by Lisa Jackson
“Was. No kids.”
“And he’s going to back us up? Our story?”
“I said it’s the truth, so remember that,” Jo-Beth stated coldly.
Reva took a sip of her drink. If she was to guess, she’d say that Jo-Beth had never gotten over Tyler Quade. “So, what did you talk about?” she asked casually.
“Nothing much. Just the fact that he was coming up here and confirming the truth.”
Reva didn’t believe it, but decided not to press her luck as Jo-Beth was starting to become more and more irritated. She twirled the ice in her glass, watching pieces of lime and mint swirl, but couldn’t just let the subject die, so she ventured, “I thought you and he, y’know, might end up together.”
She snorted. “No.”
“You were crazy about him.”
“He cheated,” she stated flatly, trying, it seemed, to keep her expression calm and neutral, but the tiny tic at the corner of her eye, barely discernable in the dim light of the bar, gave her away.
Reva pushed. “You would have done anything to be with him.”
She took a swallow from her glass. “I was young and dumb. We all were.”
“But you knew each other in high school.”
“Exactly. High school romance.” She lifted a shoulder. Sipped again. “Not real life. I figured it out.”
“When he nearly died?”
Jo-Beth’s cool snapped. “When he got another girl pregnant. Now, drop it. All of that’s ancient history.”
“Which we get to relive.”
“Right.”
“So you’re sure Tyler will stick with that—the story—that he never saw Monica that night?”
“It’s what happened,” Jo-Beth said tautly, as if the obvious lie were a no-brainer.
“What about the knife?”
“What knife?”
“The knife from the kitchen that I stole and gave to you and—”
“Oh. Tyler’s handling that. As far as you and I know, there was no knife.” Jo-Beth’s voice was cold as ice, her gaze hard, her lips flat, the tic going a mile a minute.
“But if the police have it?”
“If they have it, they’ve had it for years, right? And there hasn’t been a problem, has there? No fingerprints?”
“But now there’s DNA.”
“So what? As I said, Tyler’s handling the knife. I talked with him.” Jo-Beth’s face softened just a fraction. “Seriously, don’t worry about it. If the police ask about it, then you say that you knew nothing about it. Got it? Nothing.”
Reva was going to let that sleeping dog lie. For now. As some tinny country song played through speakers mounted in the ceiling, a football game being broadcast on one television, a baseball game on another, the video poker machines glowing in a row on a far wall, she drained her drink and lifted the empty glass, catching the waitress’s attention as she passed.
“Double?” The server held up two fingers and raised her eyebrows.
Reva nodded back.
“Since Tyler’s story is solid, then we’re good,” Jo-Beth said, frowning a little at the exchange.
“Almost.”
Across the booth, Jo-Beth’s eyes narrowed. She’d picked up her wineglass, but before it reached her lips, she stopped, held her drink midair. “What do you mean, ‘almost’?”
“I know Lucas Dalton is on the case—he’s a detective.”
“My guess is they’ll throw him off. Conflict of interest.”
“Great.” She let out a long breath. “Just effin’ great.”
“You want him on the case?”
“Hell, yeah.” She gathered her courage, wondered where the hell that second drink was. “He’s got as much to lose as the rest of us, and that other detective, Margaret Dobbs, she and I have a history.”
“And I take it that it’s not great.” Jo-Beth’s voice was clipped, her lips tight, but she stopped speaking as the waitress returned with Reva’s second drink, which would be, if you were counting, and Reva really wasn’t, four shots.
“Nope.”
The waitress removed the old glass, glanced at Jo-Beth, whose countenance was stony, then said, quickly, “Two guys over there, at the pool table, they’d like to buy you two a drink.”
Jo-Beth shot the two men an appraising look. Sipping from frosted mugs, holding pool cues in their free hands, the men, in their fifties in grungy jeans, beards, and T-shirts, were watching the conversation. “Tell them, ‘No, thanks,’” she said tightly. “We’re busy here and definitely not interested.” She gave a little shudder and muttered under her breath, “In their wet dreams. Looks like they’re only missing Tom.”
“What?”
