Pitch Black (18 page)

J.D. cut her a sideways glance. “Like doping, you mean?”

“Yeah, like doping. I was thinking, maybe it wasn’t really his fault . . . with the girlfriend and all. You know steroids can cause violent behavior. His actions might have been out of his control. It doesn’t seem fair for him to be locked up when the person who got him to take the stuff is walking around free.”

“Yeah, well, life ain’t fair.” He started to walk away. “I gotta get home.”

“Do you think Jeffery would talk to me?”

J.D. stopped dead. He turned around and said, “No way.”

As she watched him walk away, she became aware that the scuffle of feet and the bouncing of the basketball had silenced. Turning, she saw most of the kids on and near the court were standing still, watching her.

She gave a smile and a wave. Dear polite Southern boys, a good number of them waved back, even as they looked at her like they’d love to pick the meat from her bones.

When she got back in her car, she saw it was nearly seven. Fat chance that Gabe was still at the office. She swung by anyway, but his Jeep wasn’t in the lot. Damn. She’d really wanted to share what she’d learned.

It was probably just as well, she needed to get home. Ethan had checked in after school and she’d told him she’d be home by seven at the latest.

WHEN GABE’S PHONE RANG
, he glanced at the caller ID.

Maddie. He couldn’t help the rush of pleasure he felt at the prospect of talking to her. Especially after the day he’d had. Would he tell her about Jordan—about Kate’s accusation?

Not tonight, he decided.

“Hello.”

“Is this Sheriff Wyatt?” Not Maddie. Ethan.

“Yes.” He hoped to hell the kid wasn’t calling to drop another bombshell.

“This is Ethan. Ethan Wade,” he added, as if his first name wasn’t enough to identify him in the current circumstances. “Is M . . . my mom with you?” He sounded put out.

“No. I haven’t seen or spoken to her today.” Much to his disappointment. “I assume you tried her office.”

“Yeah, every fifteen minutes for the past two hours. She’s not picking up her cell either.”

The first prickles of unease descended Gabe’s spine.

Ethan continued, “She was supposed to be home by seven. If she’s not with you . . . ” The pique in his voice shifted to concern.

Gabe looked at the clock. Eight-thirty. That unease deepened. The first shot of adrenaline tingled every nerve ending. Maddie wouldn’t just not show up at home when Ethan was expecting her.

“I was just about to run to the store,” he lied, not wanting to fuel Ethan’s worry. “I’ll swing by the paper and make sure she’s not still there—”

“She’s not. She’s been all over me about keeping in touch, so she wouldn’t just
not
answer the phone.”

Gabe thought of her flat tire the other night. “I’ll drive past anyway. If I don’t see her car there, I’ll drive out to your house, just in case she’s had car trouble along the way.”

“If it was car trouble, why wouldn’t she use her cell, or at least answer it?”

“Maybe the battery is dead.” Gabe was itching to get off the phone and into his car.

“She has a car charg—”

“Listen, Ethan, the sooner I get going the sooner I’ll find her. I’ll call you as soon as I do.”

“Give me your cell number, in case I need to call you.”

Clearly the kid was thinking things through. Gabe gave him the number, then hung up.

As Gabe got into his Jeep he thought,
There have already been three
; Grandmother’s rule of three had been fulfilled. Three deaths. It was done.

Please, dear God, let it be done. Let Maddie be safe.

Chapter 18

E
THAN WAS RIGHT. The newspaper office was dark when Gabe drove past. Maddie’s car wasn’t parked anywhere within a three-block radius.

He pushed back panic, for the first time realizing what a tall order that was when he asked it of others in his capacity as sheriff. How tough it must have been for Kate, sitting there, waiting by her son’s hospital bed to hear her husband’s fate.

Fighting the urge to blast through speed limits, he cruised past the drugstores and the groceries. No Saab in any of the parking lots.

Driving up and down every street in town didn’t make sense. The most likely place to find her if she had experienced car trouble was between the newspaper and her house. He swung his Jeep back around and took that route.

It was fully dark, so he drove slowly, looking not only for a car at the side of the highway, but also for skid marks or signs that a car had gone off the road.

No car was stalled on the side of the highway. No evidence of an accident. He reached the turnoff for Turnbull Road.

The intersection was on a curve, making it dangerous. He stopped, shining his searchlight all around, making sure he didn’t miss a car in the ditch. Then he started up the road, fighting off encroaching panic. His heart was beating faster than it should and his mouth had turned dry before he’d even left his house.

What if he didn’t find her? Where would he look next?

One step at a time
, he told himself, just as he always told everyone else.

If he had to lay money on the most likely place for trouble along this road, it’d be at the railroad overpass. At least once a year there was an accident there, either between two cars head-on or someone rounding the curve prior to the narrow underpass and slamming into the bridge supports.

Each time he blinked, he saw Maddie’s red Saab folded accordion-style against a stone support. He forced himself not to hurry along to that spot. She could be anywhere along here. Most of the road had a side drop-off of some degree. He shone his light from side to side as he went, looking for broken branches or scarred tree trunks.

