“It’s over. Drop the gun. He’s alive but hurt badly. You still have a chance to make this right.”
Jake was shaking his head, nearly hyperventilating. “You and I are getting in your car. Come on.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
Jake pointed the gun at my head. “I’m not going back to prison. I’ll kill you and shoot him again and then myself. Get in the car now. In the driver’s seat. Do it, and if we get far enough away, I might let you live.”
“Go,” Finn whispered. I had to lean forward to hear his next words. “Keep the clock ticking, Gem.”
He passed out and I knew his last words had been right. As long as I kept moving Jake forward, as long as we just kept moving, I had a chance.
* * *
“Why did you do it?”
I had to know and, at this point, Jake had nothing to lose by telling me. We were twenty miles outside of Cedar Valley. It had taken every ounce of willpower I had to stand up and leave Finn on the ground, bleeding, possibly dying.
The only thing that had gotten me into the driver’s seat of my car was the gun held firmly against my head.
Jake said “Drive,” and so I drove. I headed north on the highway, going ten miles above the speed limit per his instructions. My gas tank was nearly empty and, when I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw a smear of blood on my cheek and the eyes of a woman I didn’t recognize.
“Do what?” he asked. He rested the gun in his lap, pointed up at my chest, nervously looking out the window, checking behind us. But there was nothing: no sirens, no lights, no indication that help was on the way. Only a green blur as we sped past the trees and a hollow sense that I should have hugged Grace a little longer that morning.
Another semitruck thundered by, one of the dozens of vehicles that had passed us in the last fifteen minutes.
“Why did you kill Sari Chesney?”
Jake sighed. “It was an accident. A stupid accident. It’s Ally’s fault. I liked her, okay? I liked Ally, and she was such a bitch. I kept complimenting her, offering to do nice things like rub her back, get her more water. I knew she didn’t feel well. But she just kept getting meaner and meaner. We were sharing a tent and when we finally went to bed, I crawled in and made a joke, or something, about how someone was getting laid. I meant Mac, but Ally must have thought I was going to attack her. She said if I spoke to her again or touched her she would have me arrested.”
“And you couldn’t have that, could you?” I asked. “Not with your record. Your parole officer would have had a fit.”
“Mac had mentioned my arrest. She knew all about it and took advantage of that.”
I glanced over and saw Jake’s face sour.
He kept talking. “I curled up in my sleeping bag and moved as far away from her in the tent as I possibly could. When I woke up, it was dark. I climbed out and took a leak. Then I sat by the water, staring at it. It was beautiful. The lake was so black, with these spots of ice that kind of glowed in the moonlight. The air was cold, and I’d never seen so many stars in the sky. I felt so lonely. Then who should appear but Miss High and Mighty Herself, Ally. She didn’t see me. She went in the woods, to pee I think, then came out and stared out at the water. And I … I was still pissed off at her, you know? So I decided to scare her. I wanted to see her upset, just for a minute or two. I snuck up on her. I tried to be quiet, but she heard me and freaked out. I mean, really freaked out. She ran away, but her shoelaces weren’t tied. She tripped and fell. I heard her hit her head and, from the sound of it, knew it was bad. I got to her and she was facedown and not moving. When I rolled her over, that’s when I saw.”
“Saw what?” I asked.
“That it was Sari and not Ally. And that she was dead.”
Stunned, I drew in a breath. “Did you feel for a pulse? How did you know she was dead?”
“It was obvious,” Jake said. “She was gone. The wound on her head, it was bad. There was a lot of blood. Her eyes were half open. I just knew. I panicked. All I could think about was being sent back to prison.”
“What did you do next?”
“I rolled her back over and dragged her to the water. Then I pushed her body in and out, toward the middle of the lake. I waited until I saw her start to sink, then I went back to where she’d hit her head. With the light of my cell phone, I scooped up all the dirt and leaves with blood on them and then dumped them in the lake, too. Then I wiped out the drag marks with my feet, which was easy since it was so muddy. The last thing I did was pull down her backpack from the bear line and remove her wallet and cell phone. I saw that once, on a mystery show, where the bad guy hid his old lady’s car keys and wallet. It screwed up the investigation and he ended up getting away. Anyway, then I crawled back into the tent. I lay there, sick to my stomach, until I heard Mac shouting Sari’s name,” Jake said. His voice took on a whining quality. “You have to understand, this was an accident. It’s Ally’s fault. She’s a bitch, just like the rest of your whole sorry sex. But I am sorry.”
“I don’t think you’re sorry at all.” I risked another glance at him. He didn’t look good; it was as though shooting Finn had triggered something in Jake akin to shock.