“Don’t you recognize Dick and Hairy?” When Reva didn’t respond, Jo-Beth looked irked and said, “It’s a joke,” then swept on. “Never mind. I guess it was a piss-poor attempt at humor. It doesn’t matter anyway. What happened between you and Dobbs?”
Reva took another long drink, felt the alcohol warming her blood. “There was a car accident, and she must’ve been working in the valley at the time. It happened in Clackamas County, one of the back roads between Oregon City and Canby, and she was the investigating officer.”
“You were involved, I take it?”
“I was in the accident—two cars—as was Theo, who was my husband. We’d been married just a short while. He, um, didn’t make it, nor did the driver of the other vehicle. But her kid, five-year-old girl in a car seat, she survived with minor injuries and so did I.”
Jo-Beth glanced at the fresh mojito that Reva was sipping. “Who was driving?”
“Theo!” she shot back. Then more softly, “It was his fault. Swerved over the center line on a curve, both . . . both cars went spinning,” she added, remembering. “It was determined both cars were traveling over the speed limit and each ended up on the opposite side of the road, in brush. It . . . It was awful.” She recalled the crash, the twisting groan of metal, glass shattering and spraying, the world, in those few seconds, spinning wildly. She’d screamed as the SUV rolled down an embankment. Neither she nor Theo had been wearing seat belts . . . and Theo, dear, sweet Theo . . .
“You said Dobbs was the investigating officer?” Jo-Beth prompted.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“We’d been drinking. Theo . . . was over the limit.” Reva’s skin felt hot. She still tried to forget it, but in that last second before the crash, she had seen the child in the minivan, her little face full of fear and confusion at the sight of Theo’s careening SUV.
“Then I don’t understand,” Jo-Beth said. “So what?”
Reva took another belt as she contemplated just how much of the story she could reveal to Jo-Beth. “Dobbs was really pushing it with me. She, uh, she seemed to think there was something fishy about the accident.”
“Fishy?”
“She kept asking me where we had the drinks, how many each of us had, why did I let Theo get behind the wheel. You know. Cop stuff.”
“That’s what happens and you’d better be ready for it now,” Jo-Beth said. “Just keep to the story. It’s what happened.”
“Dobbs isn’t easily fooled.”
Jo-Beth pushed her wineglass aside and leaned over the table. “Is that what you did, Reva? What you’re still doing? Trying to fool a police officer?”
“No, no, but—”
“Then you don’t have to worry. You didn’t lie then and you’re not lying now.” She checked her watch. “Look. It’s time to go. Stay strong. On point.” She motioned to the waitress. “Check please. We’re done here.” Standing, she added, “You might want to leave the drink, Reva. We still have a few miles to go and it probably wouldn’t be smart to get involved in another accident.” The waitress walked up and slipped a bill onto the table. Jo-Beth gave it a cursory glance and rather than use a credit card, peeled a couple of bills from her wallet. “Keep the change,” she said. Then to Reva, “Let’s go.”
The men at the nearby
table gave them each a long look and seemed about to say something, but the hard glare Reva sent their way stopped them cold, and a few seconds later she and Jo-Beth were making their way to their cars.
She climbed into her Toyota, tossed back a handful of the Tic-Tac mints she kept in her console, just in case she got pulled over, and wheeled out of the lot behind Jo-Beth’s Mercedes.
She tried to concentrate on driving, on keeping up with Jo-Beth, but maintaining a safe distance behind. She snorted at the thought. Wasn’t that how she’d always played it? One step behind the ringleader, always in the army, but never leading the charge?
And how has that worked out for you? Huh?
Glancing in the rearview, she caught her own gaze, saw the hard lines of her visage. She’d have to be careful or all of the pain and anger of her life would start showing up in the set of her jaw, the wrinkles around her mouth, the fearful, almost feral, glimmer in her eyes.
She thought of returning to Averille, and not only facing Lucas Dalton as a detective, but also that freaking Maggie Dobbs. Why the hell did it have to be Dobbs?
Because, Reva, your past always catches up to you.
