by Lisa Jackson
Slipping her phone out of the console, she pressed the two key, her shortcut to home. After the third ring, Tom answered.
“Hey,” he said, obviously recognizing her number. She heard the muted sound of the television in the background. “Where are you?”
“God, I wish I knew. On the right road, though. I think.” The sign had said Grizzly Falls this way, hadn’t it? The vehicle behind her was coming closer, right on her tail. “Shit, there’s a guy behind me with his lights on bright. About to burn my eyes out.”
“Slow down. Let him go by.”
No way. Let the jerk ride her ass. She was tired and anxious to get home, didn’t need the aggravation of the bastard’s brights. Into the phone, she said, “Look, I’m probably still about twenty, maybe twenty-five minutes away. I couldn’t resist the sales. So, how are the kids?”
“Unhappy that I made them go to bed at ten. They weren’t quite in the back-to-school mode. I had to become the”—he lowered his voice—“dreaded Sleep Enforcer.”
“Which they hate.”
“Copy that.”
She laughed as she took a sharp curve one-handed. The car behind her didn’t slow for a second. In fact, he seemed even closer, right on her damned bumper! Her tires slid a bit, then caught, and her laughter gave way to another coughing fit. Lord, she was sick of being sick! “Oh . . . Tom. . . ,” she managed, distracted by the car on her tail and her inability to catch her breath. “I . . . I have ... to . . .”
“Shit! . . . Tom!” She was coughing, her eyes were watering, and the car was slipping toward the narrow shoulder.
Bam!
Metal crunched and her car leapt forward. Her seat belt snapped tight.
“What the hell—?” She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the huge truck behind her. He’d hit her? What kind of an idiot was he? She didn’t have time to worry about it. The damned van was skidding. “You son of a bitch!” She dropped the phone and grabbed the wheel with both hands.
Too late!
The van was out of control! Sliding ever closer to the shoulder and the rushing, frigid river beyond.
“Damn it!”
She drove into the skid, then slowly turned the wheel as the front tire hit the shoulder. She was adding pressure to the brakes, trying to stay calm, though her pulse was jumping, her heart pounding, sweat instantly upon her hands.
“Elle?” She heard Tom’s voice faintly from the phone, which was now on the floor.
“The bastard rear-ended me!” she screamed.
“What?”
“I said ... oh, no!”
In the mirror, she saw the behemoth of a truck bearing down on her, bright lights glowing with evil fire. What was the matter with him? Oh, Lord, he was going to hit her again!
She slid from one side of the road into oncoming traffic, then, overcorrecting, skidded over the icy asphalt and onto the shoulder again.
And still the truck was behind her.
“Tom!” she screamed. “Call nine-one-one!!!! This guy’s trying to . . . oh, Jesus . . .” The corner was only a hundred feet away, a sharp curve right before the bridge.
The truck’s engine was deafening; its high beams were blinding in her side mirror. The idiot was going to pass her!
Good. Let him go by! Remember to get his damned license plate number . . . .
Oh, God, the grille of the truck was so close to her left rear panel! Too close! With a sick sensation she realized the driver had no intention of going around her. He was going to hit her again!
She had no choice. Though her Dodge was still sliding, she stepped on the accelerator to outmaneuver him.
Too late!
Bam!
Another shot to her bumper. Off center this time and hard enough to snap her neck.
Her van careened to the right. She stood on the brakes, but the tires kept moving, ever closer to the edge of the road and the river below.
The bridge ... if she could just reach the bridge.
Bam! With the groan of twisting metal, she felt her vehicle take flight.
Over the edge of the road, above a strip of snowy bank, then the Caravan dived nose first into the swift, ice-cold river.
CHAPTER 20
Since Friday night with Kacey, it seemed to take forever to get through the rest of the long weekend. Between his chores, taking Eli to see Sarge, the recovering dog, both Saturday and Sunday, who so far was doing okay, Trace had spent the rest of his time trying not to think about his son’s new doctor. He’d told himself after Jocelyn that he was through with women for a while, at least until Eli was older, but now, here he was, in the damned barn, thinking about Dr. Acacia Lambert and wondering how he could see her again.
