by Connie Mann
The seat belt jerked against her, and she heard glass shatter and felt wetness on her leg. Her head hit the side window as the car bounced once more.
Her world went black.
Chapter 11
“Ma’am, can you hear me? Ma’am? Are you OK?”
Cat fought against the banging in her head, tried to squeeze her eyes shut tighter, but she couldn’t make it stop. Someone shook her shoulder, and she tried to jerk away, but she couldn’t move. Something held her fast.
“Ma’am? EMS is on the way. Just hang on.”
She pried her eyes open and saw a worried young face. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t be sure. Her eyes slid closed, and he poked her shoulder again.
“Stay awake, ma’am. You need to stay awake. Can you tell me your name?”
The fog started to clear, and she glanced around. She looked at the boy again, realized he was wearing a uniform. Cop. Officer . . . somebody. “Cat. Um.” It was hard to form words, to think. Her head pounded like somebody was beating her with a big stick. Which name? “Johnson.”
She reached over, unclipped her seat belt, and almost fell forward. The cop reached in to steady her, and she winced. No airbags in Walt’s car. She must have hit the steering wheel.
She looked past the cop, tried to get her bearings, but everything felt fuzzy.
“What happened?”
“How much have you had to drink today, ma’am?”
She squinted at him. She’d wanted a drink. Badly. Was going to pull over and take just one tiny sip. Just one.
But then why was she in the ditch? Something didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t reason it out.
Another vehicle arrived with screaming sirens, and Cat put her hands over her ears. Once they turned it off, she lowered her hands again, saw several cuts on her leg.
“Ma’am, do you remember what happened? Were you drinking before you got in the car?”
She tried to think. She’d been at the marina, saying goodbye. Sad.
“I’m not sure.”
The cop disappeared, and another person took his place, swung the door open with gloved hands. He wrapped a brace around her neck. Then he reached in and brushed away some broken glass, crouched down so she could see him. “Can you climb out of the car?”
Her vision became clearer with every passing minute. She took in his blue shirt, his gloved hands, the pity in his eyes.
She nodded and he helped her out, a hand on her arm. Another EMT appeared beside him, and together they walked her up the embankment. She swayed a bit, and they steadied her.
“Let’s get you checked out,” the tall one said and motioned to a gurney.
Cat shook her head, which made her dizzy, and she clutched his hand. “I’m OK.” She didn’t want to go to a hospital. Couldn’t afford a hospital. She took off the brace, batted the hands away that tried to stop her.
There was something she had to do. Somewhere she had to go.
Go. Yes, she had to go. Details flitted just out of reach. She had to leave Safe Harbor, but she couldn’t quite remember why.
The officer reappeared in front of her, motioning to the yellow line. “Ma’am, could you walk along this line for me, please?”
She eyed him, and the line. What was that about? Nodding, she tried to do as he asked, but the dizziness didn’t let up, and she wobbled all over the place. After she’d gone a little way, he said, “Thank you. Let’s get you checked out.”
He led her to the EMTs, who insisted she sit on the gurney. They shone a light in her eyes and checked her head. “Ouch.”
“Sorry. You must have one very hard head, because even with glass in your hair and a good-size bump, the impact didn’t break the skin.”
Once they stopped poking and prodding, Cat leaned back, just for a moment, and let her eyes slide closed, their words swirling around her. “No signs of a concussion . . . pupils normal . . . broken tequila bottle . . . smells like a distillery . . .”
“Ma’am, let’s get you to the hospital, OK?”
Cat’s eyes opened as his words sunk in. “No, no hospital. Please.” She felt like she was shouting the words, but he leaned closer, as though he could barely hear her. “I’m fine.” She tried to sit up, but everything spun. She gripped the sides of the gurney. “Need to leave town.”
“Not just yet, ma’am. We need to take a ride to the station.”
“Why?”
“We have to do some paperwork. And you’re in no condition to get behind the wheel.”
“OK.” She let him lead her away and into the back seat of his patrol car. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t figure out what.
She dozed until the door opened again. She had a vague memory of being escorted out of the car, into a building, and down a hallway. Finally, finally, they let her sit down. She realized there was a bed and sank down onto it and fell asleep.
She didn’t hear the door swing shut or the lock click into place.
Nick walked into the station a couple of hours later to find JD talking animatedly to Wanda. “There was tequila all over the car and all over her. She must have been drinking while she drove.”
“Who was drinking?” Nick asked.
“Cat Johnson. Rolled her car into the culvert. Impact shattered the bottle and dented the driver’s side door.”
“How long ago was this?” Nick hadn’t left Cat more than two hours or so ago, and she hadn’t struck him as someone with an upcoming bender on her mind.
JD hitched his thumb toward the two cells in the back, down the hall. “Brought her in a while ago. She’s sleeping it off.”
“Why isn’t she in the hospital getting checked out?”
“She refused to go. Kept saying, ‘No hospital.’” He looked at Nick. “I tried to convince her.”
“What did the paramedics say when they checked her out?”
“That she was lucky. Some bruises from where she hit the steering wheel. The car doesn’t have airbags. No signs of a concussion.”