As he drew closer to the railroad overpass, fear tightened the bands around his chest, and his breathing grew shallow.

Next curve
, he thought.

He found himself leaning to the left, trying to see around the bend more quickly. When his headlights struck the stone abutments, he finally drew a steady breath. No crumpled car. No injured Maddie.

His relief was short-lived. On the other side of the underpass, the S curve curled back around. As he drove under the railroad, his headlights illuminated broken saplings and freshly peeled bark.

She’d driven straight off the edge.

THE TELEPHONE RANG
. Ethan sprang from the couch as if catapulted by an electric shock, pushing the on button as he did.

“M?” Every muscle in his body remained tensed.

For a long while there was only silence on the open line.

“M! Are you okay? Where are you? Talk to me!” His throat was so tight and dry he could hardly form the words.

Nothing but dead air.

Ethan strained to hear any noise in the background that could tell him where she was.

There was a click. Then music filtered through the telephone, soft at first, then louder, as if the source was getting closer. After a few seconds, he recognized it: the theme to last summer’s slasher film,
Bloody Dawn at Spirit Lake.

“M! Are you there?” Even as he said it, he knew this wasn’t M. He walked quickly to the front door and turned the deadbolt. Then he eased one eye to look through the sidelight. He scanned the front yard. It was dark—way darker than it ever got in the city. He couldn’t see shit.

He hurried around the downstairs, making certain the windows were latched and the kitchen door locked. It was stupid; if somebody wanted in, all it would take was a rock—the place was about one-third glass. He’d slept on dangerous streets and his gut had never twisted with fear quite like this.

Then a raspy voice began, “Admit what you did. Admit it and I’ll kill you quickly.” The music swelled. “Don’t look out there. Your mommy can’t help you now.”

Ethan ended the call and threw the phone onto the couch.

He knew that scene. Someone was playing the sound track from the movie into the phone. But why?

“
Your mommy can’t help you now.
”

Oh, shit. What’d happened to M?

He grabbed the phone again and dialed Sheriff Wyatt.

On the sixth unanswered ring, he got off the phone, grabbed a flashlight and his baseball bat, and ran out the front door.

THERE WAS NO PLACE
on the tight S curve to pull off the road. Gabe switched on the red-and-blue emergency lights and moved as far to the side as he could. Before he got out of the Jeep, he aimed the spotlight into the area where the car had crashed through the vegetation. There was no way to get it angled down the slope; it ended up illuminating a lot of trees.

Sickness swelled in his stomach. About fifty yards down that sloping ravine there was a sheer thirty-foot drop into a creek bed filled with boulders and huge chunks of fallen rock.

Grabbing his flashlight, he opened the Jeep’s door. As soon as he did, he heard music—rock music with a heavy bass line. It was loud enough that if he’d had his window open, he’d have heard it before now.

He ran around the car and stared into the dark ravine. The music was coming from down there. Sweeping his flashlight beam from left to right, he caught the red reflection of taillights.

A tiny ribbon of relief threaded through his fear. At least she hadn’t gone plunging off the cliff and into the creek.

Maddie’s Saab sat about forty feet down the steep slope, nose down. No lights. No movement. Just that throbbing music.

She had to be injured—please, just let it be an injury.

He scrambled down the dangerously rough embankment, his feet skidding and slipping as he descended at an insanely unsafe pace in the dark.

All logic, all of his training seemed to fly out of his head. He had to get to Maddie.

He called her name, but got no response.

That damn music was so loud.

His foot caught on a fallen branch. He pitched forward and rolled the last ten feet, stopping only when he ran into the back of the car. His flashlight hit the trunk with a loud snap.

For a split second he held his breath, worrying he’d set the car in downhill motion again.

It remained still.

The music stopped.

“Maddie!”

“Gabe? Oh, thank God!”

He got his feet back under him and moved to the driver’s door, steadying himself on the car as he did.

Maddie reached out the open window—around a tree trunk that was jammed against the door.

Grasping her hand, he said, “Are you hurt?” He aimed the flashlight to look at her.

She squinted and turned away from the light. “You’re blinding me.”

He didn’t move the beam, studying her face, looking for trauma. Her left cheek was badly bruised, most likely from the air bag. There was blood on her forehead. Reaching in he felt it; sticky, crusted at the edge, not a fresh flow.

“I’m okay. I just can’t get out. Seat belt’s jammed. I couldn’t reach my phone.”

The car was sitting at about a forty-five-degree angle; the pressure of the belt against her shoulder had to be painful.

“I can’t get this door open. I’m going around.”

She didn’t let go of his hand. “Do you have any idea how freakin’ dark it is out here? I didn’t think anyone would find me tonight.”

“So you cranked up the stereo.” He couldn’t keep himself from leaning down and kissing her hand. It felt cool under his lips. It wouldn’t get dangerously cold tonight, but when he considered shock into the equation, he was very glad he’d found her before she’d spent an entire night out here. “You’re one smart city girl.”

“Figured there was a better chance someone would hear it than see lights all the way down here. Didn’t want to waste the battery on both.” Her grip was reassuringly strong.

“You’re gonna have to let go, Maddie, so I can go around.”

