Bones to Pick

by Linda Lovely

  “What does any of this have to do with Sunrise Ridge?” Mollye asked.

  Good. We were on the same wave length.

  “The way Jed originally planned it, he’d sign over his share of the timberland so it would look like Kaiser conned all of us. Wanted it to look like we were all victims who’d lost somethin’. That way nobody’d suspect us when Kaiser disappeared. Jed figured a few acres of next-to-worthless timberland wasn’t a big sacrifice considering what we’d pocket. Only Jed didn’t get around to attaching his John Hancock to the deed before he got shot.”

  I nodded. “So you forged Jed’s signature and talked Victor into witnessing it for a piece of the action? You used the banker to launder the money, too?”

  West clamped his mouth shut and shifted sideways to glare at me. “Yankees. This is why you’re in the mess you’re in. It’s your own fault. You never stop pushin’, do you? Yack. Yack. Well, I’ve said all I’m gonna say. I’m tired of your yapping. You’ve given me a monster headache.”

  He switched on the Camry’s radio, dialed in a local country western station, and cranked the volume to an eardrum-splitting level. Apparently, the last song I’d hear would be about a cheating spouse, a bender, a truck, a dog, or time in the pokey. Goody.

  I glanced over at Mollye. Her head was bowed, lips moving, hands clasped. Praying. Didn’t know if it was for our salvation or to make good on her wish to take these idiots with us.

  Me? I was still praying for inspiration.

  Even though I hoped Andy or Paint would send help, I knew we couldn’t count on it. There had to be something we could do to cheat a watery grave.

  I love to swim. In fact, I’d been on a synchronized swim team in high school. Didn’t mean I wanted a burial at lake.

  Think. A memory tugged at my mind. Mythbusters. Adam underwater. In one episode of Mythbusters, Adam buckled himself in a sinking car. He was trying to prove a person could get out of a submerged vehicle if he didn’t panic. Easy for him. Adam had a diver in the backseat with a spare tank of air.

  I didn’t think the lawmen planned to give us a diver or a tank of oxygen.

  Focus. The Mythbusters episode did demonstrate that you needed to wait until the inside filled almost completely with water to open a submerged car door. Something about equalizing pressure. Okay, if Adam can do it, so can we. Of course, his water wasn’t freezing, and he had a diver standing by. Easy-peasy.

  Fat back and sausage links! How far down would we sink before the water climbed high enough to open the door? Then there was that big, couldn’t-be-ignored hole in my Swiss cheese thinking. We’d be knocked out cold. Jones and West had already let that little secret slip. They’d conk us before the tires left dry land.

  FORTY-TWO

  I looked out the window, searching for landmarks as I tried to track our progress. All too soon, darkness cloaked the landscape. No streetlights on the winding rural road. The Camry’s headlights flashed on pines, pines, and more pines as we slalomed up the mountain. I’d lost count of the hairpin turns.

  Now and again, I glanced behind us, hoping to glimpse headlights. Nada. Not a moonshiner or veterinarian in sight. So much for a rescue posse.

  Our car slowed, and then stopped. Up ahead, the sheriff’s cruiser cozied up to Sunrise Ridge’s well-lit gingerbread guard house, and Jones stepped out of his car. He chatted amiably with a twenty-something, presumably the nephew, who probably had no idea he was about to become an accomplice in the murder of two thirty-somethings.

  West exited the car to join the confab. Before closing the door and walking away, he leaned in and shook a finger at us. “Now don’t you two go anywhere. Nice how cars these days have newfangled safety features like door and window locks to keep kiddies safe.”

  We heard the click. The skinny deputy ambled up the road. He shook hands with the baby-faced creep. The guard hut’s spotlight offered good visuals of the trio but no audio. They kept their voices low. We couldn’t hear a dang thing.

  Hmm, if we couldn’t hear them, maybe they couldn’t hear us.

  “Hey, Mollye,” I whispered. “How you doing?”

  “How do you think? I’m freaked. How can you sound so calm?”

