End of the Line_Maple Syrup Mysteries

by Emily James

  Now came the moment of truth. Mark would have to ask him directly for the file. If Grady were involved in the corruption scheme, he’d know we were too close to be allowed to continue. I tried to watch him without making it obvious I was watching him.

  Mark shoved his gloveless hands in his pockets, and I tamped down on a cringe.

  Don’t go all Oliver Twist asking for seconds now, I silently coached him. He needs to see you as an equal.

  “I am, but Chief McTavish asked me to look into something for him. I think the file he gave me could have something to do with his disappearance and what happened to Troy. If I can get that file back and examine it, I’m hoping I can figure out what.”

  Grady Scherwin crossed his beefy arms over his chest. “You wouldn’t be asking me for help if you could get the file some other way. That makes me think the detective doesn’t want you to have it.”

  “We didn’t ask him.” Mark shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “But you’re right. He probably wouldn’t have given me the file if I had.”

  Headlights streamed across us, and I barely stopped myself from instinctively turning my face away like I had something to hide. Sheila climbed out of the newly arrived car. The way she ducked her own head told me she’d seen me, but was trying to pretend like she hadn’t so she didn’t have to come over and say hello.

  Grady’s gaze shifted slightly in her direction. “My shift’s about to start.”

  I had to do something before he not only walked away, but also went straight to Detective Dillion and told him what we were up to.

  I moved in close to Mark, my body angled slightly away from Grady. “Come on,” I said in a whisper I was sure was loud enough for Grady to still catch. “I told you he wouldn’t care about trying to get Chief McTavish back.”

  The look he gave me was the facial equivalent of flipping me the middle finger. “I’m the only one around here who seems to think the chief’s still alive. I’ve been going door-to-door on my own time, trying to find leads.”

  That warm little bubble in my chest tried to expand. It showed a lot of loyalty if he were telling the truth. It also showed me the button to push.

  I replied with a yeah, right look. “If that was true, you’d help us.”

  Grady very deliberately turned his focus from me to Mark, as if by ignoring me he could make me disappear. “I’ll help, but I want something in return.”

  Such a caring altruist, I felt like saying. Instead, I bit the inside of my cheek to keep quiet.

  “Like what?” There was enough wariness to Mark’s voice to let Grady know it wasn’t a lock. Mark wasn’t desperate enough to give him anything. There’d still be limits.

  “I’m going to be doing you a favor,” Grady said. “I want a favor.”

  Mark’s arms straightened by his sides, like his elbows locked on him. “What kind of a favor?”

  “Not from you.” He swung his gaze in my direction. “From her. Sometime when I need it.”

  That growing warm bubble popped, leaving a dark gap in its place. He wanted to know he had me in his debt, whether as payback or ego. Jerk.

  But it didn’t matter. We needed that file. “As long as it’s within legal and moral boundaries, I’ll owe you one.”

  The words tasted bitter and gritty coming out.

  Mark explained to Grady what he was looking for.

  Grady hooked a thumb in the direction of our car. “I’ll bring the file to you.”

  Another car pulled in as we parted ways. Mark and I kept our pace easy and slow like we weren’t worried about being seen.

  “Thank you,” he whispered. “I know that couldn’t have been easy.”

  Promising hadn’t been as bad as fulfilling would be when the urgency had passed and I had to deal with Grady Scherwin holding it over my head that I owed him.

  Mark and I climbed back into the car, and I started it to keep us warm. Snow drifted down in heavy flakes, looking like diamonds in the halos of light cast around the street lamps.

  Sitting here with Mark would be almost romantic if it weren’t for why we were here. It was the kind of night where the snow would continue to get heavier, and the best place to be was somewhere safe and warm with hot chocolate, watching it fall.

  Ten minutes passed with two more people arriving. Finally, the door of the station opened and two men came out. The rollover belly gave Grady away, but I couldn’t identify the other man.

