Hairpin Bridge

by TAYLOR ADAMS

  He shouts again, a single word, and this close, she can almost hear it. Just barely.

  It sounds like: Please.

  For a heart-fluttering moment, she wonders—what if he’s not trying to kill her after all? What if that’s why he hasn’t shot her yet? Maybe there’s something else in play, some extra dimension, and he’s just a local guy trying to save her from a situation she can’t yet comprehend.

  He shouts again. This time she hears: Don’t want to hurt you.

  Now Cambry’s foot hovers over the pedals—gas or brake? Raycevic is catching up, just three feet behind her. Another few seconds and their cars will be exactly side by side, and they’ll be able to turn their heads and make eye contact through the windows. No glass between them.

  He’s lying.

  She gets it, in another wild flash of lightning: He needs to shoot her from a specific angle. He can’t just blow a hole through his windshield, because he’s still a cop with a day job, driving a state-issued vehicle, and that would be tough to explain to his sergeant. No, he needs to shoot her exactly sideways, through his open passenger window. That’s why it’s open. That’s why he’s pulling in close—for a clean, unimpeded shot.

  He’s almost perfectly parallel now. Raising his pistol, aimed at her.

  She begs into the rushing air: “Please, please—”

  Both vehicles pass another hump in the road. A moment of stomach-fluttering weightlessness, and then a hurtling downward crunch throws Cambry against her seat. She bites her tongue and almost loses her glasses. The time is 8:43 now. But she saw something.

  Holy shit.

  Dead ahead—yes, she knows she saw it—a pair of red taillights over the rise. Maybe a half mile out. She’s not certain of the distance in the dark. She just knows she glimpsed the back of another vehicle, on this very same road. Traveling the same direction. Not far ahead.

  Oh, God, there it is.

  There’s your witness.

  Chapter 10

  Lena

  “Save her from who?”

  “Turn off the recorder.” Raycevic nodded down at it, as if he knew he was being watched. “Turn it off, and I’ll tell you.”

  “No deal.”

  His voice bristled. “Turn it off.”

  “You’re lying—”

  “I’m not the bad guy, Lena.” He clasped his hands together in a prayer-like gesture. The huge man was almost groveling. “Yes, I chased your sister on June sixth. Yes, I lied about it in my report—but for a good reason. She was driving like a bat out of hell, almost ninety, running scared. We were barreling down this winding road. I couldn’t stop her. And she didn’t trust me anymore—”

  Lies. Every word of it could be lies.

  “I wouldn’t trust you, either, Ray.”

  “I couldn’t make her stop. So . . .” He cleared his throat. “I pulled my gun on her. Not to shoot her. Just to try and force her to stop.”

  Yeah, no shit, she didn’t trust you, Lena wanted to say. But she couldn’t form the words. It was staggering, being in the presence of someone privy to Cambry’s last moments alive. Lies or not. She caught herself leaning in, hanging on his words—because in a soul-sick way, yes, she wanted to believe Raycevic was telling her the truth. “You chased her. You pulled a gun on her. But how’d she die?”

  “She killed herself.”

  “Bullshit.” Back to this.

  “She jumped off this bridge, right in front of me—”

  “Yeah? Did she write that suicide text, too? Hopefully you can live with it, Officer Raycevic?”

  “She did.”

  “That wasn’t my sister’s voice.”

  “It was, Lena. You just didn’t know her.”

  “You’re lying. You’ve already incriminated yourself.” She remembered to breathe. She was firing questions faster than he could answer. Her sinuses ached—the start of a migraine. “Fine. Who were you trying to protect her from?”

  Raycevic turned away.

  He stared off Hairpin Bridge, refusing to look her in the eye. She almost grabbed his thick shoulder and tugged him back to face her. Just like Cambry in her dream (Go, Lena), everyone held all the answers but refused to talk. It was exasperating, being so close to the truth.

  “I don’t think you understand,” he said. “I’m giving you one last chance. I’m not threatening you. You can still walk away, right now. Just go.”

  Just go, Cambry’s ghost whispered in Lena’s ear. Lena, go.

