by B. J Daniels
Walker’s jaw tightened, obviously convinced she was lying. He stared down at his notebook for a moment before he asked, “Where were you headed?”
A rest stop on the edge of Shadow Lake, if she’d read Gillian’s handwriting correctly on the scrap of envelope. “I don’t know, but I did find a note in the pocket of my coat that leads me to believe I was meeting someone at the rest stop.”
He didn’t seem surprised to hear this. “What was on the note?”
She told him. “According to the operator, the number is that of the pay phone at the rest stop.”
“Did you meet one of the Fairbankses at the rest stop?”
Her trembling fingers went to her scar. She traced the familiar pattern without realizing at first that she was doing it. “I don’t know. I can’t…remember seeing anyone before I saw the deer on the highway.” She could hear the tears behind her words and willed herself not to break down.
“You’re telling me you believe you were meeting Jack Fairbanks at the rest stop?”
“I can only assume that was what the note meant, given that I saw him right after my car went into the lake.” She looked over at her doctor. He had his head down. She willed him to look up, but he didn’t, and she felt bereft without even him on her side.
“You are aware that Jack Fairbanks is dead?” Walker asked, an edge to his tone.
“I have been told that.”
“Who gave you the note?” he asked.
“I’m not sure how I got it, but I recognized the handwriting. It’s my friend Gillian Sanders’s.”
“Your friend. Did she give it to you?”
“I can only assume she did. I can’t remember seeing her that night. Or maybe I was meeting her there as well.” Anna shook her head. “I wish I knew.”
He nodded, studying her. “Wasn’t it out of character for you to drive to Shadow Lake late that night?”
She knew the moment he said it that this was coming from Marc. “Not if I thought Gillian had found out something about the hit-and-run accident that killed my son. I would do anything, anytime, to get to the truth about that night.”
He raised a brow.
“Even go out to the Fairbankses’ island without being invited.”
She assumed that’s what this was about. “Once I found the note, I knew it had to be the reason I’d come to Shadow Lake. I was sure one of the Fairbankses must have witnessed the hit-and-run—or had some information about it, given what Gillian had written on the note.”
“Yes, the note. And where is this note?”
“I assume Ruth Fairbanks still has it.”
“You don’t think it’s strange that she would keep it?” he asked.
“Very.”
“You told Mrs. Fairbanks that you saw her dead son?”
“I told her what I saw. Just as I told you,” she said simply.
He shook his head, anger sparking in his eyes. “Why would the Fairbankses lie about this appointment you supposedly had at the rest stop?”
She hesitated, knowing she was treading on thin ice, given the family she was about to impugn. “I think they might be covering for Jack.”
He stared at her incredulously. Even Dr. Brubaker was finally looking at her, as well, as if she’d lost her mind.
The cop eyed her for a long, unnerving moment, then cleared his throat. She could tell he was trying to rein in his temper. “If your friend Gillian Sanders wrote this note, why didn’t she give you more information?”
It was a question she’d asked herself. “Maybe she did and I just don’t remember. Look, I didn’t mean to upset Mrs. Fairbanks, but the note with the name of this town and Fairbanks on it was all I had to go on and I needed answers, because apparently you think I’ve done something.”
His brown eyes focused on her. She saw something almost tender in them. Sympathy. “Why did you feel the need to sneak out of the hospital last night? Why not wait until morning or after you were released before you went all the way out to the island to talk to the Fairbankses?”
“I felt it was something that couldn’t wait,” she said, believing she was digging the hole she was in even deeper. “Please, if I need to apologize to the Fairbankses, I would be happy to.”
He looked down at his notepad, took a breath and let it out slowly. When he looked up, the fury was back in his eyes.
“I’d like to know what’s going on now.” It was almost impossible to keep the tremor out of her voice.
Walker seemed to get himself under control. “Why was there a suitcase in the backseat of your car and not the trunk, Mrs. Collins?”
She stared at him. “Why would that mat—”
“Just answer the question please.”
She felt her pulse jump. Had she put the suitcase in the backseat? If she’d really seen Marc that night, then he could have put it there. If only she could remember what had happened before she saw the deer in the road and crashed into the lake.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you?” Walker asked, his tone mocking.
She glanced at the doctor. He was propped against the windowsill, his head down again.
“Either you tell me what’s going on right now or I’m not answering any more of your questions,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. Her head ached, her stomach was queasy. But mostly she was terrified.
The cop looked down at his notes and then up at her. “Tell me about the passenger in the car with you.”
She blinked. “There wasn’t anyone with me. I know I thought my son was in the car when I first woke up. I’ve already explained that to you.” Her voice broke.
“Mrs. Collins, there was a body found in the lake.”
She let out a startled cry. “No.” She stared at him in confusion. “The man who saved my life?”
“The body we found wasn’t a man’s,” Walker said impatiently. “And it sure as hell wasn’t Jack Fairbanks, since he’s already dead and buried.”