  If he’d betrayed us to Detective Dillion…

  They moved under a street light, and Henry’s profile came into view. He raised a hand in goodbye and parted from Grady.

  Another uniformed officer came out of the door shortly after them. We couldn’t have picked a busier place to conduct a transaction we wanted to keep secret if we’d picked the main terminal at a major airport.

  Grady strode straight for us. I rolled down the window.

  He handed me a sheaf of papers. “I wasn’t going to take the original. I photocopied it for you.”

  “Everything okay here?” a man’s voice said from behind Grady.

  Brandon Rigman stepped up beside Grady into that I’m-here-if-you-need-me distance. Close enough he could have easily seen that Grady handed me something. I dropped the papers down between the door and my seat and brought both hands up to the edge of the window. Hopefully, if he had thought he saw Grady give me papers, he’d think he’d been mistaken when he saw my empty hands. Though it made for an awkward looking posture from me.

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” Grady stepped back away from the car. “Mark accidentally left his belt behind when he checked out his personal items earlier today. I told him I’d look for it.”

  The man was a good liar. Granted, many police officers were since they often had to lie to criminals, but it didn’t instill confidence in me that he wasn’t playing us. He could still be the guy. If he wasn’t, Rigman was.

  And now they both might know we had the file.

  I held my breath until Rigman and Grady walked away, going their separate directions, and I pulled out of the Fair Haven police department parking lot.

  Mark looked down at his chest. “I’m going to need more clothes.”

  The regret in his voice made me think he didn’t want to go back to his house for them. I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want to return there, either, even after the crime scene clean-up team did their work. But he hadn’t brought anything with him to Elise and Erik’s house because the police hadn’t allowed him to remove anything from his home. Thankfully, he’d already moved a lot of his belongings into my place in preparation for our wedding.

  “We can go to my house to get some of the clothes from there, and then I’ll bring you back to Elise’s.”

  “Have I told you lately that I love you?”

  He had, but I had a feeling I’d never get tired of hearing it.

  I changed my signal light, and instead of turning right and heading directly for Elise and Erik’s, I took the right turn onto the gravel road leading to Sugarwood.

  The dark-colored car behind me made the right turn as well even though it’d been signaling to go left.

  My heart felt like it hit the bottom of my throat and then tumbled down into my stomach.

  “I’m trying not to be paranoid and panicky.” My voice said the opposite of my words. “But I think we’re being followed.”

  19

  What?” Mark twisted in his seat and looked out the back window. “Are you sure?”

  I explained to him what I’d seen. “It must be Grady Scherwin. The car could be an unmarked police cruiser.”

  “Grady wouldn’t have a reason to follow us. He knows what we have and why we have it. It’s more likely Rigman.”

  “What would Rigman gain from following us?” Oh crap. There was another option for who it could be. “It might be Isabel’s husband.”

  Mark was still watching the car behind us. “Isabel our cupcake designer?”

  A lot had happened while he was in
jail and I couldn’t talk to him. I caught him up as quickly as I could. “If he’s the one following us, he’s trying to find out where Isabel is hiding. I can’t lead him back to my house.”

  Mark groaned. “Let’s take care of two problems at once. Make the next turn. I’ll watch to see if the car continues to follow us, and we’ll be heading away from Sugarwood just in case it is Isabel’s husband.”

  I slowed to take the turn. My car fishtailed slightly on the snow-covered road despite my caution. The car behind gained on us.

  I made the turn and accelerated again. Trees bordered the left side of the road, and a deep ditch lined the right. Even with the bright moonlight, I could barely make out the shoulders of the road under the snow.

  Hopefully Mark knew where this road would take us because I didn’t. I hadn’t had a reason to travel the back roads in this direction before now.

  “Still there,” Mark said.

  I glanced in my rearview mirror. Still there and getting closer. Whoever it was didn’t seem to care anymore if we knew he was following us.

  That couldn’t mean anything good.

  My heart felt like it was pounding too high in my chest. “Maybe you should call the police.”