Isn’t that what her grandmother, her abuela Maria, had told her? “You remember that God sees everything,” the old woman had reminded her when she’d caught Reva attempting to ditch catechism once. “Trust me. The past always catches up with you. Now go on. Back into the church. To confession.” And with steely, wrinkled fingers digging into Reva’s shoulders, she’d marched her up the steps of the church and said, “Talk to Father Matthew and do whatever penance he sees fit.” With that, she’d opened one of the heavy wooden doors with one hand and pushed her granddaughter into the darkened apse, where, swallowing hard, Reva had passed the table filled with flickering votives and made her way to the confessional.
If Abuela Maria could only see her now. Taking her right hand from the steering wheel for just a second, she sketched the sign of the cross over her chest and wished to high heaven she could avoid the woman detective.
Dobbs would remember Reva Mercado Vicari.
And all of Jo-Beth’s assurances that she wouldn’t be lying would be out the window. Biting her lip, she followed Jo-Beth’s sleek car past the city limits, heading steadily south, past an RV park, and a fruit stand, beyond the on-ramp to Highway 26, and steadily south along the jagged coast. But she was driving by rote, remembering another time when she’d been at the wheel, Theo in the passenger seat. She’d been buzzed, not really drunk, but feeling good after an afternoon of wine tasting. Theo, as usual, had been too drunk to drive, as he’d topped off the wine with two martinis. “You handle it, babe,” he’d said, and had climbed into the passenger side of their older Ford Explorer. She had tried to be careful, had only sipped at her wine, she thought, cognizant of the fact that she was pregnant. She’d known she shouldn’t drink anything, but she’d been trying to work up the courage to tell Theo about the baby. She was barely pregnant, after all, and booze was probably the reason she’d gotten herself into this mess in the first place.
It had happened in the week that she and Theo had broken up and she’d gone out on the town, hooked up with an old boyfriend, and . . . wouldn’t ya know? Then, Theo had come back to her and since she was married to him and the boyfriend was a bad-boy loser, she’d slipped on her wedding ring never to take it off again.
So she’d driven that day and the skies had opened, rain pouring from the heavens, water shimmering on the road, the wipers unable to keep up with the torrent. She probably should have pulled over, waited out the storm, but in Oregon that could be hours, so she’d kept driving in the darkness of late afternoon in winter, twilight really. She’d thought she’d spied a deer at the side of the road, ready to leap onto the shiny asphalt in front of her. She’d swerved slightly as she’d rounded the corner, hitting her brakes just as the oncoming headlights flashed in her eyes. A woman driver. Kid in the back, in a car seat placed in the middle of the vehicle.
The minivan had been close.
Too close.
“Move over!” Reva had yelled, and saw terror in the little kid’s eyes.
“Huh?” Theo, slumped against the passenger door, had opened a bleary eye.
“Not you! That idiot!” she’d screamed, even though it had registered that her vehicle had careened over the center line at the corner, placing her SUV in the path of the oncoming minivan. She’d stood on the brakes, tires screaming, the SUV sliding wildly, her gaze locking with that of the child at the moment of impact!
BAM!
With a sickening crunch of metal, the vehicles had collided. Glass shattered. Steel had twisted and groaned. Tires had exploded. The SUV had reeled wildly, Reva seeing for a nanosecond the look of sheer terror in the girl’s eyes. As the Explorer shuddered and spun, crunching metal, someone’s screams filling the air, she’d been flung through the windshield, pain screaming through her body.
She’d come to, seconds later, dazed, bloody, but with the horrendous knowledge that the accident was her fault. Theo, too, had been flung from the Explorer, his body crumpled against a tree. She crawled to him to find no pulse, no signs of life in his broken form.
Touching his neck, feeling the blood warm against her fingers, she’d been sobbing hysterically when, clear as a bell, she’d heard his voice, as if he were still with her, still alive.
“Babe, you have to save yourself and the baby. You can’t go to jail for this. Tell them I was behind the wheel. For me, it doesn’t matter. Do it. Now. Why punish yourself? Why punish the baby? Love you . . .”
With his words as her impetus, she’d used all of her strength and with supreme effort, had gone back to the SUV and forced the driver’s seat back, as if someone with longer legs than hers had been driving. With the dirty napkin from Starbucks she’d found wedged in the seat as rain had pelted her from the leaden clouds overhead, she’d wiped down the steering wheel.