Her head swam. “Are you telling me that I hit someone with my car?” It had been a deer she’d swerved to miss, hadn’t it? “Oh God, please tell me.” This couldn’t be happening. History repeating itself. Only this time, she was the hit-and-run driver.
“Mrs. Collins, you didn’t run over anyone,” Walker snapped as if his patience had finally run out. “The body we found in the trunk of your car was a woman’s.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“THAT’S NOT POSSIBLE,” Anna heard herself say in a voice she didn’t recognize. She gripped her hands in her lap as if she could keep her entire body from shaking.
Officer D.C. Walker’s eyes were on her. “Don’t you want to know whose body we found in your trunk, Mrs. Collins?”
“I want to call a lawyer,” she said, suddenly horrified.
“There’s the phone right there. Call one.”
She picked up the phone and dialed Gillian’s cell phone, knowing it was a waste of time. She didn’t leave a message when she reached voice mail again. She hung up the phone.
“What? No luck?” he asked. “You want to wait until you can find another lawyer or do you want to know who we found in your trunk?”
She looked up at him and waited, too frightened to speak.
“Along with the woman’s body was her purse. We were able to identify her from her photo ID. Her name is Gillian Sanders.”
All breath rushed from Anna. Blood surged in a deafening roar in her ears. The room began to spin. Everything in her wanted to lash out. He was lying. Gillian wasn’t dead, couldn’t be dead. This wasn’t happening.
“It can’t be Gillian,” she whispered. “There has to be a mistake.”
“We have a positive identification. There’s no mistake.”
Anna buried her face in her hands. Not Gillian. Not dead. No.
“How did Ms. Sanders end up in the trunk of your car, Mrs. Collins?”
She could only shake her head. Gillian. Dead. In the trunk of the Cadillac. Anna shuddered at the h
orrifying thought.
“This can’t be happening,” Anna said.
“What was your relationship with Gillian Sanders?”
“I told you. She’s my friend.”
“Was she friends with your husband as well?”
She met his gaze. He knew. Marc must have told him.
The reminder of the affair between Marc and Gillian pierced her heart like a poison dart.
“Your husband and Gillian Sanders were more than friends, weren’t they, Mrs. Collins?”
She lifted her chin and said nothing.
“I have spoken to your husband. Along with identifying the victim, he also told us he’d had an affair with Gillian Sanders while you were in a coma. He said he told you about the affair and you threatened to kill Gillian.”
She could feel his attention on her, waiting for her reaction. “I don’t believe that.”
He raised a brow. “Why would your husband lie?”
She shook her head. She had no idea. None of this made any sense. Anna’s eyes burned, her throat closing as her chest filled to overflowing. “Gillian was my best friend. I never would have hurt her. If I threatened to kill anyone it would have been Marc.”
The cop raised a brow. “Where is your gun?”
She glanced at the phone again, then at Walker. She tried to tamp down the panic. “I’m not saying any more until I have a lawyer,” she said, her voice cracking. “Please. I need to be alone. Gillian was my friend. My best friend.”
“Don’t make this harder on yourself,” Walker said. “Your husband told you about the affair. You confronted your friend. Things got out of control. You didn’t mean to kill her.”
“I told you—”
“I can understand. You felt betrayed by those closest to you. You threatened her. Maybe the gun just went off. You panicked. You had to get rid of the body. You got her into the trunk of your car, programmed in Shadow Lake and the police station. You wanted to make sure it wasn’t near the spot where you were going to dump the body.”
“Please, I want—”
“Come on, Mrs. Collins, she was your best friend.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Dr. Brubaker step away from where he’d been at the window. “She said she wanted a lawyer.”
A loud commotion in the hallway outside her room made them all turn in surprise. An instant later, Anna’s husband stormed into the room, a nurse Anna hadn’t seen before trying to stop him.
“I’m sorry. I told Mr. Collins you didn’t want to be disturbed,” the nurse said.
“What the hell is going on here?” Marc demanded.
Anna stared at her husband, thinking about all the things he’d told the police and the fact that he hadn’t bothered to come see her before this. Just the sight of Marc made her sick to her stomach.
Walker let out a low curse. “Let me know when you get a lawyer, Mrs. Collins. In the meantime, don’t leave town.” He turned off the tape recorder and pocketed it, meeting her gaze in a questioning look as he left.
Anna closed her eyes, squeezing them shut, praying that this all was one huge mistake.
“I asked what’s going on here,” Marc demanded loudly.
“I was just questioning your wife, Mr. Collins. I have your statements from earlier, but I’d like to get your sworn statement after you visit your wife. You know where my office is.”
“And who’s this?” Marc asked.
Anna opened her eyes and saw her husband glaring at Dr. Brubaker.
The doctor ignored him. “Anna, ring your call bell if you need me.”
“Anna?” Marc mimicked and Anna realized her husband had been drinking. “Got real cozy here I see.” He turned his attention to the doctor. “I want to talk to my wife. Alone.”
“Five minutes,” Dr. Brubaker said. “She has pneumonia and needs her rest.”
Marc said nothing as the doctor and cop left the room, leaving the door open. Marc stepped to the door and slammed it, then turned to glare at her. “Anna, what the hell have you done now?”