  Mark reached into his jacket pockets, then patted the pockets of his jeans. “I left my phone in the plastic bag on your counter with my wallet and everything else.” His voice sounded hollow. “I thought we’d head straight back after grabbing the file from my place.”

  The car tailgated us now. I picked up my speed slightly. In the moonlight, I couldn’t see the driver clearly enough to tell who it was. I wasn’t even sure if it was a man or a woman.

  I tried to watch the car in the rearview mirror while still watching the road. The car drew closer, and its front lights disappeared from my view. Almost like it was going to—

  The driver hit my car like we were two bumper cars at a carnival. My car jumped forward and skidded to the side. My hands clenched around the wheel, fighting the drag. My foot wanted to slam on the brakes, but I could hear Erik’s voice in my head during our winter driving lessons, telling me not to touch my brakes if I was sliding.

  I straightened the car out and hit the gas, aiming down the middle of the road to give myself the biggest cushion between the trees and the ditch, praying we wouldn’t meet any cars driving in the other direction.

  Our only hope was to outrun him. I didn’t know much about cars, but I knew mine had great acceleration when I went to pass another vehicle on the highway.

  “Where’s your phone?” There was a frantic note to Mark’s voice, but I could barely hear him over the blood pounding in my head.

  I didn’t dare take my gaze off the road to look at him. “In my purse. In the back seat.”

  I caught movement in my peripheral vision.

  “I can’t reach it without unbuckling,” Mark said.

  In the mirror, the car gained on us again. I couldn’t go any faster or I’d lose control of my car without his help.

  “Don’t unbuckle.” It came out as a half-scream. I swallowed hard. If this was Isabel’s husband, it was no wonder she’d run and was terrified of him finding her. “The lunatic’s going to ram us again any second.”

  Instead of crashing into us from behind, he inched up alongside my left fender.

  “We need backup,” Mark said. “I have to try to reach it.”

  We did need help, but if whoever this was wrapped us around a tree or crashed us into the ditch, Mark needed to have his seatbelt on more. It was his only chance of surviving. “I’ll try to sync the Bluetooth. Siri, turn on—”

  The dark car hit us. Metal screeched, and we were spinning. A scream filled my ears—too high-pitched to belong to Mark.

  And then we were falling.

  20

  The next thing I remembered, I was dangling, suspended by my seatbelt, my arms partly hanging beneath me, partly resting on a nylon material covered in a white powder. Deployed airbag?

  My whole body had a flu-like ache to it, and the right side of my face throbbed. Except my feet. They felt wet and so cold they hurt almost more than the rest of me combined.

  Where were we? My mind struggled to focus and figure out what was going on.

  The chase and crash came back in bits and pieces.

  We had to be nose-down in the ditch. That also meant my feet felt like an amateur acupuncturist was practicing on them because the front of my car sat in water. Thank the Lord we weren’t completely upside-down or Mark and I would have drowned by now.

  “Mark?” My voice croaked out.

  No answer.

  I gingerly turned my head.

  He hung next to me, his airbag also deployed. Now I was extra grateful he hadn’t taken his seatbelt off to reach for my phone.

  “Mark? Are you okay?”

  No movement.

  My chest suddenly felt like I was on a planet with double earth’s gravity. I couldn’t get enough air in. Dear God, please let him not be dead.

  I stretched my arm out as far as I could and touched his lips. Warm breath kissed my fingers. At least he was still breathing.

  Tears pressed against my eyes, but I couldn’t cry now. Mark needed medical help. I probably did too. With all the adrenaline coursing through me, I could have a broken bone and not know it.

  Besides, the person who ran us off the road might still be out there, waiting to see if we’d survived and finish us off if we had.

  Even if he wasn’t, we couldn’t stay hanging here. Isabel would eventually worry about me when I didn’t come home, but that could be hours from now, and she wouldn’t know who to call. She might be too afraid to call the police, and she didn’t have Elise or Mark’s mom’s phone number.