Something was off about this picture. “Run me through what happened, JD.”
“I was driving down CR 310 and saw a car down in the ditch, the roof a little dented but not too bad. When I got there, I saw her in the driver’s seat, wearing her seat belt, out cold. The driver’s side window was shattered, and there was a broken tequila bottle in the car. Glass and tequila everywhere. I tried to wake her up and called EMS to come check her out.”
“Did she say what happened?”
“She was pretty out of it.”
“Anything to indicate how she ended up there?”
He shrugged. “Seemed pretty obvious to me. She’d been drinking, lost control.”
“What about the car? Did you have it towed?”
“Not yet. But I’m about to.”
“Did you administer a Breathalyzer test? How far was she over the limit?” Maybe what happened to Teddy had gotten the best of her. But she didn’t strike him as the type to drink and drive. He shook his head. He really didn’t know what type she was, barely knew her at all, but drunk driving didn’t ring true to what little he knew.
JD fidgeted but didn’t say anything. Nick pierced him with a look. “JD?”
“I, ah, forgot.” When Nick started to protest, he held up his hand. “But I did a field sobriety test. I had her walk the yellow line, and she couldn’t do it, not even close.” He shrugged. “Because she refused to go to the hospital, and the EMTs didn’t think there was anything wrong with her besides being stinking drunk, I brought her here to sober up.”
Nick eyed the younger man. “Have the car towed to Cliff’s Garage and call me when it gets there.”
He didn’t wait for a response, just walked down the hallway to the cells. He found Cat curled up on the narrow bed, a thin blanket over her, dark hair covering her face. She was out like a light.
Cat woke with a start when she heard a door slam. Her eyes opened, and panic raced through her as she tried to figure out where she was. She
slowly sat up, winced at the pain in her head, and looked around.
She was in a cell.
She shook her head to clear it, but that proved a mistake, as the room spun and made her stomach churn. Think. A cell? How did she get here?
Slowly, the pieces started falling into place. She’d said goodbye to Mama and Pop and driven out of town. She remembered eyeing the tequila bottle, yearning for a drink, but she couldn’t summon a memory of taking a sip. She sniffed her shirt. She smelled like tequila, so maybe she wasn’t remembering right.
She leaned against the concrete block wall, shivered, then pulled the thin blanket around her shoulders. No, she couldn’t remember opening the bottle. Something wasn’t right. But it hurt to breathe.
A flash of white. Yes, a truck. It’d come up behind her. There was a loud pop, then the terrifying sensation of being upside down as the car rolled over and down into the drainage ditch.
She pulled her T-shirt away and looked down at her chest where ugly bruises were already forming. She must have hit the steering wheel.
She felt around her head for the source of the throbbing and winced when she touched a knot on the left side. Another flash of memory. Her head had hit the window as the car bounced.
Her brain still wasn’t working as fast as it should, but under the confusion was panic. She forced herself to calm down, let the pieces swirl before they settled. She knew logic would come if she waited just a bit.
If she’d been in a car accident, why wasn’t she in the hospital? Why was she in a cell?
A cell. Oh, dear Jesus. The panic returned, spurred by desperation. She had to get out of this cell. Out of Safe Harbor.
She stood up, swayed, then rushed to the bars at the front of the cell, gripping them with shaking fingers. “Hey, let me out. Is anybody there?” Her voice came out more of a squeak than a demand, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “Hello? Is anybody there? Let me out!”
Nick sat at his desk, drinking coffee that had gone cold long ago, the unease in his chest growing with every passing minute. He’d entered Cat’s driver’s license number into the computer and come up with an address in Tennessee. When he’d checked the address, it turned out to be an abandoned house.
He picked up the phone and called Walt Simms.
“Yeah? What?” he said when he answered.
“This is Officer Nick Stanton of the Safe Harbor Police Department. I need to ask you a couple of questions about Cat Johnson, aka Cat Walsh.”
There was a pause. “Where the heck is Safe Harbor?”
“It’s in Florida, a bit north of Tampa. Do you know Ms. Johnson, sir?”
“Sure. She’s a nice kid. Hard worker.”
“She says you lent her your car.”
This time the response was instant. “She says right. Happy to let her drive it awhile. I didn’t need it. Why are you calling? Is she OK?”
Instead of answering, Nick asked, “You said she’s a hard worker. Does she work for you?”
“She plays in a band with a couple guys. They have a regular gig here at the No Name Café. What’s wrong?”
“Ms. Johnson was in an accident this morning, but she’s fine. Is she a heavy drinker?”
“Glad to hear she’s OK.” Walt heaved out a sigh. “Cat hasn’t had a drop of alcohol in a long time. But she got some bad news the other day. Might have caused her to fall off the wagon.”
“What kind of news?”
“You’d have to ask her about that. I don’t tell tales out of school.”
“Have you known her a long time?”
“Long enough. She’s good people, Officer. The best. I know she’d give her last nickel to help a runaway get home.”
“Thanks for your time, Mr. Simms.”
“Give my best to Cat, will you?”
“I will. Have a nice day.”