  Please go—

  “Leave Hairpin Bridge. Move forward, live your life, put your sister in the past, and honor her memory. There’s nothing good for you here. The truth will wreck you.” He licked his lips. “We can go our separate ways, you and I, and we can let this situation be. Think long and hard.”

  She didn’t have to. “I’m not leaving.”

  “You have to.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Walk away,” he said again. “I’m begging you.”

  He was begging her.

  His choice of words thrilled Lena, to be in such a position of power over this man in uniform, and she replied with something she immediately regretted, something that landed like a curse:

  “Over my dead body.”

  * * *

  That’s the plan, Lena.

  Corporal Raymond R. Raycevic pulled a long breath through his nose and looked away from her, off Hairpin Bridge’s western overlook. On a clear blue day, a viewer could see past Magma Springs all the way into Watson County, and trace Silver Creek’s hairline path all the way to Lake Saint Byron.

  Today was not a clear day. Brown smoke clung to the hills like acrid rain clouds, gritty and poisonous. Visibility was less than a mile. The air tasted like charcoal. The Briggs-Daniels wildfire was indeed coming their way—he hadn’t been lying about that—but at this point, Lena didn’t believe anything he said. So be it. He’d tried, hadn’t he? He’d warned her. He’d given her every opportunity to leave, to give up her search, to go home.

  She was too determined.

  He wished Cambry had never sent that goddamn suicide text before she died. It had unleashed dozens of chain reactions, tipping hundreds of dominoes, some of which were still quietly toppling three months later. All from one text message. One error.

  And now it had brought nosy Lena to his doorstep. To be dealt with.

  Over your dead body, indeed.

  He should have smelled this trap from the very first email. No therapist on earth would endorse tracking down the cop who discovered your sister’s corpse, driving to the very site of her suicide, and marinating in the hideous details. Asking about the blood and guts. From minute one, Lena had been too alert, too poised, to not have an agenda. Hell, even the email’s subject line had been suspicious—RE my sister’s death on 6.6—as eerily formal and detached as a party invite.

  He stared out into the hazy horizon. He couldn’t look at her. Eye contact was too much. How clever she must have felt. So pleased with herself. What arrogance, to expect to lure him out here and capture his admission on tape without incident.

  You have no idea, he thought, with a twinge of sympathy. You poor, grieving girl.

  Worse, he’d proven her right. He’d allowed himself to be drawn all the way out here into her snare on Hairpin Bridge. He’d been distracted this week after what happened on Thursday. He wasn’t sleeping and his guard was down. That was on him. But cockiness is a killer—Ray knew this all too well—and Lena was getting there herself.

  Because she’d already stepped into a snare, too.

  These foothills of Howard County were a trap all their own—the nearest cell towers were split between Polk City and Magma Springs, and they were early generation. There was no signal anywhere on this road. Certainly none on Hairpin Bridge. If you mean to hunt a wolf, you pick an area that’s advantageous to you. You don’t crawl face-first into its dark, dripping den and challenge it to a debate. That was Cambry’s first error—

  Lena, he corrected himself.
Lena’s error. He had to stop doing that.

  Hell, who brought more weapons to Hairpin Bridge today? His duty pistol was a Glock 19 with three spare mags. He had a Taser. Pepper spray. A .38 Special concealed on his ankle. And his big-boy gun, an AR-15 in the trunk. Even if you stripped all of the toys away, Ray was a big man, half protein shakes, built like a fridge. He could lift this tiny Asian girl in a one-handed suplex and smash her skull against the pavement. It wasn’t even a contest.

  What did Lena have? A tape recorder. How scary.

  Because it was a well-documented fact that Hairpin Bridge received no cell service, Ray knew it was impossible for Lena to be recording him on an internet-connected gadget. It was only that clunky-looking analog recorder he had to worry about, and it was only here. Six feet away.

  A recorder can be smashed.

  So really, he could confess to anything on it. He didn’t need to be so cautious. As long as he destroyed the recorder—alongside Lena’s body—he’d be fine.

  The problem was Lena.

