There! Did she hear something? She halted and held her breath.
Definitely. A rustling in the vegetation. The lap of a water ripple against something solid.
She held perfectly still until the chattering of her teeth told her she had to move—take her chances of attracting a gator or die of hypothermia.
There is no gator. Get moving.
Almost to the first scrubby tree. Just a few more steps—and she didn’t hear a gator thrashing behind her.
Gators don’t thrash until they have you—
Something bumped against her leg.
With a scream, she tried to run. The mud held onto her feet and she pitched headlong into the water, losing both the flashlight and her purse.
Her feet broke free and she flailed toward the trees, anticipating the painful chomp of a gator or the sharp sting of poisonous snake fangs.
Neither came.
She pulled herself out of the water and up a short slope by grasping handfuls of tall weeds and low branches.
Once at the grade of the narrow road, she took several loping steps, then collapsed onto the ground, gasping and spitting out brackish water.
After she caught her breath and was certain no gator was on her heels, she stood up and looked around.
Giant old-growth trees lined both sides of the road; ghosts of Spanish moss shifted in the breeze. Beneath the arching boughs, scrub and squat palmettos were so dense it was difficult to even see the water she’d just fled. Looking around, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t hit one of the thick trunks or gnarled low-reaching branches as she’d veered off the pavement.
Long fingers of fog rose from the marsh, reaching across the narrow road in several places. The road itself was unlined crumbling asphalt, barely wide enough for two small cars to pass one another. Definitely not the road between Jeter’s and home, but it could be any one of a dozen roads in the general vicinity of Preston.
Had her van been in the marsh for hours and hours? It was impossible to see from the road; no one passing by would notice it without really looking for it.
Turning in a circle, she couldn’t decide which way she should start walking.
Then, far down the road, she saw light. Headlights. The twin dots increased in size so quickly that she knew the vehicle was coming fast.
Help. Someone was here to help. It was a miracle out here at this hour on a weeknight.
Before the vehicle was close enough for its headlight beams to illuminate her, it stopped so suddenly she could hear the tires skid on the pavement.
“No!” She tried to trot that way, limping, waving her hands over her head. “Help!”
The headlights swung around in a reckless three-point turn.
Abby slowed, staring at red taillights that were receding as quickly as the headlights had been approaching.
“Come back… please…” She stood shivering in the center of the road; dizzy, barefooted, her wet blouse clinging to her.
Suddenly a strobe light reflected off the foliage around her. She spun around. An emergency vehicle, lights flashing but without a siren, was coming from the opposite direction.
“Thank God.” She raised her hands and waved.
The police car stopped a few feet in front of her and its driver door opened.
Abby walked toward the officer who was no more than a silhouette against glaring lights.
“Miss?” he called. “Are you all right?”
“Pretty much,” she said. “My van ran off the road.”
“I’ll radio for an ambulance.”
“I’m really okay.”
But her protest went unheard; he was already talking into the radio attached at his shoulder.
Then he said to her, “You can hang up now.”
“What?”
“911 dispatch is still on the line with your cell. You can hang up; free up the line.”
Obediently, Abby reached for the purse that wasn’t on her shoulder. “It’s in the water—dead.”
His hand once again went to the microphone attached to his shoulder. “You sure that line is still open?”
Dispatch’s crackling answer came over the radio. “Yes. I can still hear the frogs.”
“But not us?”
“No. Are you at the scene?”
He looked at Abby. “Did you call 911?”
She shook her head, dread building in her chest.
“Then somebody else is out here.”
CHAPTER 4
Abby stood there, looking at the officer as if she couldn’t understand what he’d just said. But she had understood. It was just too awful to face. Someone else was out here. Someone who had called 911—someone too injured to get out of the car and come to the road as she had.
Another fact sunk in. If the 911 call had recently been made, as the arrival of the deputy probably indicated, she hadn’t driven into the marsh hours ago on her way home from dinner.
But what reason would she have had to be out here in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night?
Those muddy footprints came to mind.
Oh shit.
“Which direction were you coming from?” the officer asked.
She hesitated. What if she had been sleep-driving? It seemed preposterous, but so did a lot of other things she’d done while asleep. “Um, I don’t remember.” She felt the lump on her forehead. “I don’t remember what happened at all. I don’t even know where we are.” She pointed, “My van is over there, pointed that way.”
He nodded and then spoke into his radio again, “Is the person on the line responsive?”
“No,” the 911 operator said. “There’s been no verbal communication at all. Just an open line.”
He signed off his radio and looked at Abby. “I want you to sit in my car and wait for the ambulance.” He took her elbow and urged her in that direction.
Once she was in the back seat, he retrieved a blanket from the trunk and wrapped it around her shoulders. “You stay here. The ambulance will be here soon.”
She nodded mutely. Her tongue felt too thick to speak.
She watched him through the windshield as he walked away. He became more obscure as he moved out of the headlight beams, shining his flashlight on the pavement and searching the woods on either side of the road. Soon all she could see of him was the sweep of the flashlight beam.