Nick hung up and sat back in his chair. She hadn’t lied about the car, and chances were good she got paid under the table. And she had a drinking problem. Or she’d had one. He understood hiding in a bottle for a while when life completely sucker punched you in the gut. But had she been drinking today?
He decided to do a full background check. There were hundreds of Catharine Walshes, so he narrowed the search by age and area. He didn’t find anything under Catharine Johnson, so he figured she made that up when she first arrived in Safe Harbor. With the help of several official databases, he determined that she had no criminal record, at least none that he could find. He ran her social security number and found out she had no bank accounts, had filed no tax returns, had no property or loans or credit cards. On paper, Cat Walsh didn’t exist.
What was she hiding?
He heard her shouting from the cell area and pushed to his feet. He was about to find out.
When Nick walked through the door separating the cells from the rest of the police station, Cat was struck again by his air of command, his easy confidence. Tall and solidly built, Nick was not someone you wanted to mess with. But she’d seen the way he was with Blaze. He was also a protector. If he was on your side, the odds were in your favor.
Right now, she had to convince him to let her go. She had to leave town—preferably before he ran a background check on her and found out there wasn’t much.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the bars, annoyed that the room still had a tendency to spin. “You need to let me out of here. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Officer Dempsey says you failed the field sobriety test.”
“I wasn’t drinking. I hit my head and was a little dizzy.”
“Then why didn’t you let the EMTs take you to the hospital?”
“I don’t like hospitals. Besides, I’m fine now.” She indicated the lock. “So if you’d just let me go . . .”
“There was a broken tequila bottle in the car.”
She studied his dark eyes, decided to give him part of the truth. “Yes, I had a bottle with me—unopened. But I wasn’t drinking. I’d never drink and drive.”
“I spoke to Walt. He confirmed he lent you his car.”
“Didn’t believe me?”
“Let’s just call it being thorough. Walt said something happened recently that might have caused you to fall off the wagon—his words. Care to tell me about that?”
Cat shook her head. She was tempted. But . . . no. “That’s really none of your business, is it?”
“I’m making it my business.” His tone hardened.
Cat knew his type. He’d be like a bulldog. If she stalled on the small stuff, he’d go digging around, sure there was more. She couldn’t risk that. “A friend of mine died the other day. It hit me hard.”
“What did she die of?”
“A beating . . . and a drug overdose.”
“I’m sorry.” Nick leaned against the bars, facing her, his expression intent. “I did a background check on you, Ms. Walsh, and by all accounts, you’re a ghost. Or should I call you Ms. Johnson? There is no paper trail that I could find under either name. So either you live off the grid for some reason, or one of the names you gave me is fake. Which is it?”
The knot of panic in Cat’s belly grew. This is what she’d been afraid of. She couldn’t go back in time, so what now? “Look, Officer—”
“Just Nick is fine.”
She shrugged, gave him what she hoped was an endearing smile. “When I came to Safe Harbor years ago, I wanted a fresh start, so I said my name was Cathy Johnson. It seemed easier to just keep using it when I came back for the wedding, since that’s what people know me as. As for the other, I’ve moved around a lot. The music industry isn’t what you’d call nine to five, so it’s always just been easier to live on a cash basis. No paperwork to worry about, especially when I get to the next town or city.” She widened her smile. “No big mystery.”
When he raised an eyebrow, Cat wondered if that meant he believed her or if she’d laid it on too thick. But before she could respond, his cell phone rang.
He pulled
it out of the holster on his belt, checked the display. “I’ll be right back.”
He walked into the police station but didn’t shut the door all the way. Cat strained to hear his side of the conversation.
“Hey, Doc. I appreciate you putting a rush on this . . . Heart attack? You’re sure? . . . What about the toxicology report? . . . Interesting . . . Yes, definitely run the additional drug tests . . . I agree . . . Without an underlying cause, this still doesn’t give us the answers we need . . . Thanks, Doc. I appreciate it.”
When he returned, Cat tried to read his expression. “Teddy died of a heart attack?” She hadn’t meant to blurt out the question.
Nick looked from her to the door and back again. “You know I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.”
“But that was the coroner, right? Did he find any evidence of a prior heart condition?”
“I am not discussing this with you.”
“You need to let me go. You have no reason to hold me here. I haven’t done anything wrong.”
“I still have more questions.”
“I don’t need to be in here for you to ask them. Come on, this is crazy.”
He shoved a copy of the Gazette through the bars. “Nice picture of you playing at Eve’s wedding on page three. Don’t go anywhere.”
Cat almost dropped the paper at his words. No, oh no.
She sank onto the cot and flipped to the third page. Not only was the picture there, it was blown up so it easily took up a third of the page, with Cathy Johnson in bold type.
If her uncle hadn’t known she was in town before, he’d surely find out now. She’d always known he would keep tabs on Safe Harbor, since this was where Phillip had found her the night of her audition years ago. It was why she’d run.
Her heart pounded, and she leaned against the wall, trying to keep from hyperventilating. They’d find her and she’d die.
She’d accepted that. But she wouldn’t let them hurt her family.
Chapter 12
Cat was still shouting to let her out when Nick left the station and headed for Cliff’s Garage. He wanted a look at her car before he made any decisions.