Shades of Twilight

by Lind Howard

  There was a curve in the road, then a stop sign where the road intersected with Highway 43, a busy four-lane highway, with traffic continually zooming past. Roanna rounded the curve and saw the car ahead of her halted at the stop sign, left turn signal blinking, waiting for an opening in the traffic to enter the highway.

  A car turned onto the side road, coming toward her, but the traffic was too heavy for the car stopped at the intersection to make it across to the other side. Roanna put her foot on the brake pedal to slow down, and the pedal went to the floorboard without any resistance at all.

  Alarm shot through her. She pumped the pedal again, but there was no response the way there had been the first time. If anything, the car seemed to pick up speed. She had no brakes, and both lanes of the road were occupied.

  Time warped, stretching like elastic. The road elongated in front of her, while the oncoming car loomed twice its normal size. Thoughts flashed through her mind, lightning fast: Webb, the baby. A deep ditch was to the right, and the shoulder was narrow; there was no room for her to swing past the car stopped at the intersection, even if there hadn’t been the danger of shooting across four lanes of traffic.

  Webb! Dear God, Webb. She gripped the steering wheel, anguish almost choking her as the seconds churned past and she ran out of time. She couldn’t die now, not now when she had Webb, when his child was just beginning its life inside her. She had to do something …

  But she already knew what to do, she realized, memory gleaming like a bright thread through the terror that threatened to engulf her. She’d been a terrible driver, so she had taken a driving course when she was in college. She knew how to handle skids and lousy road conditions; she knew what to do in case of brake failure.

  She knew what to do!

  The car was shooting forward, as if it were on a downhill course and the roadway was greased.

  The driving instructor’s voice sounded in her head, calm and prosaic: Don’t take a solid hit if you can help it. Don’t let yourself hit anything head on, that’s when the worst damage occurs. Turn the car, slide into a collision, dissipate the force.

  She reached for the gear shift. Don’t try to put it into park, she thought, remembering those long-ago lessons. The instructor had said it likely wouldn’t go into park anyway. She could hear his voice as clearly as if he was sitting beside her: Put the gear into low range and pull the emergency brakes. The emergency brakes work on a cable, not on pneumatic pressure. A loss of brake fluid won’t affect them.

  The stopped car was just fifty yards ahead now. The oncoming car was less than that.

  She pulled the gear shift into low and reached for the emergency brake lever, pulling it with all her strength. Metal shrieked as the transmission ground down, and black smoke boiled up from her tires. The stench of burning rubber filled the car.

  The rear end of the car will likely come around. Steer out of the skid if you can. If you don’t have room, and you see you’re going to hit someone or be hit, try to maneuver so it’s an indirect collision. Both of you will be more likely to walk away.

  The rear end swung into the other lane, in front of the oncoming car. A horn blared, and Roanna caught a glimpse of a furious, terrified face, just a blur in the windshield. She turned into the skid, felt the car began to slide in the other direction, and quickly spun the steering wheel to correct that skid, too.

  The oncoming car swept past with inches to spare, horn still blaring. That left only the car in her lane, still sitting patiently at the stop sign, turn signal blinking.

  Twenty yards. No more room, no more time. With the left lane clear now, Roanna sent the car into a spinning slide across it. A cornfield stretched out on the other side of the road, nice and flat. She left the road and plunged across the shoulder, the car still skidding sideways. She crashed into the fencing, wood splintering, and a whole section came down. The car plowed down head-high stalks of corn as it bumped and thudded across the furrows, clods of dirt flying in all directions. She was thrown forward, and the seat belt bit hard into her hips and torso, jerking her back as the car shuddered to a stop.

  She sat there with her head resting on the steering wheel, too weak and dazed to get out of the car. Numbly she took stock of herself. Everything seemed to be all right.

  She became aware that she was trembling uncontrollably. She’d done it!

