“You haven’t talked to the police?”
“Yeah, but no one’s given us any details.”
“It was a car accident, a bad one. A passerby called 911, but I heard he didn’t wait.”
“Did someone hit them?” Emmett asked, and then as if a switch had flipped, he fired off more questions. “Whose car were they in? Was it a Range Rover?”
The doctor tried to answer, but Emmett wasn’t listening. He was explaining that Jordy drove a 1996 Range Rover. “Belonged to Sandy’s dad back in the day,” he said.
Sandy didn’t know how that mattered.
“I don’t know about the car they were in,” said the doctor, “but your son was driving. Travis was in the passenger seat, and Michelle was in back. She was the only one wearing a seat belt.”
When Dermott looked at Sandy, she felt as if she were to blame.
He said, “They were traveling at a high rate of speed, pushing a hundred miles an hour when he lost control. The car skidded sideways through a fence, spun around a few times, and slammed into a tree.”
“Jesus Christ,” Emmett muttered.
One hundred miles an hour? Sandy’s brain seemed stuck on that detail.
“It looked like Travis was ejected through the sunroof. Jordan might have gone through the driver’s-side window, or he might have left the vehicle under his own power. In any case, he was found next to Travis. Michelle was still belted in the backseat. But all of this is preliminary.”
“What about the air bags?” Emmett asked.
“Only deployed partially, according to what I was told. In addition to abdominal bruising and a dislocated right shoulder, Jordan’s got some pretty severe facial and scalp lacerations. They’ll monitor his vitals and continue to treat him for shock on the flight over to Mercy, but he was responding to voices and other stimuli. He opened his eyes a few times. One of the EMTs told me Jordan was talking when they got to the accident scene, said he kept telling them he was sorry.”
Tell Jordy “I’m sorry” won’t cut it this time. Jenna’s words surfaced in Sandy’s brain. This time, she’d said. As opposed to any number of other times, Sandy guessed, beginning with the time Jordy had cut Travis’s hair when they were five and then lied that he was responsible. Jenna wouldn’t have forgotten; she had the memory of an elephant.
“Huck was trying to talk to your son a while ago.” Dr. Dermott divided his glance between Sandy and Emmett, asking if they knew him. “Len Huckabee, the patrol sergeant from Wyatt?”
“Yeah,” Emmett said, “we know him.”
Dermott went on. “I discouraged him, but once Jordan is conscious, which could be at any time, Huck or some other member of law enforcement is going to want a statement. Just FYI, you know?”
“Are you saying Jordy will be all right?” Sandy’s voice seemed faint in her ears, but maybe it was only that her pulse was so loud.
“The next seventy-two hours are critical, but, yeah, overall his outlook is good. All things considered, your son is pretty lucky.”
Sandy looked at Emmett, expecting to see his relief, a mirror to her own, but his eyes were hard.
“Why is Huck so interested in talking to Jordy?”
A look of dismay crossed Dr. Dermott’s face, and Sandy braced herself as if for a blow.
“I heard when paramedics first arrived at the scene, Michelle was conscious and told them Jordy was the designated driver, the one who was supposed to stay sober. Also, Jordy told them when he came to he was in the driver’s seat.”
Emmett interrupted. “He was drinking?”
“Blood work’s pending, but, yeah. Indications are that all three of them were.”
The pained silence was broken by laughter from somewhere down the hall.
“Look, maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but you’re going to find out soon enough—” Dr. Dermott spoke quickly as if to cover the sounds of mirth. “Travis is in critical condition, about as critical as it can get. Michelle isn’t much better off. There’s a good chance neither of them will make it. Your boy, Jordan, if he was driving? He’s in a lot of trouble.”
2
Lost.
Libby Hennessey was completely turned around. She had felt so sure of herself, she hadn’t bothered programming the GPS when she’d driven out of Houston this morning.
“Damn it,” she said out loud, then glancing in the rearview mirror, she said it again, loudly, to her reflection. “Damn it.”
Libby, you think a lot, but you don’t always think about what you’re doing.
Beck spoke in her mind. He was a funny guy, her husband. She smiled. He had that talent. After almost thirty-five years of marriage, he could still make her smile. Even when he was nowhere in sight.
