momentarily stunned.

  “Me and Toni. And Reverend Jakes is hurt bad, too.”

  “You’re all hurt? Where?”

  “Toni’s arm and I think—”

  “No, I mean where where. Where are you? Where did you crash?”

  “Oh, Don Shinder ran us off the road as we were driving back from the casino. On County Road 65, just past the old Miller place where the road dips way down. The thing is, our car rolled into a steep ditch and then . . . well, there was a shooting.”

  “What’d you say?” Doogie screeched. “A shooting? Somebody got shot? Who got shot? Was it Shinder?”

  “Just get out here, okay? Fast as you can. And send an ambulance.”

  Suzanne punched off. Better to let Doogie come and see for himself.

  She checked on Toni and Reverend Jakes again, and then dialed Sam’s number. While she waited for him to answer, she jumped up and down, trying to warm up. Thank goodness Sam had his cell phone on him and picked up immediately.

  “Suzanne?”

  “Sam!” Suzanne almost cried when she heard his voice.

  Sam was instantly on alert. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”

  Where to start? “Everything,” Suzanne said in a quavering voice. “First we were in a car accident and then Reverend Jakes got hurt, and then Don Shinder tried to kill us. And I think Toni’s arm might be broken.” Suzanne let loose a loud sob and said, “You’re at the hospital? Still working in the ER?”

  “No. You’re not going to believe this, but I’m sitting in the front seat of the ambulance that’s screaming its way toward you!” Sam cried.