The Edge f-4

by Catherine Coulter

  Then suddenly everything changed. My brother Ford walked through the door and I saw him clearly. He was real, he had substance and an expression that was so filled with fear that I would have given quite a lot to be able to reassure him, but of course I couldn't. He was big and good-looking, my little brother, better-looking even than our father, who 'd been a lady killer, our mother had always said fondly. Mother and Father were dead, weren't they?

  Ford didn't look quite himself. Perhaps not as buff, not as commanding, not as massive. Hadn't he been hurt or something? I didn't know, couldn't grasp much of anything. But Ford was here, I was sure of that.

  I also knew that I was the only one who called him Ford and not Mac. He 'd never been Mac to me.

  How was this possible? He was here and I could see him, but I couldn't make out any of the others.

  If I could have shouted to him, I would have. But I couldn't move, couldn't really feel anything at all except this quiet joy that my brother had come when I needed him.

  I was shocked again when I heard him say close to my face, "Jilly, my God, Jilly, I can't bear this. What happened?"

  I clearly heard his words, understood them. I was even more shocked when I felt-actually felt- his big hands covering one of mine; I'm not sure which one. I felt a shot of warmth from him, and the warmth stayed with me. It was remarkable. I didn't know what to think. How had Ford come so clearly to me when none of the others had? Why Ford and no one else?

  "I know you can't answer me, Jilly, but perhaps somewhere deep inside, you can hear me."

  Oh, yes, I wanted to tell him, I can hear you, yes I can. I loved his voice: deep, resonant, and mesmerizing. I think I'd told him once how much his voice warmed me to my toes. He 'd told me it was his FBI interviewing voice, but that wasn't right. He 'd always had that intimate, soothing voice.

  He sat down beside me, always talking, deeply and slowly, never letting go of my hand, and the warmth of his hand was dizzying. How I wished that I could at least squeeze his fingers.

  "I was with you, Jilly," he said, and I nearly stopped breathing.

  What did he mean?

  With me where?

  "I was with you that night. Scared the shit out of me. I woke up in the hospital sweating my toenails off, so scared I thought I'd die. I went over the cliff with you, Jilly. I believed at first that I died with you, but neither of us died. That highway patrolman saved you. Now I've got to find out how this could have happened. Damnation, I wish I knew if you could hear me."

  Ford paused, still staring down at me, and I wished with everything in me that I could give him some sort of sign, but I couldn't. I was just a lump lying there in that hospital bed that was probably very uncomfortable, if I could have felt it. I wasn't anything really but my brain and one of my hands that he was holding.

  What did he mean that he 'd been there with me going over the cliff? That didn't make any sense, not that anything happening right now made any sense.

  A white shadowy figure came into my line of vision. Ford patted my hand, pressed it down against the bed. He walked to the figure and said, "Paul, I just arrived. I was talking to Jilly."

  Paul. He was here in my room. I couldn't understand what he was saying to Ford, but from Ford's long silence, he must have been saying quite a lot. He and Ford moved away from me and I couldn't even hear Ford speaking anymore. I wanted more than anything for Paul to leave, but he didn't. What was he saying to Ford? I wanted my brother back. He was my only connection to what was real, what was out there beyond myself.

  After a while I gave up and went to sleep. Before I slept I prayed that Ford wouldn't leave me here alone, that he would come back to me. I felt great sorrow for my Porsche, lying there at the bottom of the ocean, fish swimming through it.

  I pulled the Ford into one of the six empty parking spaces in front of the Buttercup Bed and Breakfast, a whimsical name for the ugly, gothic Victorian house that was hanging nearly off the edge of the cliff. There couldn't have been more than twenty feet between the house and a thick stone wall that you could jump off of directly down to a narrow strip of rocky beach a good forty feet below.

  Just as whimsical was the name of the main street in Edgerton-Fifth Avenue. The one time I'd been here before, I'd laughed my head off. Fifth Avenue, with four parallel streets running on either side of it, dead-ending at the cliffs, bisecting streets running north and south a good distance each way.

  Nothing much had changed as far as I could see.

  There were small cottages dating from the 1920s lined up like pastel boxes along Fifth Avenue.