“Don’t be stupid,” he told himself as he finished feeding the cattle, who were housed during the coldest days of winter in the long barn.
He pushed aside all thoughts of her easy smile and the glint of humor he caught in her gaze. Starting something up with her would only spark trouble, and he’d seen more than his share.
He had even considered calling her again but had thought better of it. Besides, they hadn’t really gone on a date so much as eaten together out of convenience, for the sake of Eli. He wondered about her interest in his son. It seemed more than professional, but then, he was probably reading more into the situation than there really was.
She was also attracted to Trace; he’d been with enough women to recognize the signs. But she’d been guarded as well. So it was best to just let it lie.
Besides, he had enough on his plate. Eli’s arm seemed to be healing, but his persistent cough was deep and rattling and just wouldn’t go away. His temperature was closing in on a hundred, or had been last night; he’d check again once the boy was awake for the day, but Trace was starting to worry.
For now, though, he had work to do. The smell of cattle, dung, and urine mingled with that of the dry hay in this hundred-year-old wooden structure that stored feed as well as provided shelter for the animals. The oldest part of the building, the middle section, where the cattle were now milling, was the original barn and was constructed of long-weathered cedar. It rose three stories high, and in the loft overhead, bales of hay were stacked to the ancient rafters. On either side of this central piece, additions had been built over the decades: a pole barn on one side, an enclosed shed that ran the length of the building on the other.
This morning the cattle, restless at being cooped up during the latest series of storms, bawled and pushed toward the trough he used for feeding in the winter. Their russet and black coats were thick and shaggy; their noses wet as they buried them into the hay he’d spread.
“Hold on. There’s enough for everyone,” he told one particularly pushy whiteface.
Then, satisfied that the cattle were cared for, he hung his pitchfork on a nail near the door and automatically whistled for the dog.
“Okay, that wasn’t smart,” he muttered. Sarge was still at the veterinary clinic and would remain there until Jordan Eagle said he was well enough to leave.
He left the lights on and stepped outside, where the sun hadn’t yet risen and morning stars crowded the sky. Trudging to the stables, his boots crunching through the snow, he then fed and watered the horses, patting the youngest gelding’s black nose. The horse had been named Jet for his coloring, but after Trace had bought him, Eli had decided to call the gelding Jetfire, who, he claimed, was a Transformer. “Hey, boy,” he said, now scratching the horse behind the ears after he’d measured out the grain. “Maybe you’ll all get out today.”
Let’s hope, he thought, as all the animals were getting antsy. He didn’t blame them, as he hated to be cooped up as well.
“Later,” he said to the small herd as he headed outside again, following his own path to the house, where the woodstove was already warming the kitchen and the coffee had brewed. He stomped the snow from his boots, wedged them off, one toe on the heel of the other, then carried them into the house. Once the boots were warming near the fire,
he poured himself a cup of coffee and, though he knew it was way too early for any kind of response, checked his phone messages. Of course there were none. He’d hoped that someone who knew Leanna would call him, let him know where she was.
Now he examined the scrap of paper he’d taken from the desk with contact numbers for Leanna. Checking the time, he shrugged and dialed the Washington number, but it just rang and rang. No answering device. He then called the Phoenix number, also to no avail, but at least this time he could leave a message on voice mail after a computer voice said, “Please leave a message after the tone.” He took the time to explain who he was, that he had been married to Leanna and would like to get in contact with her. Finally, he called the attorney with the firm Leanna had used when they’d divorced, one Kelvin Macadam of Bennett, Stowe, and Ellsworth in Boise, but, of course, their offices weren’t open today. After that he was pretty much out of options.
So much for chasing down ghosts of ex-wives.