  She heard someone yelling, then there was a tapping on the window beside her. “Ma’am? Ma’am? Are you all right?”

  Roanna lifted her head and stared into the scared face of a teenage girl. Willing her shaking limbs to obey, she undipped the seat belt and tried to get out. The door didn’t want to open. She shoved, and the girl pulled from the outside, and together they forced it open enough for Roanna to climb out. “I’m okay,” she managed to say.

  “I saw you run off the road. Are you sure you’re okay? You hit that fence pretty hard.”

  “The fence got the worst of it.” Roanna’s teeth began chattering, and she had to lean against the car or sink to the ground. “My brakes failed.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. “Oh, gosh! You ran off the road to keep from hitting me, didn’t you?”

  “It seemed like a better idea,” she said, and her knees sagged.

  The girl sprang forward, sliding an arm around her. “You are hurt!”

  Roanna shook her head, forcing her knees to stiffen as the girl showed signs of bursting into tears. “No, I’m just scared, that’s all. My legs feel like limp noodles.” She took a few deep, steadying breaths. “I have a cell phone in the car, I’ll just call someone to come—”

  “I’ll get it for you,” the girl said, wrenching the door open wider and scrambling inside to find the cellular phone. After a brief search she located it under the right front seat.

  Roanna took some more calming breaths before she called home. The last thing she wanted to do was unduly alarm Webb or Lucinda, so that meant she had to steady her voice.

  Bessie answered the phone, and Roanna asked for Webb. He came on the line a moment later. “You haven’t been gone five minutes,” he teased. “What else have you thought of?”

  “Nothing,” she said, and was proud of how calm she sounded. “Come down to the intersection and get me. I had trouble with the brakes on my car and ran off the road.”

  He didn’t reply. She heard a violent, muffled curse, then there was a clatter and the phone went dead. “He’s on his way,” she said to the girl, and pressed the END button on the phone.

  Webb bundled Roanna into his truck, thanked the teenager for checking on her, and drove back to Davencourt so fast that Roanna clung to the overhead strap to steady herself. When they reached the house, he insisted on carrying her inside.

  “Put me down!” she hissed as he swung her up into his arms. “You’ll have everyone worried to death.”

  “Hush,” he said, and kissed her, hard. “I love you and you’re pregnant. Carrying you makes me feel better.”

  She looped her arm around his neck and hushed. She had to admit, the warmth and strength of his big body was very soothing, as if she were absorbing some of it through her skin. But as she had predicted, the fact that she wasn’t walking on her own brought everyone scurrying, frightened questions on their lips.

  Webb carried her into the living room and placed her on one of the couches as carefully as if she were made of fine crystal. “I’m all right, I’m all right,” she kept saying to the chorus of questions. “I’m not even bruised.”

  “Get her something hot and sweet to drink,” Webb said to Tansy, who rushed to obey.

  “Decaffeinated!” Roanna called after her, thinking of the baby.

  After assuring himself for the tenth time that she was unhurt, Webb stood up and told her he was going out to have a look at her car. “I’ll go with you,” she said in relief at the prospect of escaping from all the cosseting, getting up, but she was immediately drowned out by a chorus of protests from the women in the household.

  “You most certa
inly will not, young lady,” Lucinda said, at her most autocratic. “You’ve had a shock to your system, and you need to rest.”

  “I’m not hurt,” Roanna said again, wondering if anyone was actually listening to what she said.

  “Then I need for you to rest. It would fret me no end if you went off gallivanting, when common sense says you should give yourself time to get over the shock.”

  Roanna gave Webb a speaking glance. He lifted one eyebrow and shrugged, not at all sympathetically. “Can’t have you gallivanting,” he murmured, and dropped his gaze lower, to her belly.

  Roanna sat back down, warmed by the silent communication, the shared thought about their child. And while Lucinda was blatantly using emotional blackmail to get her way, it was done out of genuine concern, and Roanna decided there wouldn’t be any harm in letting herself be fussed over for the rest of the day.