Suddenly, the light veered to the right and disappeared into the woods.
Someone is out there. Someone is hurt. It’s all my fault.
Abby jumped out of the car, dropping the blanket to the ground as she tried to hurry toward the place the officer had disappeared. Dizziness kept her from moving in a straight line. Her bare feet slapped the pavement, every footfall shot a drumbeat of pain through her head.
In the distance behind her, she heard the thin wail of an approaching siren.
Abby struggled to move faster.
Off to the right, the opposite side of the road from the marsh, she caught the flicker of the officer’s flashlight through the woods. She stumbled in that direction, sliding down into the ditch next to the road, and then scrabbling back out the other side. Every sliding step was punctuated by a sharp stab or a rough scrape.
The officer was kneeling beside a motorcycle, the flashlight shining on its bent front wheel and twisted handlebars. Then she saw it wasn’t just the motorcycle; a person lay beyond it. He wasn’t moving.
The officer looked up. When he saw her, he moved the light away from the wreckage and shone it on her, blinding her from the sight of what she’d done.
He hurried in her direction. “I told you to wait in the car.”
“Is… is he…?” She couldn’t finish the question.
“What’s your name?” he asked as he took her shoulders and turned her back toward the road.
“Abby Whitman.”
“From Preston?” He started them walking, keeping his body between her and the man on the ground.
“Yes.” Although she’d known the truth the i
nstant she laid eyes on the still form and the unnatural angles of his limbs, she forced herself to say, “Tell me! Is he—”
“I’m Deputy Trowbridge. You have any ID?”
“I lost it in the water. I fell… dropped my purse…” Her words accelerated as she spoke, as if in defense. “… it had my driver’s license—”
“It’s all right.”
She offered, “The registration is in the van.”
He held onto her upper arm as they crossed the roadside ditch. It didn’t feel nearly as deep or as steep with his assistance.
When they reached the road, the EMS unit was pulling up behind the squad car. Deputy Trowbridge walked Abby straight toward it.
“Carl will take care of you,” he said as he handed her off to one of the paramedics. The other walked away with Trowbridge.
Abby stood rooted in place, watching the deputy and the paramedic walk down the road following the bobbling beam of the flashlight. They weren’t moving at a frantic pace.
As she watched their slow progression, a scream built in her chest. She gritted her teeth to keep it inside.
Carl the paramedic had picked up the blanket she’d dropped on the road and wrapped it around her again. “Let’s go check you out.” He gave a gentle nudge toward the EMS truck.
Abby wanted to run after the deputy, to demand the answer to the question she could barely comprehend, but her leaden feet moved toward the ambulance.
“Are you in much pain?” Carl the paramedic asked as they walked slowly toward the truck, his steadying hand on her elbow.
She shook her head; her jaw clenched against the scream, against the fear of irrevocable actions.
As they got closer, the rough rumble of the engine drowned out all other noise, and the sharp smell of diesel burned her nose and turned her stomach.
Carl helped Abby into the back of the truck; the diesel smell was less strong here, the lights blindingly bright.
He checked Abby’s pupils and asked her a dozen questions which seemed aimed at assessing her cognitive skills. She answered absently, her mind whirring with the reality of what she’d done, while at the same time clinging to the thin hope that the motorcyclist was in better shape than he had appeared; he’d called 911 after all.
A few moments later, Deputy Trowbridge appeared at the open back doors of the truck. “I need you to take a sobriety test, Ms. Whitman.”
“I haven’t been drinking.” Even though she couldn’t remember anything of the past few hours, she was pretty sure her driving impairment wasn’t caused by alcohol.
“Are you refusing to take the test?” he said coolly.
“I… no, I just haven’t… of course I’ll take it.”
By the time Abby had taken the breathalyzer, two additional sheriff’s department cars had arrived. The new deputies blocked off the road with a portable barricade topped with blinking yellow lights.
The other paramedic returned with his kit and no victim. They closed the back doors and headed toward the hospital with Abby sitting in the back. As they drove past the road block, she saw the coroner’s van arriving.
Dear God. The worst was true. Her sleepwalking had finally killed someone.
Bryce awakened to realize he was still fully clothed on top of his comforter. It was three-thirty a.m. Light shone through the space between the bottom of his bedroom door and the carpet. His mom never left the lights on after she went to bed.
He nearly turned over and went back to sleep, but that light nagged him. Was Mom still up? Was she okay?
He should have spent the evening with her instead of shut up here in his room. But man, how much could a person take? All he’d wanted was some time without drama. And Mom was drama in spades.
He got up and opened his door. The house was silent. Bren’s bedroom door was opened just a crack, as always. He tiptoed close and peeked in. Bren was sleeping on her side, facing the door, that little stuffed dog she’d had since she was a baby tucked beneath her chin.
His mother’s bedroom door was open. When he looked in, the bed was made, the comforter rumpled from where she’d napped earlier. The door to the master bath was open. It was dark.