  Ranch-style homes from the sixties sprawled, with larger plots of land, along the back streets. Wood and glass contemporary homes, the immigrant style from California, perched on higher ground lining the cliffs, while others dotted the shallow valleys that dipped away from the water. There were still a few odd shacks and cottages tucked in among the thick stands of spruce, cedar, and western hemlock.

  I went into the Buttercup B&B and was told by a thin woman who sported a line of black hair above her upper lip that they had no vacancies. I thought about all the empty parking spaces out front, saw absolutely no one at all in the house, and said to the woman who was standing behind a stretch of shiny mahogany, looking wary and stubborn, "Busy time of year, hmm?"

  "There's a convention in town," she said, turned pink, and studied the wall behind my left shoulder, papered with huge Victorian cabbage roses.

  "A convention in Edgerton? Maybe they moved the Rose Bowl up here?"

  "Oh, no, these aren't florists, they're, well, most of them are dentists, orthodontists, I believe, from all over the country. Sorry, sir."

  I wondered what was considered the low season in Edgerton as I walked back to my car. Why hadn't the woman wanted me to stay there? Had it gotten around already that an FBI guy was in town?

  Nobody wanted a cop hanging around? It seemed to me that I was the safest customer to have sleeping in your house.

  I turned left off Fifth Avenue and drove north up Liverpool Street, a steep winding road that ran parallel to 101 for a good ten miles before swerving eastward to join up once again with the highway. There were new houses along this stretch, spread far apart, most tucked discreetly out of sight from the chance runner or driver. At a particularly lovely spot, I saw a small hill that rose up some fifty yards back from the cliff. The hill was covered with spruce and cedar. At its base there sat a large dark red brick house.

  Except for a narrow driveway, the house was surrounded by dozens of trees, the outer perimeter trees partially stunted, leaning inward, battered by storms off the sea.

  It was 12 Liverpool, Paul and Jilly's house. It couldn't have been built more than three or four years before. If I hadn't been looking for it I wouldn't have seen it.

  I was surprised how much it looked like their home back in Philadelphia. It was then I saw a police car parked across the street from the house.

  I pulled into the empty driveway, wondering how much longer Paul would be at the hospital. I walked to the cop car, a white four-door Chrysler with green lettering on the side: SHERIFF.

  I stuck my head in the open passenger window. "What's up? You here to see Paul?"

  She was a woman in her early thirties, wearing a beautifully pressed tan uniform, a wide black leather belt at her waist, a 9mm SIG Sauer Model 220, a sweet automatic pistol I knew very well, bolstered to the belt. She said, "Yes. And just who might you be?"

  "I'm Ford MacDougal, Jilly's brother, from Washington, D.C. I'm here to see her, and find out what happened to her."

  "You're the FBI agent?"

  There was deep suspicion in her voice. "Word gets around fast," I said. I stuck my hand through the open window. "Just call me Mac."

  She was wearing black leather driving gloves that felt very cool and soft to the touch when she clasped my hand. "I'm Maggie Sheffield, sheriff here in Edgerton. I want to find out what happened to Jilly as well. Did you just come from the hospital?" At my nod, she sa
id, "No change?"

  "No. I left Paul there with her. He's pretty upset." "No wonder. It's got to be hell for him. It's not every day that a man's wife drives off a cliff, ends up in the hospital rather than the morgue, and leaves her Porsche twenty feet underwater."

  She sounded like she wanted to cry. About Jilly or about the Porsche?

  "You've driven Jilly's car?"

  "Yeah, once. Funny thing is that I never speed unless I have to, which isn't often. But I got behind the wheel, looked out the windshield, and my foot just hit the gas pedal. I was doing eighty before I even realized it. I was grateful there were no cops around." She smiled and looked away from me for a moment. "Jilly was so excited about that car. She'd drive it down Fifth Avenue, hooting and shouting and honking the horn. She'd swerve it from one side of the street to the other. People would come out of the grocery store, their houses, laughing, betting with her that she'd wreck the car with her shenanigans." "She did."