“You don’t understand. I wasn’t … I was sick. Things happened so fast. It was all so fast. I would give anything to take it back. What was she doing, anyway, sneaking around in the dark like that? She probably would have tripped over that damn log even if I hadn’t frightened her. It’s like a bad dream I can’t wake up from.”
I was tired of hearing Jake’s excuses, and it was unacceptable for him to attempt to shift any blame to Sari. I swallowed hard. He needed to understand the full scope of what he’d done, but that didn’t make it any easier to say what needed to be said.
“Jake, Sari was alive when she went into the water. She didn’t die from her head wound. She drowned. The head injury? That was survivable. You could have saved her. Instead, you killed her.”
“No. That’s not possible. She was dead.”
“She wasn’t, Jake.”
I glanced at him again and watched as anger darkened his face. Anger at the cards he’d been dealt, anger at his whole life, the way everything seemed to turn to dirt for him. Then he laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
He snorted, on the edge of hysteria. “All of it. It’s a fucking Shakespearian tragedy, is what it is.”
“And Betty Starbuck? How did she play into this?”
“I went out drinking that night, the night of the gala. I was so depressed about what I’d done. Mac was at work, and I couldn’t be alone with my thoughts. Around ten p.m., all these rich people started pouring into the bars. A few of them were talking about the big party at the museum. I recognized Betty Starbuck’s name; Sari had been bitching about her boss at the campsite. These people, they were talking about a diary that had been stolen from the museum. They all seemed to blame Betty Starbuck for its disappearance.
“Look, I was nearly drunk by then. I thought Sari’s body would never be found, you know? That it would decay in the water or whatever. I figured if I went to the museum and made it look like Sari had been there it would throw you all off track. I didn’t know what I was going to do once I got there, I swear. But I took my beer and strolled over and waited until I saw this old lady and a security guard at the front door. They were talking, looking at something on the front lawn, and while their backs were turned I snuck in. It was that easy. Everyone was gone. Then all of a sudden the lady came back in! I hid behind a curtain and watched her set an alarm on a panel near the door. And I knew I was fucked. I hadn’t counted on being locked in the goddamn museum. Thank god I had my beer. Anyway, I poked around and then I found Starbuck’s office. It was unlocked. I went in and started trashing it. Then the old lady came back! Again! She walked in with a bag of food, and she started screaming. You have to believe me, I never meant to hurt her, either. But she wouldn’t shut up.”
I felt sick to my stomach. Two women dead be
cause of one man’s terrible, awful decisions. “So you strangled her and then made your cousin Nicole lie for you.”
“The old lady got this look in her eyes. It wasn’t fear. It was rage. It scared me, and I stopped choking her. Then she started screaming again. She called me pathetic, a loser, a thug. I couldn’t take it. I hit her in the head with a statue and then finished the job. Then I went downstairs. I nearly ran out the back door, but I saw another alarm panel and figured she’d set it when she came back in. So I hid. Finally, this kid showed up. A janitor. There was so much trash he propped the door open. I waited until he’d gone back into the museum and then I slipped out. I ran the whole way home.” Jake started crying. “No one is born wanting to be a screwup. This isn’t the life I had planned for myself. Every time I get close to making something of myself, some asshole interrupts my plans.”
“You’re the asshole, Jake. When we get out of this car, I’m placing you under arrest for the murders of Sari Chesney and Elizabeth Starbuck.”
“That’s not going to happen. I told you I’m not going back to prison.”
I looked around. We were halfway between Cedar Valley and Trenton. “So what’s your plan? I’m nearly out of gas. We have to stop at some point. We’ll be lucky if we make Trenton.”
“We’ll make Trenton. If we don’t, I’ll hitch a ride.”
I looked over at him and was alarmed to see he no longer looked in shock or angry. He looked at peace.
“And me?”
Jake lifted the gun until it was level with my head. “Just shut up and keep driving.”
I swallowed. Jake had nothing left to lose and I didn’t have a clue if backup was nearby or miles away. There was no telling if the bartender had called the police. Finn had passed out before Jake and I left the parking lot; he’d have been unable to tell anyone which direction we were headed. My mind went to worst case scenario: if I ran out of gas, Jake would kill me. He would hide my body in the trunk and catch a ride with a trucker. My colleagues would find me in a few days, and by then Jake would be halfway across the country.
I wasn’t going to let that happen. But what to do? I couldn’t take my hands off the wheel to grab his gun, or go for his eyes or punch him in the throat.