Sipping from his cup, he snapped on the small television he’d set on the butcher-block cart his mother had used as a baking station.
Hoping to hear the weather report, he pulled a carton of milk from the fridge and a box of Cheerios from the cupboard. While rattling around in the flatware drawer he heard about a local tree-lighting contest before the woman anchor said, “And on a more serious note, a woman lost her life in a one-car accident when her car plunged into the Grizzly River near the North Fork Bridge. Elle Alexander, a mother of two, was rushed to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.”
Terrible, he thought. More and more bad news.
He poured the last of the cereal into a bowl and set it on the table for his son, then crushed the box and put it on the back porch with the rest of his recycling. When he returned to the kitchen, a different reporter was speaking, a woman standing at the crest of Boxer Bluff. Behind her, lit by bright lights, was the short stone guardrail, and around it had been placed bouquets of flowers, candles, and balloons, even stuffed animals all frozen solid, an icy memorial to Jocelyn Wallis.
Trace stared at the screen as the woman reporter gestured toward the display as her short near-black hair blew in the wind and she clutched her microphone in her gloved hands. Looking into the camera’s eye, she said, “The Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department has released a statement saying that the death of Jocelyn Wallis, a schoolteacher at Evergreen Elementary School in Grizzly Falls, may have been foul play. The authorities are not ruling Jocelyn Wallis’s death a homicide at this time, but they are continuing their investigation.”
Trace, stunned, stood rooted to the kitchen floor as he saw Jocelyn Wallis’s face appear on the screen. His guts twisted as he watched images of Jocelyn smiling into the camera, then a shot of the long brick building of his kid’s school.
Once again the camera was on the reporter standing on the crest of Boxer Bluff, near the park. The camera’s focus moved from her to pan over the raging falls and the snow-crusted ledge above the river, where Jocelyn’s fate had been decided.
“The Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department is asking for anyone who may have seen Jocelyn Wallis jogging in the park or anything the least bit suspicious on the day of her death to contact them. That number will be posted on our Web site.” The screen split suddenly. The reporter out in the elements on one side, the two anchors sitting side by side behind a desk in the studio. “This is Nia Del Ray with KMJC News,” the reporter said. “Back to you, Drake.”
“Jesus,” Trace whispered, disbelieving, as he stared at his small TV. What had the reporter said?
The authorities are not ruling Jocelyn Wallis’s death a homicide at this time.
Homicide?
For the love of God, who would want to kill Jocelyn? And why?
The split screen returned to one image of the news set, and the story was quickly segued into another about a fire in a small town to the south.
Trace thought of his son and how he’d been close to Jocelyn. It had been bad enough to tell him that she’d died, but now to try and explain murder to a seven-year-old when he didn’t understand it himself . . .
The weather report forgotten, he poured some milk over the Cheerios, then left the kitchen to climb the stairs to Eli’s room.
Another thought struck him as he reached the top of the stairs. If Jocelyn had truly been murdered, Trace’s name would come up as a potential suspect. There was no way around that. He’d dated her. The damned school had called him when she hadn’t shown up for work. He had been in her place, knew where she kept a spare key, had identified her in the hospital.
Yeah, he thought as he pushed open the door to Eli’s room and found his son lying on his back, covers bunched, hair sticking out at all angles, casted arm resting on his chest while he slept soundly. Trace O’Halleran’s name would be on the suspect short list.
For a while.
He watched his boy’s even breathing as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Too bad that was all about to change.
By the time she left for work Monday morning, Kacey couldn’t imagine not having adopted the dog. And she intended, at least at first, to drive home for her lunch and play with him for a half hour or so to break up her, and his, day.
As for Bonzi being a guard dog, that was yet to be seen, but he was company and she felt safer with him in the house. She had allowed his dog bed in her room and had found comfort in his soft snores throughout the night.
“A good decision,” she told herself as she nosed her car through the drive-thru coffee kiosk on the outside of town, then headed to the office.