  If she did manage to convince people to look for us, they wouldn’t look here. This wasn’t a road we normally traveled. My car might not even be visible from the road. The ditch was probably ten to twelve feet deep.

  We couldn’t survive the night out here with our feet swimming around in sub-zero water. I couldn’t even turn on my car to warm us up. It’d stopped running sometime during the crash. Assuming it would even start at this point, it might not be safe to try. It might have a fuel leak.

  Tony at Quantum Mechanics should give me a bulk discount for all the business I brought him. I’d need it with how my insurance rates were sure to go up. This car wasn’t even a year old.

  Focus. I had to focus. I couldn’t let my panic-brain lead me down unimportant rabbit trails.

  Right before the crash, I’d been trying to call for help. That still seemed like the smartest move.

  The problem was I couldn’t use Bluetooth anymore. With my car off, my phone wouldn’t connect. I’d have to find my phone and make the call manually. Which all depended on my phone not being underneath the water flooding the front of my car. And on me being able to get out of my seatbelt without breaking something or tipping the car over.

  Take one thing at a time, as my mom would say.

  “Siri, can you hear me?” I felt a little silly talking to my phone. I’d never used the voice interface for anything other than turning on Bluetooth before.

  “I’m sorry,” an automated woman’s voice replied. “I didn’t catch that.”

  Thank God. My phone was still above water.

  It’d sounded like it’d come from directly behind me. On top of me, really. My purse could be balanced on the back of my seat.

  I reached around above me, but I couldn’t get my fingers far beyond the edge of my seat. I wasn’t going to be able to reach my purse while buckled in.

  Mark groaned beside me. “What happened?”

  His voice was weak, but his words were clear. Hopefully that meant he didn’t have a serious head injury.

  “Stay still. We’re in a ditch. I’m trying to get my phone.”

  Mark groaned again, but it had a different tone to it. “I was hoping that was a nightmare. Is he still out there?”

  “No way to tell.”

>   I had the uncomfortable suspicion that he was, but that he’d rather leave this looking like an accident. If we died in this ditch, no one would suspect it was anything other than a tragic accident. My unfortunate accident history would play right into it.

  I had to get my phone before he decided to check. With the kind of accident we’d had, the medical examiner who did our autopsies might not spot the difference between crash injuries and the crowbar that finished us off.

  I couldn’t simply release my seatbelt. I’d smash down into my steering wheel and probably break my ribs. My upper body wasn’t strong enough to support me and prevent a fall, even if I hadn’t needed one hand to release the seatbelt.

  Maybe I could get my knees up so I could balance on the steering wheel while I released the belt.

  I pulled up one knee, but I hit the steering wheel. It wasn’t going to fit in the space between the seat and the wheel. Maybe I could swing my leg around the wheel.

  I braced my hands against the wheel and swung my knee out to the side.

  Something swished against my leg in the water. I lowered my leg and glanced down. Paper?

  Oh no. I’d slid the photocopy of the file Grady gave us next to my seat. It must have come loose in the crash.

  It wasn’t even like the water was clean. After soaking in muddy ditch water, it’d be unreadable.

  Though if we didn’t survive, it wouldn’t matter.

  I drew my knee up beside the wheel again. This would be easier if I did yoga instead of riding a bike. Then I’d be flexible with lean legs.

  I wriggled around, but I couldn’t get it into position. It wasn’t going to work. The positioning of the wheel, the seat, and my body wouldn’t allow me to bring my legs into a position to help support me at all.

  I tried to relax and think, but the seatbelt cut into my skin. Each breath seemed to take a bit more effort than the one before, with all my weight hanging off my waist and chest.

  I had to think. My phone couldn’t make a call through my car with the car turned off. Maybe I could still send a text using my voice. I hadn’t tried it before, and no one I knew regularly used the feature. But my phone could do it, couldn’t it? I thought I’d seen it on a commercial.