  "Yes, but it wasn't because of her having fun like a crazy teenager. It was something else entirely." Her voice had lightened up just a bit, but now it was low and suspicious again. To my surprise, she suddenly smacked the steering wheel with her gloved fist. "It's just plain nuts. Rob Morrison, the state cop who pulled her out, said she speeded up as she went toward the cliff. It's a pretty sharp incline at that particular spot, so that means she had to push down on the gas, like she wanted to go over. But that doesn't make any sense at all. Jilly wouldn't have tried to kill herself." She paused a moment, frowning over the steering wheel into the forest across the street. "I don't suppose you've got any ideas about this?"

  I should have just said no, because I didn't want this sheriff to think I was crazy, but what came out of my mouth was "Yes, I do. It's just that I don't understand my ideas either."

  She laughed. It was an honest laugh that filled the car. "I think you'll need to explain that. Listen, you're a Fed when all's said and done. Sure you're Jilly's brother, but you're a Fed first. What's going on here?"

  "All that's true, but I'm on leave from the FBI. I'm here as Jilly's brother, nothing more. I'm not going to throw my weight around, Sheriff." My stomach growled. "Tell you what. Paul's still at the hospital.

  Actually I'm going to stay here with him since the Buttercup B and B is filled up with the orthodontist convention. It's time for lunch and I'm starving."

  "Orthodontist convention, huh? That's how Arlene got rid of you? The woman's got no imagination."

  "She tried. I think I frightened her. Is it because I'm an outsider? A Fed?"

  "Oh, yes. Arlene Hicks doesn't want you anywhere around her fine establishment. She's weird that way about cops."

  "Word got around really fast."

  "Yeah. Paul told Benny Pickle down at the gun shop that you were coming. That's all it took. Benny's got the biggest mouth west of the Cascades."

  "But what's wrong with being a Fed? I'm clean, I'm polite, I don't spit. I wouldn't run out without paying my bill."

  "Arlene doesn't even like me hanging around, and I'm a friendly face. You're not. She probably believes you're as bad as the IRS. You're from Washington, right? Place of sin and corruption."

  "You've got a good point there. Maybe Arlene's on to something."

  She waved that away. "Okay. You're here, Mac, and you want to find out what happened to Jilly. I want the same thing. It makes sense that we join forces, at least a bit. The thing is, are you willing to play level with me?"

  I arched an eyebrow. "I hadn't really thought about playing with anybody. But if I do play, it's usually level. Any reason why it shouldn't be?"

  "You're a Fed. You're a big footer. You're used to taking over, used to making local cops your gofers.

  I'm not a gofer."

  "I told you, I'm not here as a Fed. I'm here only as Jilly's brother. Like you, I want to know what happened. Actually I'm pleased that as the local cop you haven't just kissed the whole thing off-attempted suicide-and called in a shrink.

  "Sure, I'll play level with you. Do you know anything I should know? Is there any reason to believe Jilly didn't go over that cliff on purpose? You want to start sharing right now?"

  She seemed to relax a bit. "When were you hurt and how?"

  "How do you know I was hurt? Do I still look like week-old oatmeal?"

  She cocked her head to one side, fully facing me, looking me over. I realized that she was younger than I'd first thought, probably late twenties. It was impossible to be really sure because she was wearing the dark glasses favored by highway patrol officers to intimidate the folk they stopped. I could see my reflection in the lenses. Her hair was thick, dark reddish-brown and curly, plaited into a thick French braid and pulled back up on top of her head, wound around itself and fastened with a clip carved as a totem pole. She was wearing pale coral lipstick, the shade my British girlfriend Caroline had favored. But Caroline, a clothing designer, had never looked as tough or self-reliant as this woman.

  Of course she knew I was studying her, and she let me, saying finally, "I've always hated oatmeal.

  Fortunately, you don't resemble that at all, but you don't move all that easily, you know? You walk like you're twenty years older than you are. There are faint bruises along the left side of your face. You favor your right arm and you're a bit crabbed over, like you're worried you'll hurt your ribs. What happened to you?"

  "I got in the way of a car bomb."

  "I didn't hear about any federal guys being blown up."