She’d been such a freakin’ mess today. He’d been embarrassed for her at the funeral; he didn’t like Jason seeing her like that.
Had it bothered her that he had?
Oh God, had she done something…?
Bryce dashed to the master bath and flipped on the light.
It took him a moment to realize the image he’d re-created in his mind didn’t exist—not this time. The bathroom was empty.
Still quivering inside from his adrenaline rush, he went downstairs. The lights were all on, but the living room was empty. So was the kitchen. He checked all of his mother’s old hiding places and was relieved not to find a single vodka bottle.
Where the hell was she? It was too damn cold to be outside.
He checked the garage. Her car was gone.
Shit. This was not good.
It was nearly eight a.m. when Abby finally had her release papers from the Emergency room in hand. It had been a grueling night, made worse by the doubt in Deputy Trowbridge’s eyes every time she answered his questions with, “I can’t remember.”
It was the truth. And she wasn’t about to start speculating aloud to the police until she’d had some time to see if her memory would return. Was sleep driving even possible?
As the ambulance had driven away from the accident scene, it had taken two sharp ninety-degree turns back to back and Abby had finally figured out where she’d had her accident. Suicide Road. That was what people called it anyway; Abby had never known it by any other name. It was little used except for those who sought the thrill of high-speed turns, since its main purpose was to link a couple of boat launches on the river.
And it wasn’t far from Abby’s house; in fact, she and her sister used to ride their bikes on it when they’d been kids.
That proximity to home made her even more suspicious that she’d somehow been driving while asleep. How would she ever know for certain?
She couldn’t remember anything after leaving Jason in Jeter’s parking lot. Where had she been in the hours between nine p.m. and shortly before three a.m.? She was wearing the same clothes—but she’d gotten dressed while sleepwalking more than once in the past.
The hospital had drawn blood for a full drug screen. Abby didn’t take drugs. If something showed up, that might answer her questions; but not in a way that was any less disturbing than sleepwalking. The only thing she’d consumed had been at Jeter’s, sitting beside Jason Coble—a man with a prescription pad.
No. There was no way. She would have seen him put something in her drink. And she’d felt fine as she’d walked to the van.
Sleepwalking was the most likely answer. Perhaps when she got home she’d find proof she’d been there after Jeter’s. Until then, she was keeping her speculation to herself.
The ER doctor had assured her that it wasn’t uncommon for an accident victim not to recall the time prior to an accident. And, he’d said, she might never remember more than she did at the moment.
She’d killed someone and couldn’t recall a scrap of it. God! Even if the accident investigation didn’t lay blame at her feet, how could she live with that?
So far the police wouldn’t even tell her who the man was.
The glimpse she’d gotten of that lifeless body had branded itself on her brain. It was there with every blink of her eyes, with every breath she took.
Fatigue buzzed wasp-like in her head. Her thoughts were like puzzle pieces shaken in a box.
“Do you have someone to pick you up?” The nurse’s voice startled Abby out of her thoughts. She realized she’d been standing in the middle of the ER hallway with her papers in hand, no doubt looking lost and confused.
“I can call my Dad.”
The nurse smiled and pointed toward a wall phone. “You can use that phone there. Just dial nine first.”
“Thank you.”
In order to get her dad there without alarming him, she told him she was delivering flowers at the hospital and had a flat tire, asking him to come and pick her up. Then she left the ER and walked through the hospital to the main entrance and waited.
* * *
Bryce awakened to someone poking him on the shoulder. He rolled over and almost fell off the living room couch.
He blinked.
It was daylight.
Bren was standing there holding her stuffed dog. “Are we going to school today? I can’t get Mommy to wake up.”
“Where is she?” He kept his voice even, kicking back the panic clawing at his back.
“In bed.” She looked more puzzled than scared.
A dozen alarmed questions popped into his mind, none of which he’d ask his baby sister. “You go on and get some cereal. I’ll check on her.”
For a long moment, Bren stood there with a look in her eyes that scared the shit out of him—a look that said she trusted him to make it all right.
He touched her shoulder. “It’s okay. Go on.”
As soon as she walked into the kitchen, Bryce raced up the stairs two at a time. Shit. He’d waited up for his mom to come home and fallen asleep on the couch. If he’d stayed awake…
He skidded to a stop at his mother’s open bedroom door.
She lay diagonally on the bed on her stomach, wearing only her underwear. Her face was turned away, her clothes in a heap on the floor.
Bryce swallowed dryly and walked into the room, steeling himself for the worst.
Slowly, he reached toward her arm, fearing the same cold, unyielding feel of Grandmother Vera’s skin in the casket. Now he wished he hadn’t touched his dead grandmother. But he’d been so curious….
His fingers made contact with his mother’s skin. Warm. Alive.
His breath left him in a rush and dizziness washed over him.
“Mom.” He shook her—hard. “Mom!”
She mumbled and swatted him away.
It was a routine that was sickeningly familiar. There would be no waking her until she slept this one off.
Sleep No More Page 5