  “I have an idea. Hey, it’s worth a shot. A long shot. But we don’t exactly have hundreds of options. For our ‘accident’ to look legit, they have to put us in the front seat. I have my fingers crossed they’re as lazy as they are overconfident. If so, they won’t want to strain themselves hefting two unconscious bodies. I’m hoping they’ll wait till we’re up front to knock us cold. That’ll give us a chance.”

  Mollye rolled her eyes. “If you’re trying to cheer me up, you’re failing miserably, girlfriend.”

  “Well, if we know what’s coming, maybe we can hand them a surprise. As soon as we’re in the front seat, you push the pedal to the metal. We’ll zoom into the lake before they have a chance to conk either of us over the head.”

  “Hey, I saw Thelma and Louise. I don’t recall there being a scene after those broads drove off the cliff. The dang credits rolled.”

  “True. But our car’s gonna be pointed at a lake, a shallow lake. Water means a lot softer landing than plummeting into a canyon a mile down.”

  “Not sure it’s better for me,” Mollye muttered. “I can’t swim. Won’t even take a bath without a snorkel handy.”

  I stifled a giggle. “Hey, I was a certified lifeguard. Just promise me you won’t panic. If you fight me, neither of us is likely to make it. We stand a good chance of living through this if we go into the water conscious. Getting out of the car’s the only tricky part.”

  I saw no need to mention the possibility of hypothermia or the likelihood our escorts would take potshots at us if we ever surfaced.

  I heard footsteps. West coming back to the car.

  “Will you do it?” I asked.

  Mollye nodded and squeezed my hand. “You know my mom can’t swim either.”

  Given the goofy smile on her face, I worried her mind had snapped. Was she retreating into some fantasy?

  Mollye dug her nails into my wrist to focus my attention. “Listen up. Mom always worried about driving off a bridge and being trapped in what amounted to a steel coffin. She keeps one of those doohickeys that break car windows in the glove box. That’s our escape hatch.”

  West arrived within earshot, and Mollye and I both zipped it. He climbed in, slipped a visitor hang-tag on the rearview mirror, and cranked the motor.

  “Not long now, girls. Just had a few details to work out. Jeff’s gonna place a couple temporary roadblocks. Most of the houses built so far are second homes, getaways for rich Yankees. It’s pretty quiet in March since most vacationers wait for warmer weather. But Jones didn’t want to risk a nosy neighbor happening by while we’re setting up your accident.”

  An underlying melancholy warred with the adrenaline rush buzzing in my veins. Would Aunt Eva go to jail? Would Mom and Dad forgive my snooping? My brain detoured from family to Andy and Paint. Would have been fun to discover where their tantalizing kisses might have led.

  I stifled a sigh. Didn’t want to give West the satisfaction.

  FORTY-THREE

  The deputy piloted the Camry through the open gate and headed down the road. Lights proved rarer than Ardon County vegans, but moonlight glistened on the water.

  Water? Braunshweiger! We’d arrived at the lake. As the old maxim goes, time to sink or swim. I was pretty sure about the sinking part. The swimming part seemed up in the air. Or water. Oh, Bratwurst.

  The deputy stopped the car, then twisted in his seat. He bit his lip, putting his yellowed teeth in plain view. He looked nervous.

  “Brace yourselves. Robbie says we need to leave authentic skid marks. So Mollye’s about to begin an ‘out-of-control’ skid toward the lake.”

  “Do you do everything the sheriff tells you to do?” Mollye mutte
red. “Kiss his ass when he bends over?”

  “Shut it, Mollye. We’ll wind up just shy of the embankment. Nose down, but dry. Need to stuff you two up front before the actual plunge.”

  He swallowed again. I had the feeling he shared a tiny bit of our abject fear. “You ain’t gonna see it coming. We’ll knock you out soon as we haul your asses out of the backseat and get a good swing at ya. Robbie don’t want no last-minute squirmin’ and fightin’ once you hear Porky Pig sayin’, ‘‘Th-th-th-that’s all folks.’”

  Swell. I knew two porky pigs. Too bad they were smarter than I reckoned and not near as lazy.