  "I was over in Tunisia. Bad place. You get hot sand in your mouth when you talk. The people I had to deal with weren't what you'd call very good-natured." I'd just told this woman, a perfect stranger, all sorts of stuff that wasn't any layperson's business, a local cop's least of all. Well, I was playing level, I was sharing, as politically correct folk would say. Even thinking that soppy word made me wince. If she knew anything at all, my spurt of openness-something I hoped wouldn't happen again- should help me worm it out of her.

  "I'll take you to The Edwardian for lunch. It sounds like an English gentlemen's club, but it isn't. The food isn't great, but there's a lot of it, and you look like you could use the calories. You dropped what, a good fifteen pounds?"

  "Yeah, about that," I said. It was only two o'clock in the afternoon and I wanted a soft bed, a dark room, and no interruptions for about three hours.

  "Follow me. Fifteen minutes?"

  "Thanks," I said.

  I watched her turn the key in the ignition and smoothly do a U-turn on Liverpool Street.

  Some twenty minutes later, once I'd ordered meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans, and she'd ordered a huge chicken salad from Mr. Pete, a grizzled old varmint who was the only waiter for all ten patrons at The Edwardian at the moment, I leaned back against the hard wooden back of the booth and said, "I visited here about five years ago, as I said. I'd just gotten back from London, and Paul and Jilly invited me out here to meet his parents. I remember this place well. Nothing seems to have changed.

  How long have you been the sheriff?"

  "Going on a year and a half now. The mayor of Edger-ton is Miss Geraldine Tucker. Evidently she was going through a feminist phase, said she'd missed it when it first came around, and decided what the town needed was a female sheriff. I was a cop in Eugene at the time and had ran into some bad trouble. I wanted out of there. This seemed a perfect opportunity." She shrugged. "I have one deputy and a secretary and about a dozen volunteers whenever I put out the call, which hasn't happened since I've been on the job. There's little crime, as you'd expect, just parking or speeding tickets, kids raising occasional hell, a couple of burglaries a month, probably by transients, normal stuff like that. There has been a rise in domestic cases recently, but nothing like it was in Eugene." She gave me a look that clearly said, How much more level can you get?

  I smiled at her and said, "What happened in Eugene?"

  Her lips were suddenly as thin as the soup an old guy was eating at the next table. "I think I'll keep that
to myself, if you don't mind."

  "Not at all. Hey, I'm just hoping that the meat loaf will stick to my ribs. They need all the padding they can get right now. What did you want to talk to Paul about?"

  Before she could answer, an old man sauntered up, holding an Oakland A's baseball cap between his hands, big hands I saw, gnarly and veined but still strong. He had a full head of white curly hair, tobacco-stained teeth, and he was smiling at me. I put him in his seventies, a man who'd spent many years working hard.

  "Charlie," Maggie said, leaning forward to take his hand. "How's tricks? You seen anything interesting I should know about?"

  "Yes," he said, his voice all scratchy and thin as old drapes. "But it can wait. Is this the young feller from Washington?"

  Maggie introduced us. He was Charlie Duck, a local who'd been here fifteen years. He nodded, never taking my hand, just twirling that Oakland A's baseball cap around and around in his hands. "You're all tied up now, Mac, but later, when you've got some time, I wouldn't mind having a talk with you."

  "Sure," I said, and wondered what kind of tall tales I'd be hearing.

  He nodded, all solemn, and sauntered back to a booth where he sat down, alone.

  "You see, not everybody doesn't like me."

  "Charlie's a real neat old guy. You'll enjoy him if you two get together."

  I said again, "What did you want to talk to Paul about?"

  Maggie picked up her fork and began to weave it through her fingers, just like the old man had done with that baseball cap. She'd pulled off her driving gloves. She had elegant white hands, short nails, calluses on her thumb pads. "Just talk," she said. "I still can't believe how lucky Jilly was. Rob Morrison, the highway patrolman who saved her life, came in third in the Iron Man Triathlon over in Kona last year. That means a two-mile swim, a hundred miles on a bike, then twenty-six point two miles of running. He's in awesome shape. Anyone else, and they'd probably still be trying to get her out of the Porsche. The luck involved, it still boggles the mind." I felt both grateful and envious. "The Iron Man. I had a friend who tried that. He made it to Kona, but he got cramps in the marathon leg. I want to meet this guy. I wish I had something more to give him than just my heartfelt thanks."