Pushed Too Far

by Ann Voss Peterson

  She tilted the mirror toward the ceiling, but between the glare and her increasingly foggy vision, for a few scary moments, she could barely see.

  They’d passed town after town, dozens of chances to turn off, but he hadn’t. She’d slowed enough for him to pass, but he didn’t take the opportunity. The truck’s driver was probably a flaming asshole who happened to be traveling the same route, but unease prickled at the back of her neck all the same.

  Fields stretched on either shoulder, the stubble of corn stalks barely poking through snow. She hadn’t remembered how lonely this stretch of road was, farms far between, houses non-existent. Her pulse pounded in her ears, drowning out the swish of the wipers. Ice started forming on the rubber blades, and she flicked the heater to full-on defrost.

  She eased around two more bends in the highway.

  The headlights followed, tightening the distance, passing each intersecting road, rolling right by the occasional driveway.

  Gripping the wheel in her left hand, she groped in her coat pocket and found her phone. On an icy night like this, she doubted the county sheriff’s departments or local police were lacking for things to do. She wouldn’t call for help based on some vague, uneasy feeling, but she wanted to be prepared in case this was more than fatigue mixed with paranoia.

  She set her phone in her lap and put both hands on the wheel, forcing herself to breathe deeply and focus on the ribbon of asphalt ahead. Taking her foot off the accelerator, she let the truck creep closer. If she could get a glimpse of the license plate in her rear view mirror, she’d have something to work with.

  Only there was no front plate.

  She’d heard rumor of a bill working its way through the state legislature that would make a front plate unnecessary, but she couldn’t quite believe the omission was as innocent as a misinterpretation of the law. In only a few minutes, she’d reach Sauk City. She’d drive straight to the police station. No way would the driver confront her there.

  River bluffs hulked ahead, dark against the glow of city lights off low clouds. Businesses sprung up on either side of the road; bars, restaurants, and roadside motels catering to summer tourists. Ahead the highway funneled onto a bridge spanning the Wisconsin River. Sauk City sparkled along the far bank.

  She was almost there.

  The first jolt hit above her back bumper. Her car fishtailed, skimming on ice.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  She counter steered, careful not to overcorrect, struggling to stay on the road.

  The truck hit her from the side.

  The Focus careened over the ice like a hockey puck. She steered, counter steered, but it did no good. A sign advertising canoe rentals whipped by on the right. She shuddered over the end of a guardrail to the left.

  Sliding, jolting, skidding.

  In slow motion, yet too fast for mind and body to react.

  The tires hit the river bank. For a moment, she skated over frozen sand and ice, then water surged over the hood and the airbag exploded in her face.

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  Lund paced across his living room and looked at the wall clock for what had to be the fiftieth time in the last minute. The roads were starting to get slick now. Every few minutes his radio would come alive with an assistance call for a fender bender in Lake Delton or a car in the ditch outside of Merrimac. He figured it was only a matter of time before he had to use his extrication skills again.

  You’d think one of these days people would learn to stay off the road during ice storms. Apparently that was too much to ask.

  He’d gotten half way across the floor when the next call came in. As soon as he identified it as originating from outside the district, he only half listened.

  Car off the road at the Highway 12 bridge in Sauk City.

  Vehicle submerged.

  A neon green Ford Focus.

  He grabbed his coat and made for the door.

  Pain throbbed in Val’s nose, spreading outward to swallow her whole skull. She couldn’t think. For a moment, she couldn’t feel. Then she opened her eyes, and recognized the coppery taste of blood filling her mouth.

  What the hell had happened?

  The car’s air bag hung from the center of the steering wheel, mostly deflated. The car angled nose down, slowly turning to the side, and her feet were cold.

  The river.

  The last few minutes came rushing back, the truck, the impact, the nosedive into cold water. She shook her head to try to clear it. Instead, another wave of pain assaulted her and tears swamped her eyes, plunging the world into watery shades of dark.

  She was in a car floating downriver. Floating until the engine block inevitably dragged the car under.

  She had to get out.

  She swiped at her eyes with her fingers. The dash lights still worked, a green glow reflecting off the water already covering the brake pedal. Something square and dark rested against the toe of her boots, and when she saw what it was, the tears almost resumed.

  Her phone.

  The headlights glowed under the water. But they didn’t illuminate more than a greenish swirl broken by an occasional chunk of ice. Doubtful anyone would see it from the road unless they were specifically looking.

  How long would it take for someone to start the search? And how would they find her in the dark water once the electrical shorted out?

  She fumbled for the door lock button. If the electrical system stopped working in the cold water, she needed a way out, then she lowered the driver’s side window. It stopped half way, dash lights flickering, and all went dark.

  For a moment Val didn’t move.

  Cold dampness and the hiss of light rain on water filled the car. No scream of sirens. No human sounds of any kind.

  No one was going to arrive before the car went down. No one was going to pull her out, warm and dry. It was up to her. Fingers shaking, she found the clasp of her seat belt and released it. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the latch and shoved hard against the door.

  It didn’t budge.