  West stomped on the gas pedal. The car rocketed ahead maybe two hundred feet, then shimmied sideways as he mashed the brakes. His high-pitched cackle told me that despite the whiff of fear I’d smelled on him, the deputy’d always wanted to play NASCAR. My eyes scrunched shut as my head whipped forward, then snapped back. For a fleeting second, I hoped the front airbag might engage and punch our idiot do-whatever-he’s-told driver in the nose. I opened my eyes. No white bag. No bloody nose. No luck.

  “I think Thelma and Louise might want to come up with a Plan B,” Mollye mumbled.

  Couldn’t agree more. There had to be something. Maybe the cold water would revive us? Mom always claimed I was an optimist.

  West exited the car. The dinging open-door alarm announced he hadn’t switched off the motor, hard to tell with these quiet hybrids. The Camry’s reflected headlights, now aimed at the inky lake, glowed like hot embers. The car perched on tilt; the front wheels plopped over the edge of the bank, poised for a downhill run. The show-off deputy had cut it mighty close.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the sheriff peering into the backseat. As he yanked my door open, I jerked away from his hammy hands. A glint of metal. He had the key to my cuffs in one of his hands. Let him uncuff me. It’d give me a better chance to put up a good fight. I’d claw his eyes out, land a swift kick in the cajones, follow that with a head butt. Maybe I’d knock us both out.

  Jones unlocked the cuff on my left hand.

  “What the…”

  I never heard the end of Jones’ surprised yelp. It was drowned out by the piercing blare of a truck horn. Someone trying his audio best to wake the dead. Yes! Headlight beams barreled our way.

  I swung my freed left hand at Jones. Swiveled sideways as far as my seatbelt allowed. Since the seats were set for long-legged front seat passengers, I had zero space to maneuver. But the sheriff was distracted. I squirmed sideways to lash out with a crippling kick.

  Yoowww! A solid hit…on a very solid door frame. All portions of the sheriff’s stocky bod had shifted out of range.

  What the Feta?

  Jones had jerked his butt—and fat head—out of the car. And he was hot-footing it to the driver’s side. “Out of my way, West.” He shoved the deputy, dove into the front seat and jerked the gearshift into drive.

  “Go round to the other side,” Jones ordered West as he braced his arms against the front door frame and grunted. His face contorted, looking all the world like some out-of-shape weightlifter in a hernia competition. His cartoon-red cheeks puffed out like balloons. Maybe he’d pop an artery. A girl could hope.

  “For chrissakes, help me shove the damn car in the lake,” Jones yelled at his deputy. “We need these two out of the way so we can deal with our uninvited guests.”

  My head whipped toward my side of the car. The skinny deputy had joined in the push-’em-down-the-hill contest, a new luge-sport.

  Cheeses!

  The car pitched forward. It rolled, then raced. Goodbye, Jones and West. So long solid ground.

  I fumbled with the seatbelt. Come on, come on. Snap. Precious seconds wasted.

  I lurched toward the space between the front seats. Stretched my arm toward the buttons to open the windows. Where was the danged child safety lock?

  We hit the water. A graceless belly flop.

  My body slammed forward. I saw the gearshift just before my head hit.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Screams. Deafening.

  Mollye’s and my shrieks overlapped in ear-splitting disharmony.

  “Stay open!” Molly screeched.

  I felt dizzy. I was on my back. How? I’d flipped.

  I blinked. Where was Mollye? Why was a red sandal wedged against the backseat arm rest? Water gushed in over the sandaled foot at the center of my cockeyed view. The red sandal disappeared.

  Blast. The outside rush of water slammed the car doors shut, locking us in tighter than any Ardon County jail cell.

  “Are we floating?” Mollye, still handcuffed, frantically pawed at her seatbelt.

  Floating? Sort of. Looking backward I could see most of the car’s rear-end still bobbled topside.

  “Yeah, but it won’t last more than a few seconds.”

  The windows. I’m supposed to open the windows.

  I squirmed to pull free. What was holding me? I yanked. The empty handcuff was stuck, trapped between the seat and the gear console. I yanked. Nothing. I stretched my uncuffed hand toward the driver’s side window controls. My fingers scrabbled over the buttons. Push. Nothing. Moved to the next button. Push. Nothing.

  Too late. The liquid vacuum sucked down the Camry’s hind-end. Water covered the outside windows.