  Webb went outside to get into his truck, and stared thoughtfully at the spot where Roanna’s car had been parked. There was a dark, wet stain on the ground, visible even from where he was. He walked over and hunkered down, examining the stain for a moment before touching it with his finger, then sniffing the oily residue. Definitely brake fluid, a lot of it. She must have had only a little fluid left in the lines, and it would have been pumped out the first time she used her brakes.

  She could have been killed. If she had gone across the highway instead of into a cornfield, she very likely would have been seriously injured, at the least, if not killed outright.

  A cold sense of dread touched him. The shadowy, unknown assailant could have struck again, but this time at Roanna. Why not? Hadn’t he done it before with Jessie? And with more success, too.

  He didn’t use the cellular phone, with its insecure channels, or go back inside to face the inevitable questions. Instead he walked down to the stables and used Loyal’s phone. The trainer listened to the conversation, his thick, graying brows pulling together as his eyes began to snap with anger.

  “You think somebody tried to hurt Miss Roanna?" he demanded as soon as Webb hung up.

  “I don’t know. It’s possible.”

  “The same person who broke into the house?”

  “If her brakes have been sabotaged, then I’d have to say yes.”

  “That would mean he was here last night, messing around with her car.”

  Webb nodded, his expression stony. He tried not to let his imagination run away with him until he knew for certain if Roanna’s car had been tampered with, but he couldn’t stop the stomach-tightening panic and anger at the thought of the man being so close.

  He drove out to the intersection, all the while carefully scanning around him. He didn’t think this would be a trap designed to get him out in the open, because there was no way to predict exactly where Roanna’s accident would happen. Though he was acutely aware that this was roughly the same location where he had been shot at from ambush, he was more afraid that this hadn’t been aimed at him, but specifically at Roanna. Maybe she hadn’t simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time the night she’d been hit on the head. Maybe she’d been lucky instead, that she’d managed to scream and alert the household before the bastard had been able to finish the job.

  Jessie had been killed, but by God, he wouldn’t let anything happen to Roanna. No matter what he had to do, he’d keep her safe.

  He parked the truck on the shoulder next to the downed section of fencing and waited for the sheriff. It wasn’t long before Beshears drove up, and Booley was riding in the front seat with him. The two men got out and joined Webb, and together they waded through the flattened cornstalks to where the car sat. They were all grim and silent. After the other two incidents, it was asking a bit much to believe that Roanna’s brakes had failed on their own, and they all knew it.

  Webb lay down on his back and wormed his way under the car. Broken corn stalks scraped his back, and tiny insects buzzed around his ears. The smell of grease and brake fluid filled his nostrils. “Carl, hand me your flashlight,” he said, and the big flashlight was passed under the car to him.

  He turned it on and directed the beam to the brake line. He spotted the cut almost immediately. “Y’all want to take a look at this?" he invited.

  Carl lay down and grunted as he squirmed under the car to join Webb, cussing as the cornstalks gouged his skin. “I’m too old for this,” he muttered. “Ouch!” Booley declined to join them, as the weight he’d added since retirement would have made it a tight fit for him.

  Carl hauled himself into position next to Webb and scowled when he saw the line. “The son of a bitch,” he growled, lifting his head to examine the line as close as he could without touching it. “Cut almost through. A nice fresh, clean cut. Even if she’d managed to make it onto the highway okay, she’d have wrecked when she got to the stop light on 157. Guess it was pure luck she ran into this field the way she did.”

  “Skill, not luck,” Webb, said. “She took some driving courses in college.”

  “No fooling. Wish more folks would take something like that, then we wouldn’t have to pick pieces of them up off the highway.” He glanced at Webb, saw the tightening of his mouth, and said, “Sorry.”

  Carefully they wormed their way out from under the car, though Carl cussed again when a stalk caught his shirt and tore a small hole in it.