  The pressure of the water outside must be holding the door. She would have to use the window. But first, she needed to make the opening bigger.

  She shoved her seat back. Turning sideways, she positioned her boots at the window, drew her knees to her chest, and kicked as hard as she could.

  Once. Twice.

  The glass snapped at the door line and crumbled in pebbles.

  The water was creeping fast, now nearly reaching the edge of the seat. She climbed into a squat, her boots under her on the driver’s seat, and peered out at the frigid water.

  There was no telling how deep the river was in this area. She’d heard it was often deeper where it swirled around the supports of a bridge. Stronger and more unpredictable currents, too. She was a good swimmer, even worked as a lifeguard while attending college, but that didn’t matter much when the water was cold enough to shut a body down in a matter of minutes.

  She couldn’t help thinking of Kelly Lund, with ice matting her hair and skin the pallor of freezer-burned chicken. Is that how she would end up? Found frozen solid on a sandbar downstream?

  She scanned the lights along the bank and the bridge. When she’d skidded down the bank and into the water, she’d been upstream from the structure. Now she was on the downstream side and pulling away. Businesses and houses flanked this stretch of the river. Surely someone would have seen what happened to her. Surely someone would have noticed the bright green car carried by the current.

  The water inched over the seat.

  Her time to hope for rescue was over. She had to get out before she went down. She spun around and pushed head and shoulders through the window, then shimmied her hips through until she was sitting on the edge of the door. Black water swirled inches below. The shore was only thirty feet from the car, maybe forty. Even fighting the cold, she might be able to make it.

  She would be able to make it. She had to.

  Taking a deep breath, she pulled h
er legs through, lay back in the water and pushed off.

  Cold wrapped around her, so deep it made her bones ache. She let the current sweep her downstream. Battling against it would do nothing but tire her. Instead she moved her arms and legs in a sidestroke heading across the river’s flow to the bank.

  Her efforts grew clumsy within seconds, shivers wracking her muscles, each movement feeling close to impossible to perform. Her teeth rattled, her breath blending with the fog.

  A few strokes and her feet hit bottom. She stood and forced one step, then another. Her legs were heavy, hard to control.

  She looked back toward the lights, so far away. How was she swept downstream so quickly? She kept moving, hoping she was still heading toward the riverbank, though it seemed impossible land was so far away.

  Walking. Trudging. Wading through the water. One foot, then the other.

  A scream reached her. Her own? No, someone else. Something else.

  A siren?

  She wanted to turn around again, see if help was coming, signal where she was, but it was too hard. Too much effort. She tried to speak, but her voice was garbled. Not that it mattered. No one was there to hear.

  The river bank was close, so close, only a few steps. She forced her foot to move forward, then the other, then … the sandy bottom fell out beneath her.

  She toppled forward. Cold swallowed her. She fought, thrashed. Shore was so close, she could almost reach out and touch the ice, the sand.

  Almost.

  Her clothing was so heavy, her coat and boots pulling her down, the current sweeping her downstream. Her foot hit something hard. A fallen tree in the water. Branches scratched her face, tangled in her hair.

  Holding her there. Holding her down.

  The sirens seemed so far away, too far to reach. She was so tired.

  Too tired to think.

  Too tired to feel.

  Too tired to fight.

  The fog pulsed red and blue.

  Still blocks from the river, Lund could see the Sauk City rescue workers had already arrived. He didn’t let himself think of Val, wonder where she was, if she was okay. He’d learned to compartmentalize his feelings long ago, to shove his concerns aside and do his job. Worry was the enemy of action. Worry was to sit and do nothing, and he didn’t do nothing well.

  The light ahead flicked to yellow.

  Making sure the intersection was clear, he pressed the accelerator, increasing his speed enough to make it through without adding to the number of people who needed rescuing tonight.

  The lights grew brighter the closer he came to the river. Finally he reached the bridge. A ladder truck from the Sauk Prairie fire district blocked the street, lights blazing, its bulk acting as a barricade.

  He pulled his truck into a restaurant parking lot and climbed out. He would go the rest of the way on foot. Cold mist enveloped him and clung in droplets to his hair and clothes. From the look of things, the efforts were focused on the far side of the river, the direction from which Val would be traveling driving north from Chicago.

  He stepped past the truck and onto the bridge. Even at this distance, he could see the responders on the river bank, shadows scurrying in front of the foggy glare of searchlights. And he could see what they were pulling from the water.

  The car.

  Despite his practiced cool, he could feel another swirl of adrenaline dump into his system, raising the rate of his heart a few notches, making his legs feel shaky. He forced himself to focus, remain calm, but before he realized what he was doing, he had broken into a run.

  “Hey, stop!” A cop he didn’t recognize shouted.

  Lund kept going.

  He caught a flash of one of the firefighters working in the lights near the car. Red hair and round cheeks, he looked familiar. Lund couldn’t remember the guy’s name to save his life, but he’d met him at some point.

  He raced for the car. “Is she in there?”