The highway she was on dead-ended at CR 440, according to the sign, which was fortunate, because she was pretty sure heading south on 440 would take her back to FM 1620, the road she wanted. The road home. Or it soon would be, once the house was built. The trouble with driving out here in the country was that landmarks weren’t as obvious as in the city. But she would learn them in time, she thought, once she was driving the route regularly. She was thinking about how much more peaceful it was driving in the country compared to driving in the city when she crested a hill and saw all the vehicles parked in the grass at its foot. She thought maybe a fruit stand was there, but then she saw the yellow tape, crime-scene tape, looping a section of barbed-wire fencing. A good bit of the fence, including several shattered cedar posts, was lying in the ditch. Some twenty yards away in a field, a crowd of mostly young people was gathered under a spreading live oak canopy. Even from here, Libby could tell they were distraught. A few of the girls were crying.
Accident.
The word took shape in Libby’s brain. A bad one, she thought. There was no sign of the vehicle or vehicles that must have been involved, but a good-size chunk of bark had been ripped from the oak tree’s trunk, leaving a jagged wound. Closer to the road, handwritten cards and bouquets of flowers were strung along the barbed wire, evidence of tragedy, of sorrow and mourning. It made a knot in Libby’s stomach. Made her want to get away.
She put her foot down on the accelerator and drove on.
Too fast.
The patrol car came off a secondary ranch road just after she crested the next hill. A moment later, she saw the strobe of its lights. Really? The cop was going to ticket her for doing five over the posted fifty-five-mile-per-hour limit?
They’re like the welcome wagon with a badge, the teller at the local bank in Wyatt had warned Libby last week.
And, boy, do they have a gift for you, a woman in line behind her had said.
The three of them had laughed, ha-ha.
Libby pulled onto the narrow shoulder and watched the squad car park behind her in her side-view mirror, brain ticking, thought upon heated thought: she was already late, and now she was going to be even later. She’d never been ticketed. Ever. A fact she bragged about. Not only that, but she couldn’t recall ever having met a cop in Houston, but in the bare eight weeks she and Beck had owned property outside Wyatt—property they’d searched two years for—this would be her second encounter with one.
The patrol officer was taking his sweet time. She could see him moving around behind the steering wheel, doing things with his hands, and when he did step outside, he didn’t acknowledge her presence. Instead, he seemed to make a show out of adjusting his mirrored sunglasses, letting his fingertips rest on the butt of his gun. It seemed intentional, as if he meant to intimidate her.
What an ass, Libby thought. Lowering her window, she heard the breeze lilting through the grass. She heard the drone of cicadas, the crunch of the cop’s booted footsteps, her own pulse in her ears. Smile, said a voice in her brain.
“Afternoon,” he said.
“I was going too fast,” Libby said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
When he asked for her driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance, she pulled her license from h
er wallet and got the insurance card and registration out of her glove box. Other than the owner’s manual, they were the only items stowed there. She hadn’t had the Lexus long enough to accumulate anything else. She handed them over.
The cop gave the documents a once-over, then shifted his gaze along the length of the Lexus. “Nice car,” he said, and there was something faintly damning in his praise.
Some note of ridicule that caused her to squirm slightly in her seat against leather that felt suddenly too rich and buttery soft. No one paid attention if you drove a car like this in Houston, but it was the wrong sort of car out here. She needed a Jeep. No, she thought, what she needed was a truck. Preferably an old truck with fading paint and a few dents. She’d become part of the local color instead of what this law officer likely thought she was: an uppity rich bitch from the city.
He mentioned the city now, inclining his head toward her. “You’re from Houston.”
“Yes, sir,” she said and could have bitten off her tongue. He might be all of forty or forty-five. Nearly young enough that she could be his mother. Would she call her son sir if she had a son? Hardly.
He went back to looking at her paperwork. She looked at the front of his tan shirt. The badge indicated he was a patrol sergeant, and above it, his name tag read: L. HUCKABEE.
He handed back Libby’s documents. “So where are you going in such a hurry?” He looked at her intently.