WALKER STALKED DOWN THE HALL, too angry to speak. He’d almost had her. Just a few more minutes…
“What has gotten into you?” Doc demanded, grabbing his arm and swinging him around to face him.
Walker couldn’t have been more surprised if the doctor had slugged him. “What?”
He glanced back at the nurses’ station. Cindy was watching them. “Let’s take this into my office.
“What is wrong with you? I’ve never seen you like this,” Doc said, the moment his office door closed behind them.
“I almost got her to confess,” Walker snapped.
“She said she wanted a lawyer. You’re too good a cop not to know that even if she had confessed, it would have been inadmissible since you hadn’t read her her rights and you ignored her plea for a lawyer.”
“She killed her lawyer,” Walker said angrily.
Doc shook his head.
“She’s lying through her teeth. About the murder, about Jack—”
“That’s really what this is about, isn’t it,” Doc said, not unkindly. “Jack Fairbanks.”
Walker looked away. “Why did she have to say she saw Jack down there?”
“What’s eating at you, son? I’ve seen it ever since Jack died.”
“I knew something was bothering him.” The words were finally out. Walker took off his hat and raked a hand through his hair. “Damn it, Doc. I saw what kind of state he was in and I thought whatever it was, it would blow over.”
“Do you really think that if Jack was set on killing himself that you could have stopped him? If he hadn’t done it that night, he would have some other time.”
Walker shook his head. “I don’t believe for a minute that he killed himself.”
Doc stared at him. “Walker, what are you saying?”
“He and Jonathan. There was something going on between them.”
Doc sighed and sat down behind his desk. “I’ve known Jack and Jonathan since they were born.”
“Then you know that Jonathan blamed Jack for the loss of his leg. He never forgave him. There was bad blood between them.”
Doc nodded. “But to even suggest—”
“Jonathan may not have pushed him overboard that night, but you will never convince me he didn’t leave him out there to drown.” It felt good to finally voice the suspicions to someone other than Billy.
Doc shook his head. “You can’t take all this out on that woman down the hall.”
“Maybe I was a little rough on her, but Doc, she’s got a dead body in the trunk of her car—a body belonging to the woman she threatened to kill.”
“According to her husband,” Doc said.
“She’s guilty of something.”
“Anna Collins is not your ex-wife,” Doc said quietly.
“She’s enough like her to be her twin.” Walker wished he could take back the words the moment they were out of his mouth. “Okay, maybe I do see Jessica in her. But that still doesn’t change the fact that she has a dead body in her trunk.”
“She didn’t kill anyone.”
Walker shook his head.
He’d seen the way Doc had taken to the woman like the daughter he’d never had.
“You have to admit she looks guilty as hell.”
Doc nodded. “That alone makes me suspicious. How about you? Haven’t you wondered? For instance, why her husband is so forthcoming with such incriminating details about a woman you say he hoped to reconcile with. Or how someone who weighs maybe one twenty-five could get the dead weight of another woman…” He looked to Walker for a weight.
“Five-nine, a hundred-and-fifty pounds give or take,” he said, aware of what the doctor was getting at.
“A woman larger and heavier into the trunk of her car.” Doc shrugged.
“She could have had an accomplice,” Walker said knowing he was grasping at straws.
“Well, once you have a look at the car I’m sure you’ll be able to confirm her s
tory about the seat belt jamming,” Doc said. “Or maybe you already have.”
Walker chewed at his cheek. Once he’d found the body, he’d come straight to the hospital to talk to Anna Collins.
“I’ll be curious to hear what you find.”
“She’s going to disappoint you, Doc.” Walker would bet the farm on that.
“Maybe,” he said congenially.
Walker shook his head, smiling ruefully, as he left. There was no fool like an old one. Anna Collins might have fooled the doc, but she hadn’t fooled him. And he was going to prove it.
ANNA STARED AT THE MAN standing in her hospital room as if he was a stranger. Marc was, in so many ways. He had the kind of good looks that made women stare. It was ironic that she’d fallen for what she’d thought was vulnerability the first time she’d seen him. Now she knew what she’d seen was a glimpse of the pettiness of a cruel unforgiving man.
He wore a new suit, obviously expensive, and she knew he’d purchased it because he’d wanted to make an impression on the small-town cops. Marc liked to present himself as a man with everything going for him. Part of what had attracted Marc to her, she realized now, was her money. She came from wealth and had never had to work for a living. That too, she saw now, had made Marc jealous and bitter since he had come from the opposite background.
“I need to be alone,” she said. “They just told me about Gillian.” She began to cry, the shock of it still too much for her.
Her mind was reeling. She was scared and angry and mourning the loss of her friend. And certainly not up to dealing with Marc right now.
“Please.”
He ignored her.
She watched him walk over to the window.
“Nice view.”
She tried to pull herself together. If it was true that she’d seen Marc before she’d come to Shadow Lake that night, then he might be able to fill in the blanks. She had to try to understand what was going on and why Gillian was dead.