  “Did you check the other cars at the house?” Booley asked.

  “I took a quick look under all of them. Roanna’s was the only one touched. She usually parks in the garage, but she left her car outside last night.”

  “Now, that’s a bit coincidental.” Carl scratched his chin, a sign that he was thinking. “Why didn’t she park in the garage?”

  “Corliss was parked in her slot. We’ve had some trouble with Corliss lately, and I told her she had to move out. I started to make her move her car, but Ro told me to leave it alone and not cause a fuss that would upset Lucinda.”

  “Maybe you should’ve made that fuss anyway. You reckon Corliss would do something like this?”

  “I’d be surprised if she knew a brake line from a fishing line.”

  “She got any friends who would do it for her?”

  “I’ve been away for ten years,” Webb replied. “I don’t know who she hangs out with. But if she had anyone tamper with a brake line, it would be mine, not Roanna’s.” “But yours was in the garage.”

  “Corliss has a control for the doors. We all do. If she was behind it, it wouldn’t matter if the car was inside the garage or not.”

  Carl scratched his chin again. “None of this ties together, does it? It’s like we’ve got pieces from ten different puzzles, and nothing goes together. It just don’t make a lick of sense.”

  “Oh, it all fits,” Booley said grimly. “We just don’t know how.”

  CHAPTER 22

  The house was quiet that night when Webb finally entered Roanna’s room. As usual, she was curled up in her chair with a book in her lap, but she looked around with a warm welcome in her eyes. “What took you so long?”

  “I had some last-minute paperwork I needed to do. With all the excitement today, I’d forgotten about it.” He knelt in front of her, searching her eyes with his. “Are you honestly okay? You aren’t hiding anything from me?”

  “I’m fine. Not a single bruise. Do you want me to pull off my clothes and show you?”

  His eyes turned smoky, and his gaze dropped to her breasts. “Yes.”

  She felt herself begin to warm and soften inside, and her nipples beaded the way they always did when he looked at her. He laughed softly, but got to his feet and caught her hands, pulling her up. “Come on.”

  She thought they were going to the bed, but instead he directed her to the door. She gave him a confused look. “Where are we going?”

  “To another bedroom.”

  “Why?” she asked, bewildered. “What’s wrong with this one?”

  “Because I want to try another bed.”

  “Yours?”

  “No,”
he said briefly.

  Roanna resisted the pressure on her back as he urged her toward the door. She turned and gave him a long, steady regard. “Something’s wrong.” She said it as a statement, not a question. She knew Webb too well; she’d seen him angry and she’d seen him amused. She knew when he was tired, when he was worried, when he was aggravated as all hell. She thought she’d seen him in all his moods, but this one was new. His eyes were hard and cool, with an alertness that made her think of a hungry cat stalking prey.

  “Let’s just say I’d feel better if you were in a different room tonight.”

  “If I go, will you tell me why?”

  That bladelike gaze sharpened even more. “Oh, you’ll go,” he said softly.

  She drew herself up and faced him, not backing down an inch. “You can reason with me, Webb Tallant, but you can’t order me around. I’m not a fool or a child. Tell me what’s going on.” Just because she loved him to distraction didn’t mean she couldn’t think for herself.

  He looked briefly frustrated, because once she wouldn’t have balked at doing anything he told her. But she’d been a child then, and now she was a woman; he needed to be reminded of that every so often. He made a rapid decision. “All right, but come on. And be as quiet as you can; I don’t want to wake anyone. When we get to the other room, don’t turn on any lights either.”

  “The bed won’t have any sheets on it,” she warned.

  “Then bring something to put around you in case you get cold.”

  She picked up her afghan and went quietly with him down the hall to one of the unoccupied bedrooms, the last one on the left side. The curtains were open, letting in enough light from the quarter moon that they could see how to maneuver. Webb went over to the windows and looked out, while Roanna sat down on the bed.