His dark hair was shot with silver and cut short, military short, and his eyes were a light shade of brown, almost tawny, and set close together. Any closer, Libby thought, and he would not have been handsome, which he was, but in a way that was almost overpowering. “I’m meeting the contractor who’s building my house,” she said. “I was late getting out of Houston. There was an accident on the freeway there. Had traffic tied up for miles.”
“We had a bad one out here early this morning.” The sergeant looked off in the direction Libby had come from. “Three kids out hell-raising, driving drunk, lost control, went head-to-head with a big old live oak. The tree won.” Huckabee brought his gaze back; his eyes were hard.
With disgust, Libby thought. Was that what she sensed? But maybe it was only that he was at the end of his shift and exhausted. Or maybe he was sick of his job. Sick of scraping kids up off the concrete. Who could blame him?
He said, “If the driver makes it, he could face charges.”
“I haven’t been drinking,” Libby said.
“If I suspected you had, we’d be having a different conversation.” Huckabee’s smile was fleeting.
Libby didn’t return the gesture.
“Let me give you some advice, ma’am.” Huckabee bent his face toward her. “It’s as dangerous driving out here as it is back in the big city. Maybe more dangerous. We’ve posted speed limits for a reason, you understand? Because going faster on these rural roads is hazardous, what with the blind curves and steep hills and drop-offs. Then the lack of regular traffic can lull you into a false sense of security. You get to thinking you’re the only vehicle on the road.” He lightly tapped the lower edge of her window. “I don’t want to have to write up an accident report on you, too, you know what I mean?”
Libby looked into her lap. I’m not some kid you can intimidate. The words cut a hot trail across her brain. Nothing but a badge and an ego. The thought came and went. She waited for Huckabee to whip out his pad and write her a ticket.
“Tell you what,” Huckabee said. “I’m going to let you off with a warning this time, being as how you’re new to the area.”
Libby looked up, startled. Was he patronizing her now? “Thank you,” she said, and wondered why. Had she asked for his favor? She’d almost rather have the ticket.
“You said you were building out here. Whereabouts?”
“The Little B Ranch. Do you know it?”
“Yep. You’re going the right way. When you hit 1620 on the other side of Wyatt, take a right. It’ll be around eighteen miles farther west on your left.”
Libby thanked him.
He tipped his hat. “Not a problem. I know that ranch well. The Scroggins family has been around here a hundred years at least. Folks in town were surprised when Fran decided to sell the land off piecemeal.”
“She couldn’t find a buyer willing to take on the whole thing. Two hundred forty acres is a lot of land.”
“Yeah, it’s a shame, though, busting it up.”
Libby smiled nicely and said she couldn’t agree. “My husband and I might not have found other suitable property out here.”
“Well, I don’t think Fran’s folks left her much of a choice, anyway.”
“No.” Fran Keller had told Libby her mom and dad were in their nineties. Can you imagine? she’d asked. Fran had said she felt old at seventy-one, certainly way too old to make the drive from Austin, where she lived, to the Little B every time a neighbor, or the Wyatt police, or the Madrone County sheriff, called her to report one of her folks had left the stove on or was out wandering the roadside in their pj’s.
“I’m curious—how did you hear about the property, that it was for sale, all the way down there in Houston?”
“Ruth Crandall. Maybe you know her. She’s a real estate agent in Wyatt.”
Huckabee frowned. “You know Ruth?”
“Since college,” Libby said. They’d met as freshmen at Southern Methodist University, where they’d shared a suite and everything else—from lipstick to tampons to the heartbreak of that horrible day when Helen, their third suite mate, had died. There was something about sharing grief like that . . . it had bonded Libby and Ruth for life. “Do you know her?” Libby asked the sergeant. “Have you pulled her over for speeding, or did she break some other law?”
Huckabee cracked a smile, but it was brief. “I heard she was handling the sale. You got, what? Fifteen acres? Whereabouts is it, say, in relation to the old farmhouse?”
“We have the adjacent parcel, east of there, where the little gardener’s cottage is. My husband is an architect. He designed our house, but we’ll live in the cottage until it’s built.”
“That one-bedroom shack? It’s in worse shape than the old farmhouse.”
“We’ve done some work on it,” Libby said. “It’ll be fine to camp out in.”