  Not the little bitch herself, but the trail she’d leave. Even with all the fuss over the Briggs-Daniels fire, there were witnesses at Magma Springs who could pin her to him. Lena was clearly a bit of a loner, like Cambry before her, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d certainly told other people in her life—friends, roommates, family—what she’d planned. Where she was going. Who she was meeting. And perhaps why.

  A disappearance wouldn’t play well at all. He’d be suspect one. Again. How humiliating it was, to be on seven days of paid leave while some dick from Missoula rummages through your life. Not that his life was great now. His wife, Liza, refused to speak to him, which was honestly how he liked it. He hated looking at her. Every time he saw her, he swore he saw five new pounds of blubber jiggling on her upper arms or under her chin. So, best not to look at her.

  He considered turning back around and surprising Lena right now, grabbing her by her shoulders and pitching her over the bridge’s railing. He might be able to sell that. A tormented young woman decides to join her twin sister in death by committing suicide at the exact same site, stunning the hapless cop who brought her there. Gen Z and their avocado toast, huh? He liked the sound of it, but that was the problem. It was too neat. It wouldn’t withstand the scrutiny—

  “Ray?” she asked behind him. “Can we continue?”

  He didn’t look back. He couldn’t. Christ, he hated this girl. He hated the smug deadpan of her voice. He hated the way she was forcing his hand.

  He took another breath and decided: There would be no body. And he would craft an alibi later. Lena Nguyen would become one of the disappeared ones. As cutely poetic as it might be to hurl her smug ass off Hairpin Bridge and testify that she’d planned a suicide all along, it was simply too much. He had to be practical. Bodies make the news. Missing people don’t.

  Yes, he’d shoot her.

  Here and now. As Rodney Atkins says: If you’re going through hell, keep going.

  “Ray? Today, please?”

  He rested his palm on the checkered heel of his duty weapon. He breathed in again. Studied the smoky horizon. Feeling better now.

  He’d turn around and do her quickly. No explanation. He owed Lena that much. She may have ruined Ray’s day, she might’ve been the turd slapping into his cereal bowl to cap off a truly awful week, but it wasn’t her fault. She was reacting, just like him. She was a lost soul sent spinning by grief, and she’d landed in something she couldn’t possibly understand.

  And he had to marvel: The balls on her, to confront the wolf in its den.

  “You’re something,” he said. “You know that?”

  Behind him, Lena said nothing.

  “But you made a mistake,” he said, quietly popping the holster’s button with his thumb. “If it’s all true, and I’m really a murderer, and I killed Cambry in cold blood, then you’re a complete idiot for driving all the way out here with me, alone. And confronting me without a gun—”

  He was interrupted by a metallic snick.

  * * *

  Lena Nguyen held her 9-millimeter Beretta Px4 Storm in both knuckled hands, aimed squarely at Corporal Raycevic’s forehead. “That’s why I didn’t,” she said.

  He stared.

  His eyes goggled. His lips agape. Dumb, oafish surprise, like he’d just discovered his car had been towed. In his shattered world, this gun must have materialized impossibly out of thin air, instead of from Lena’s concealed waistband holster, where it had been all day.

  Loose-fitting clothes, for the win.

  For the past two hours, the pistol had been clamped to her lower back like an itchy tumor, clammy with sweat, and now it was finally in her hands, aimed at Raycevic.

  The cop’s palm was still frozen on his sidearm. Resting flat. The holster’s button unclasped by his thumb. This was dangerous.

  “Hands up,” she hissed.

  Still, he only stared back at her. Not defiant; just dumb. Pants-down disbelief. Maybe he’d forgotten he had his hand on a perfectly functional firearm. Or maybe he was just waiting for his chance.

  “Now, Ray.”

  Finally, he lifted both hands. Palms out.

  His department-issued Glock was Lena’s primary concern. With the holster unbuttoned, he could grab it and fire in under a second. She considered stepping in close and grabbing the pistol herself, but she’d be within his reach. Vulnerable to a counterattack. Raycevic had over a hundred pounds on her, and real combat in his muscle memory. Cops are trained to fight.

  She decided she’d make him do it, instead. “Clasp your hands together. Behind your head.”