Only then had she turned her attention to the other vehicle, on the far side of the road. The driver had been slumped over the steering wheel, the air bag deployed around her. Staggering and limping, Reva, still dazed, had started across the road. Vaguely, her head still echoing from the impact, her limbs seeming detached, she’d stepped onto the wet pavement and thought she’d heard something over the hiss of the rain and the splattering of raindrops peppering the asphalt.
An engine? Is that the rumble of a big engine?
She’d stopped, turned slowly, and seen, coming around the curve, the headlights of a vehicle, beams cutting through the curtain of rain. Squinting, holding her arm up against the bright lights, she’d teetered, then seen the old pickup slide, brakes shrieking as the driver had narrowly missed her and slid to a stop barely ten feet away.
He’d been out of his truck in an instant, a farmer in bib overalls, his pallor white beneath a day’s growth of beard, rain beating down on his baseball cap.
“Holy Mother of God!” he’d cried. “What the hell happened here?” Quickly sizing up the situation, he’d seen that Reva, feeling a warmth ooze down her legs, had been about ready to collapse. “Oh, geez, honey,” he’d said, and had caught her just before she fell and passed out. The next thing she knew she awoke in the hospital to the news that Theo and the driver of the other vehicle had died at the scene. The little girl had survived, thankfully, as had she, though she’d lost the baby. Maybe that had been for the best.
Now, as she drove by rote, following the glowing taillights of Jo-Beth’s Mercedes, she remembered the next few months, recovering, dealing with the grief of losing Theo and the accusatory looks she’d received from his sister. And the baby . . . even now, her heart split at the memory of losing it.
She swallowed hard and tried to pay attention to keeping her Camry on the road. She didn’t look forward to dealing with Dobbs again. There was little doubt in her mind that the officer who had left a message for her on her voice mail, “Detective Margaret Dobbs” from the Neahkahnie County Sheriff ’s Department, was one and
the same as Deputy Margaret Dobbs of the Clackamas County Sheriff ’s Department a few years back. She had been a snippy little investigator who had looked at her intently with disbelieving eyes, who had seen beyond the new widow and woman who had miscarried her first child. After listening to the voice mail, Reva had Googled the detective. Sure enough, one and the same.
Reva hadn’t returned the detective’s call.
Didn’t want to talk to her.
Now, of course, it seemed inevitable.
She would see the woman face-to-face.
Steeling herself, she saw the familiar peekaboo view of the ocean through the trees as she approached the outskirts of Averille. Oh. God. Somehow, she had to get herself together and make sure that all of her ducks were in a row, even if they were really just decoys.
CHAPTER 23
Camp Horseshoe
Then
Annette
With Bernadette only a few steps behind, Annette reached the cavern. Hearing voices echoing from within, she slipped through the cave-like entrance. Inside, tiny flashlights gave the wet interior walls a bluish glow, and a group of girls were huddled near the small tide pool beneath the high, rocky ceiling. A stream, merely a rivulet now, wandered in from a crack in the sea wall, allowing water to filter into the grotto and pool near the center of the cavern.
Annette had thought they were late, that the “meeting” Jo-Beth had called would be in full swing. However, that wasn’t the case. The group was small; not only were Jo-Beth and Reva missing, Monica hadn’t yet joined them and, of course, they were missing Elle, her disappearance the very reason they’d gathered.
“Where is everyone?” Bernadette asked over the roar of the surf. Though the tide was out, the pounding of the ocean on the shore echoed through the cavern.
“Good question!” Sosi, in a gray University of Oregon hoodie, was shaking her head. “You’d think Jo-Beth would have been the first one here. I mean, this was all her idea, right, and it’s nuts. I don’t even know why I decided to come here. We all shouldn’t be away from the girls.”
“We all aren’t,” Jayla said. “Mother Naomi is in Elle’s cabin and then there’s Nell. Jo-Beth intentionally left her out as she didn’t know Nell all that well and there needed to be at least one counselor at the camp.”