Whatever, lady. Sergeant Huckabee’s expression was full of his doubt.
Libby put the registration and insurance card back in the glove box and tucked her driver’s license into her wallet.
The sergeant smiled, and this time it seemed genuine. “I hope the next time we meet, it’ll be under better circumstances.”
“You can count on it,” she said, emphatically.
He turned to go, turned back. “Just so you know, we’ve had a couple of reports of vandalism at the Little B, nothing too serious. One of the construction workers got his truck door keyed.”
“That happened on our property. We’re the ones who reported it,” Libby said. “A policeman from Wyatt came and checked it out. He thought it was kids.”
“Yeah, that’d be my guess.”
“I thought stuff like that only happened in the city.” Not that she’d ever experienced vandalism, not in all the years she’d lived in Houston, or growing up in Dallas. “People around here are always bragging they never lock anything.”
“My advice? Keep your house and car locked up. Crime can happen anywhere, especially in summer. It’s hot. Kids get bored. You know.”
“Right.” Libby didn’t have any of her own, but as a former high school guidance counselor, she’d had dealings with plenty.
“Just keep an eye out, okay? You see anything you don’t like, give 911 a shout.”
Libby said she would; she watched as Huckabee returned to his patrol car, and for a moment, after he settled behind the wheel, their gazes locked in her rearview mirror. She realized he was waiting for her to leave first. Not out of politeness, she thought. But because he was the law, the authority in this county, and he wanted her to remember that. Anno
yed, she started her car and drove onto the highway, picking up speed. A couple of miles later, glancing into the rearview mirror again, she saw he was behind her, separated by some two or three car lengths but keeping pace. Was he there deliberately? She checked her speedometer. Fifty-five. Was he baiting her?
They rounded a curve, and the road straightened out. Libby kept an eye on her speed. Huckabee came up behind her so near to her bumper, she could see the collar of his uniform shirt digging into his neck; she could distinguish his facial features, the broad ledge of his brow, the close-set eyes, well-shaped nose and mouth, his square chin. She thought he might be smiling.
Abruptly, the red and blue lights flashed across the top of the cruiser. Libby flinched. Her heart rose, pounding, in her ears. What had she done now? She slowed, heading again for the road’s shoulder. But instead of pulling in behind her, the sergeant went around her, engine gunning. The shriek of the siren pierced the air. Watching his taillights disappear, she thought maybe he liked to scare people. Maybe cops in small towns had nothing better to do.
Reaching her own property, she signaled a left turn, and her heart sank when she saw that the gate was open. Augie Bright, her contractor, was already here, then. But of course he would be. Between one delay and another, she was more than an hour late for their meeting.
Still, Libby didn’t hurry. The one-lane road that led to the homesite didn’t allow for speed. Surfaced in caliche, it unwound along a series of curves, a pale champagne-colored ribbon of rubble, defining a gentle incline. Thickets of native shrubbery pressed close on either side. She let down the windows, and taking a deep breath of the air that was laden with the smell of cedar, she felt her body loosen. There was the sound of the gravel under the tires, the hum of the car’s engine, the rush of the warm summer breeze, and her own rising sense of anticipation. She was bent forward rounding the final curve, and there it was, the view, a vast panorama of undulating hills beneath a depthless vault of sky. It never failed to move her, every time, as if she had never seen it before.
Even the upheaval of construction—the churned ground, the scattered piles of two-by-four stubs, leftover rebar and wire mesh, the smattering of cigarette butts—couldn’t dampen her delight, the feeling of satisfaction. This was her land, hers and Beck’s, and soon their house would hold its face—the face Beck had poured heart and soul into designing—to this beautiful view. Parking alongside Augie’s truck, she got out and walked over to the construction site. When she’d left last Monday, the slab hadn’t been more than a pattern on a blueprint. Now a reinforcing network of rebar and posttension cables encased in a wood frame marked the foundation’s generous proportions. The footings for the load-bearing walls were in place. Lengths of pipe poked up where plumbing fixtures would later go. The electrical conduit snaking in and out of the backfill led to the kitchen island. It was only a matter of hours now. Augie had said the trucks would arrive tomorrow at first light to start the pour in the cool of morning.
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