  Grudgingly, he did.

  “Now turn around.”

  He did, his fingers interlocking behind his buzz cut. The dumbfounded stare had melted away into embarrassment. He was probably wishing he’d frisked her. How deeply humiliating it must be, being held at gunpoint by a twenty-four-year-old civilian.

  She considered—again—reaching for his Glock and grabbing while he was facing away from her. But it was still too risky. His biceps looked like fat pythons. For a big guy, he could move fast.

  Raycevic was too dangerous.

  “Get down,” she said. “On your knees.”

  “Are you going to shoot me?”

  “Not if you get down.”

  He wavered for a moment, looking out at the smoky brown horizon, as if drawing strength from it, and then he lowered to the concrete. With his hands still clasped together behind his head, he hit his kneecaps on the roadway painfully. Left, then right.

  Lena followed him down with the Beretta’s sights. Her index finger on the trigger. This, she knew, would be the most dangerous part.

  “Now, Ray,” she said in a monotone, “when I instruct, you will slowly lower your right hand toward your gun. You won’t turn around. You won’t look back at me. You will slowly lift your gun out between two pinched fingers, holding it like it’s a shitty diaper. And you’ll toss it off the bridge.” She crouched as she spoke, ten feet behind him in a careful marksman’s stance.

  Still kneeling, Raycevic seemed puzzled. “You’re not going to . . .”

  “What?”

  “You’re not going to take my gun?”

  “It’s a Glock.”

  “So?”

  “I hate Glocks.”

  “Seriously?”

  Lena fought a satisfied smirk. He’d made a lot of assumptions about her today, no doubt—and he sure as hell hadn’t figured her for a gun nut.

  The huge man sighed. He looked dizzy, nauseated. The tables had just turned on him so suddenly and violently. He was still disoriented by the power shift.

  Lena was ready. She placed the Beretta’s squared front sight center-mass, right on Raycevic’s spine. She locked her elbows in an isosceles shooting stance. The pad of her index finger gently touching the trigger. She squeezed the pistol tightly enough to imprint the weapon’s grip into her palms. A good, tight grip makes for a good, tight shot, as one of the instruction
al posters at Sharp Shooters said.

  A drop of sweat hit the pavement.

  She took a breath. Let it half out. “Now,” she said. “Slowly.”

  The kneeling cop’s right hand moved down toward his waist. He flipped the holster’s leather guard—already unbuttoned—in a smooth, instinctive motion—

  “Hey. Hey. Slower—”

  And he lifted the pistol by its heel, pinched between his index finger and thumb, exactly as ordered. It came up into view—a black, blocky thing, all right angles. Lena really did hate Glocks.

  “Now throw it.”

  Still facing away, he raised it and flicked his wrist. The pistol twirled over Hairpin Bridge’s guardrail and, after a few airy moments, lightly thumped two hundred feet below.

  Three seconds, Lena thought. She’d been counting.

  If Cambry was still conscious when Raycevic threw her off this bridge, she would have been alive for three full seconds of terrifying free fall.

  “Can I stand now?” he asked.

  “Nope.” She studied his belt. “Throw your Taser, too. And your pepper spray. And that baton-looking thing right there.”

  “For Christ’s sake—”

  “And your keys. Definitely your keys.”

  One item at a time, Corporal Raycevic’s state-issued gear vanished over the blistered guardrail and thumped down in the arroyo below. There was now only one firearm in play, and Lena controlled it—unless, of course, there was another in Raycevic’s patrol car. She hadn’t seen a rifle or shotgun mounted between the front seats, but there was the trunk to consider. This was why she’d asked him for his keys. They flew over the railing last of all, with a light jingle.

  “That was a big key ring.” Lena whistled. “Was one of those your house key?”

  “It was. Are you done yet?”

  “No. I’d like you to sing a song for me.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Do you know any Katy Perry?”

  “What you’ve just done is a felony,” the cop said. “I’m turning around.”

  “Fine.” Lena adjusted her grip on the Beretta. “But keep your hands up there, behind your head. And if you take a single step toward me, Ray, I swear to God, I will kill you.”