  The guy squinted up at him for a few seconds before recognition seemed to dawn. He shook his head. “Car’s empty.”

  Relief released the grip on his lungs and he gasped in a breath. Then he realized if she wasn’t in the car …

  He stared out over the cold dark river pocked with chunks of ice.

  “We got in touch with the owner, though. Her aunt was driving, and she was alone, which means …”

  Alone. In the frigid water.

  “… looking for one body.”

  He could have conjured up images of Kelly, but he didn’t, forcibly pushing them from his mind. Instead, he started downstream. “Fan out. She has to be here.”

  “Lund—” The firefighter grabbed his arm.

  He yanked away from the man’s grip. “Get moving! Search, damn it! The car wasn’t that far from shore. She has to be here.”

  He moved as quickly as he could over ice-crusted snow. To his relief, he could hear the others break into motion behind him. Lights bobbed over water and shore.

  Out ahead, he was the first to spot the dark form.

  He broke into a run. “I found her! Over here! I found her!”

  She was face down in the water, tangled in the branches of a fallen tree. Her arms were flung out in front of her, the fingers of her left hand extended, as if trying to claw her way out of the snag.

  He slid down the steep bank and plunged through the fragile edging of ice and into the water. Cold current swirled around his waist, pushing him downriver, aching in his bones.

  He reached her in just a few steps. Snapping branches, he untangled her and gathered her in his arms.

  She’d been so close to shore. Only a few feet, and she would have made it. Inches.

  Cradling her tight to his chest, he waded to shore. The slosh of water sounded brittle as ice. He tried not to think, not to feel the stillness of her body, not to recognize what that stillness meant.

  He’d failed to save Kelly.

  He’d failed to save Tamara Wade.

  He couldn’t fail Val.

  Eyes closed, she appeared to be sleeping, her face slack, not even a twitch under her lids.

  He carried her up the bank and lowered her to the frozen ground. “Val. Can you hear me? Val!”

  No response.

  He unzipped her sopping coat and opened it. She wore a white button down underneath, soaked through. He brought his fingers to her throat. Her skin was cold and still. No movement, no pulse, and from what he could see, no breathing.

  Val Ryker was dead.

  A hum rose in his ears.

  Muscle memory was an amazing thing. He didn’t have to process, his body simply took over.

  He positioned the heel of one hand on her sternum, the other on top of it. Keeping his elbows straight and shoulders square, he began steady chest compressions. He didn’t have to count out the first thirty. He could feel the rhythm, the depth of compression, the amount he needed.

  Hands shaking from adrenaline, he placed his palm on her forehead and gently tilted her head back. With his other hand, he lifted her chin forward to open her airway.

  Lowering his face near her lips, he watched her chest, willing it to rise and fall. He listened for breath, praying for the light touch of her exhale on his skin.

  Nothing.

  “Hang in there, Val. For Grace. For me.”

  He pinched her nostrils shut, then sealed his lips over hers and blew a breath into her lungs.

  Her chest rose, then fell.

  He gave her another, breathing for her. Then he started the next cycle, shifting back to her chest, compressions pumping her blood through her body, taking over for her heart.

  “You aren’t going to die, Valerie Ryker,” he commanded, voice hoarse. “I won’t let you.”

  Chapter

  Eighteen

  Val remembered little of the trip in the ambulance other than sleepiness and confusion and a female EMT with the shoulders and bedside manner of a professional wrestler peeling off her clothes and ordering her not to talk.

  Al
l in all, not one of her better dates.

  Now she lay in bed with warm compresses on her neck and groin and a plastic tube of oxygen with its fingers up her nose.

  A rap of knuckles sounded on the door.

  “Come in.”

  She’d been hoping it was the doctor, giving her the go ahead to check out and go home, but she couldn’t hold back the smile when Lund stepped into the room.

  “Hey, there.”

  “Hey.” She remembered his voice calling her out of unconsciousness, his lips on hers, his touch warm, demanding she live.

  David Lund had saved her life.

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  He gave her a crooked smile. “Just lucky, I guess. How are you feeling?”

  “Kinda cold.”

  “You should have known better than to go swimming in December.”

  “Live and learn.”

  He stepped into the room and stopped, as if unsure if he should come closer. “I’m just glad you’re living. I doubt you’ll ever learn.”

  “You might be right about that. Although I don’t think you’re one to talk.”

  “No, I guess not.” The smile slipped from his lips. “I’m … I’m just glad it worked out okay.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  He shook his head. “I should have gone with you to Chicago.”

  When she’d left, she’d urged him to get out of town. She’d never mentioned him going with them to Chicago. But somehow the thought had been in her mind at the time. And it sounded good on his lips now. Natural.

  Maybe that was what happened when someone brought you back from the dead. “Yes, you should have.”

  “You’re just saying that so you could dump me off at your friend’s house with Grace.”

  “You mean, where you’d be safe? If I could have, I would have.”

  “And you would rush back to Lake Loyal all on your own to be the blue canary?”

  “Blue canary?”

  “Our nickname for cops.”

  “Like a canary in a coal mine?”