The weekend hadn’t passed without her thinking of Trace O’Halleran and his son. In fact, she’d caught herself daydreaming about him more than a couple times. She’d found him easy to talk to and sexy as the devil last Friday, but she’d attempted not to let her thoughts get ahead of her. She’d tried to keep herself busy with household chores, playing with the dog, and finding out everything she could about Shelly Bonaventure, Jocelyn Wallis, and, lastly, Elle Alexander.
Elle had claimed to have been born and raised in Boise. Kacey had checked and found no mention in any birth records of her being born in Helena, Montana, so maybe Elle’s claim had been true and all Kacey’s suspicions were for naught.
A couple of women who looked like her had died. And they’d been born near her. That was all it was. What had she expected? That they could all be related? Unlikely, and even if it were true, was that really so odd? She could have lots of shirttail relatives around these parts.
Ten minutes after picking up her latte, with the eastern sky just starting to lighten, she pulled into the parking lot of the clinic. She told herself to forget trying to find a link.
Holding her still-steaming cup with one hand and grabbing her laptop with the other, she did a juggling routine as she locked her car, then headed inside. Her first patient wasn’t scheduled until eight, and she still had time to check her e-mail and get ready for the day.
But as she was stepping into her office, Heather sprinted down the hallway from the reception area. “Did you hear?” she asked, her eyes round.
“Hear what?”
“That one of our patients died over the weekend!”
“Oh, God, no.” Kacey’s heart nearly missed a beat.
“I never met her, but she came in on Saturday. I was just going to check with the lab about her schedule.”
Kacey froze. “Who?” But she knew. Instantly.
“Elle Alexander. Remember?” she asked, clearly shaken.
Kacey felt as if she’d been hit by a shotgun blast. Elle? The woman had been so full of life. Married, a mother worried more about her children than her own health, even with her nagging cough, she had been so vibrant. “What happened?”
“She slid off the road. Up by the North Fork Bridge and into the river. Coming home from Spokane, where she’d been Christmas shopping, the news said. I saw a report this morning, while I was working out on m
y stair stepper!” Heather shuddered theatrically. “Can you imagine?”
“No,” Kacey admitted, her heart squeezing. “Were her kids with her?”
“Don’t think so. But there’s a story in the newspaper. I put it on your desk.”
“Thanks.” Shaken, Kacey hurried into her office and sat in her desk chair. She read the article once, then again, all the while remembering Elle’s expressive face and quick smile.
As a physician, she dealt with death regularly. A person lived and died. It was all part of the circle of life. She knew it and accepted it, though she’d never become inured when a person passed from this life to the next. But with a woman so young, in the prime of her life, with two kids ... it just wasn’t right.
And something else bothered her. A vague intuition that skimmed along her body, just under her skin, and caused her a deep unease. Elle, like Shelly Bonaventure before her and Jocelyn Wallis just last week, resembled her.
She thought of the swab she’d taken of the woman’s saliva and the fact that she was checking Elle’s DNA. She was glad she’d done it. Maybe there wasn’t a conspiracy going on, per se, but there was something there ... something strange.
“You can listen to the nine-one-one tape yourself,” Alvarez said as she walked with Pescoli into the lunchroom, which had been totally Joelle-ized from top to bottom. Christmas lights, garlands of fake pine boughs decorated with gold beads, and red ribbons were draped around the room. Silver snowflakes dangled and twisted from the overhead lights like fishing lures on forgotten reels.
“For the love of God, is this even allowed in a public building?” Pescoli groused, noticing the coffeepot had a red bow tied to its plastic handle. “This is just too much.”
Alvarez ripped off the bow and poured a long stream of coffee into a mug she’d pulled down from the shelf. She took a big gulp from her cup, then turned the conversation back to the single-car accident near the North Fork Bridge. “Tom Alexander thinks his wife was run off the road intentionally. Claims he was on the phone with her when her van was hit.”