  Sobs wracked Mollye’s body. “The water’s already past my ankles. It’s freezing.”

  Her teeth began to chatter, or maybe I was hearing my own doing the la cucaracha imitation.

  The stuck handcuff finally popped free, and I struggled to sit up.

  “Mollye, turn around and kneel on the seat. Put your mouth near the rear window. That’s where the air bubble will stay. We have loads of time.”

  A few minutes anyway. Five, ten, fifteen? I hoped we wouldn’t run down the clock.

  “What makes you an expert? You a former submarine captain?”

  “Nope. Didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night either. I just like Mythbusters. Don’t be a wimp. Us Yankees go skinny-dipping in water colder than this.”

  Mollye snorted.

  I hoped humor would take the edge off our terror. It kinda worked. For me.

  “I’m gonna go for your mom’s window-breaking thing-a-ma-jig. What’s it look like?”

  I could barely understand my friend’s reply what with the steady interruption of chattering teeth and hysterical hiccups.

  “Just stay put, Mollye. Keep breathing nice and steady. Don’t panic. That’ll use up oxygen faster.”

  She nodded and gulped air. Suggesting calm to someone afraid of water and trapped in a sinking auto was about on par with asking Eva to give up cheese.

  The car’s downhill hurdle seemed to slow. But the murky depths screwed with my internal compass. Was the car still moving or did the rippling water provide the illusion? If Jones was right, the lakebed resembled a shallow bowl and not an impact crater. Shallow would keep the surface within a swimmer’s reach.

  “Mollye, trust me. We’ll get out of here.”

  Icy water crept past my kneecaps. The cold sent frosty shoots up my spine and wrapped around my chest like some glacial form of kudzu. Frozen frankfurters!

  I’d lied to Mollye. Not even Canadians were daft enough to dive into lakes fed by mountain streams. A balmy fifty degrees? If we were lucky. How long before hypothermia set in?

  Nope, don’t ask, don’t guess. Focus.

  Past time for me to find the thing-a-ma-jig in the glove box. The relentless invasion of frigid water already covered the front seat cushions. The dashboard was totally submerged. Its triangular hazard light glowed bright red. I could even read the well-lit gas gauge. Nice to know we had three-quarters of a tank inside our fish tank.

  No light arrays to direct me to the glove box, but I knew where it was. The car’s headlamps helped. Water diffused the beams, creating a
twinkling cocoon that wrapped the car. What lay beyond? Our own black hole in space.

  How long before the lights winked off? Another question better left unasked.

  My head was still above water, but it wouldn’t be when I tried for the glove box.

  A pep talk. That’s what I needed. Go girl. Just take a deep breath and go for it. It won’t be bad. Your face will numb up in seconds. After your heart clocks out from shock, you won’t feel a thing.

  “What you waiting for?” Mollye’s tone managed to convey panic, irritation, and skepticism.

  “I’m going.” I sucked in so much air I almost burst the buttons on my blouse, then plunged headfirst into the water.

  Perhaps thrashed might be a better descriptor. With seemingly millions of tiny icicles tattooing my cheeks, I fought a gasp reflex. Knew it would only give the arctic river a fast track to my tonsils. Oh, and a gasp would also end my lifelong love affair with oxygen.

  My Popsicle fingers found the dash and danced along its contours searching for the glove box latch. The water served as liquid Novocain. A mittened toddler had more dexterity than I could claim. Hard to believe the frozen marbles that had replaced my eyeballs could actually see.

  I spotted the outline of the latch. Pushed. Nothing. Water pressure? I banged the compartment with the flat of my hand, hoping enough water would seep in to equalize the pressure. I bashed the dash again, and hit the latch. Sprong!

  My fingers scrambled inside. Thank heaven, the car was new and Mollye’s mom had yet to stuff the glove box with maps, tissues, extra napkins and all the other crapola that nested in mine. My fingers touched something besides paper. Oblong, plastic. I’d never seen a window-smashing thing-a-ma-jig, but this matched Mollye’s description. I searched again, just in case there were other candidates. Nope. The smooth plastic doohickey seemed the only choice. Besides my lungs were fixing to burst.