“I thought you were holding on to me.”

He laughed, relief flowing through him like a cool waterfall. “I am.” He squeezed her hand and let go.

After climbing up and around the rear of the car, he shone the flashlight on the passenger side. It was jammed against a sheer slab of rock that had been heaved out of the earth eons ago. He didn’t want to think about the odds of this car wedging between the rock and the tree—because that was probably all that prevented it from careening on down the slope and off the rock face into the creek.

Climbing back around to the driver’s side, he said, “Neither one of these doors are going to open.”

“Try the windshield,” she said. “It’s already got a hole in it.”

Gabe shone the flashlight on the windshield. The glass was a mass of spiderweb cracks surrounding a six-inch hole just below and to the left of the rearview mirror. “What—”

“I think it was a rock, a big one; must have come off the railroad overpass.”

His stomach turned at the thought of that rock hitting just a little farther to the left.

He handed her the flashlight. “Shine this on the windshield. I’m going to get on the hood.” Inching around the tree, he held on to its rough bark, then used it to pull himself up on the hood. Although the car canted severely downhill, the hood was buckled, preventing it from acting like a slide and sending him off the front.

He took off his shirt and wrapped it around his hand, then grasped the hole. “Cover your face.”

“Stop!” she shouted.

“What?”

“You’re gonna cut your fingers off. Won’t it be less dangerous to just kick it the rest of the way in?”

“It’d probably hold together, but I don’t want to take the chance of pieces flying at you. I’ll try pulling. Cover your face in case shards pop loose.”

He couldn’t get any leverage with the angle of the car and his precarious position.

“Just kick it, Gabe.”

It didn’t look like he had any choice. He unwound his shirt from his hands, shook it to make sure it wasn’t harboring broken glass, and handed it around to the driver’s window.

“Use this. Keep your face down and head covered.”

She took the shirt. A moment later she said, “Go.”

He lifted his foot and slammed the heel of his boot against the cracked glass. With his limited range of motion, it took three good kicks to knock the windshield free. He hoped the shatterproof coating had kept the fragments to a minimum.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

He heard tiny bits of glass falling as she moved.

“Hand my shirt back. I don’t want to slide across this without it.”

She handed it out the windshield. “Use those fancy cutters you heroes have and get this belt off of me,” she said with a smile in her voice. “It’s locked up so tight it’s hard to breathe.”

Her humor was reassuring; it backed up her claim to be uninjured.

“Sorry, firefighters get all the cool tools.” He shook his shirt to rid it of glass particles, then put it back on. Lying on his belly and pushing against the raised crumple of the hood, he crawled headfirst across the dash.

“Us poor sheriffs have to use low-tech gadgets.” He held up his pocketknife as he lay there facing her. The blood on the right side of her forehead appeared to come from a gash at her hairline. Closer inspection reaffirmed that she wasn’t still bleeding.

“I don’t like to look a gift rescuer in the mouth, but are you sure you don’t want to call the guys with the cool tools? I mean, I’m pretty attached to all of my parts, and that’s one bitchin’ knife.”

“Why, this is just a puny thing for a Southern country boy.” He turned the three-and-a-half-inch blade; its broad side glinted as she shone the flashlight beam on it. “I’m almost embarrassed to pull it out in public.” He smiled and reached for the belt, testing to see if there was any give at all. “Trust me.”

“Do I have a choice?” She drew her chin toward her chest, keeping a wary gaze on the blade.

“Sure, you can wait for the next guy to come looking for you.”

She stopped recoiling from the knife and asked, “How
did
you know to look for me?”

“Ethan called, said you were late.”

“My cell’s been ringing every few minutes. He must be worried to death. Get my phone and call him, tell him I’m okay.”

“First things first.” He eased the wide blade between the front of her shoulder and the seat belt. “Can you brace your feet on the floorboard and push against the steering wheel with your left arm, ease some of the weight off this shoulder?”

She moved, but it was still difficult to get any motion in the knife.

“Careful with that thing, buster,” she muttered, keeping her head perfectly still. “You do know the carotid and the jugular are both pretty vital.”

He felt her tremble with the effort of pressing herself up and leaning away from the knife simultaneously. He cursed the webbing manufacturer, wondering why in the hell these things had to be so tough. In his next breath, he was thankful for its strength; without it Maddie might well be dead.

It took several minutes before the last thread snapped. When it did, Maddie pitched forward. He barely jerked the knife out of her path in time to miss her neck.

Her breath huffed out as she hit the steering wheel and the deflated air bag.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Depends. Am I spurting blood?”

“Jugular and carotid both intact, ma’am.”

“Then I’m okay.”

“Can you hand me the flashlight?” It was gripped in her right hand. She held it up.

He wedged it between the bent metal of the left side of the car and the tree.

As he helped her crawl out, she said, “You’re not gonna peek up my skirt are you?”

He chuckled. “You’re one amazing woman.” Most women he knew would be an emotional wreck after going through what Maddie had just endured.

“Does that mean you
are
going to peek up my skirt?”

Tiny bits of glass falling off her hit the metal of the hood, sounding like hailstones.