The wheel—I did have one thing under my control. The car.
But that was crazy … use the car as a weapon?
Jake shifted in his seat and, from the corner of my eye, I saw that he wasn’t belted in.
Perfect.
This might be a suicide mission, but there was no way I was going to wait for a bullet from Jake. I’d go out fighting, with my eyes open and on my own terms, just as I’d lived my life.
Thinking fast, I realized that I’d been on this road before. Somewhere up ahead, four or five miles, around a curve, there was a section of guardrail that was busted up from an old car wreck. The rail had done little to protect the car from going over the edge and sliding down a steep ravine. I slowed my speed.
Jake leaned over and looked at the speedometer. “Get your speed back up. Now.”
I silently said a quick prayer and thought briefly of my parents, of the terrible accident we’d all been in when I was a child.
Maybe it was my fate all along to die in a fiery crash.
Maybe all these years I’d just been living on borrowed time.
They’d died, and I’d lived, and I was about to recreate the whole awful thing.
“Sure, I’ll speed it up.” I pushed down on the gas pedal and watched my speed creep up to sixty, sixty-five, seventy.
Jake leaned over again. “Hey, that’s fast enough.”
“I don’t think it is. Fuck you, Jake Stephens.” I pushed harder on the pedal and watched as Jake realized he wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He struggled to keep the gun pointed at me and pull down the shoulder strap at the same time.
“I’ll shoot you!”
“You shoot me and we both die,” I said. Up ahead, the busted guardrail appeared. Jake saw it as I turned and aimed the car at it head on.
“Holy hell,” he breathed.
We left the road and time stopped.
Chapter Forty-five
A trucker on a long haul from California to Missouri saw the whole thing. He watched as my car slipped through the wide opening in the guardrail and did a nose dive into the ravine. He called it in and then left his truck and walked to the edge of the road, careful to stand back, sure the car would explode. But we’d been running on fumes, and I’d counted on that in the minute or two I’d had to hatch my plan.
A boulder the size of a sedan had stopped our descent into the ravine, and so we’d come to rest ten or fifteen feet down a rocky, shrub-covered slope.
The paramedics were first to arrive. After he heard what happened, Lieutenant Charlie Darcy turned white and said I was either incredibly lucky or incredibly stupid. Then he apologized and said that no, he was sure I was incredibly stupid. I thought he’d been right the first time: luck and stupidity played equal parts in the whole damn thing. He examined me in the back of an ambulance, shocked I was as unharmed as I was. I had contusions on my face and an abrasion, a burn really, on my chest from the airbag, but I’d be okay.
The same could not be said of Jake Stephens.
I imagine I’ll live with the image of him sliding headfirst, screaming, through the windshield for the rest of my life. As the paramedics evaluated him, it was obvious to everyone that his spine was badly damaged, and an enormous wave of guilt left me breathless. Though Jake had given me little choice but to try to save my own life, I was nevertheless responsible for his injuries.
In that moment, I understood all too clearly that I’d made a decision that would haunt me in the days to come.
* * *
After Darcy finished examining me, I insisted on using his radio to call the station. Dispatch put me through to Chief Chavez. He’d already been briefed by Trenton PD, which had arrived on the scene shortly after the paramedics.
“You could have been killed, Gemma. Don’t ever do that again.”
“I don’t plan to, Chief. I was out of options.” I hesitated, unable to voice the question that had been forefront in my mind for the last hour.
Chavez must have felt something in the silence. He sighed deeply. “Finn is going to be fine. It was a clean shot. He’ll limp for a few months, but he’ll be just fine. I can’t believe it—I haven’t lost a cop yet on my watch, and today I almost lost you both. To a snot-nosed punk, no less. Before he was wheeled into surgery, Finn told me the gist of things.”
I cleared a sudden lump in my throat. “Are you there? At the hospital?”
“Of course I’m here. Where else would I be? One of my own goes down with a bullet, you bet your ass I’m at the hospital.”
“Tell Finn I’ll be there soon. There’s someone I need to see first.”
* * *
I’d made Charla Chesney a promise, and I intended to keep it, whether or not she was able to understand my words. My car was totaled, so Charlie Darcy gave me a ride back to the police station where I picked up a loaner car, then drove to Carver Estates. It was late and once more, Miss Rosa escorted me to Charla’s room.
Then she left me to deliver the news in private.
Charla sat in the same lumpy armchair in the corner of her bedroom, watching a soap opera. I took a seat in a rocking chair next to her and spoke softly. “Hi, Mrs. Chesney. My name is Gemma. Do you remember me?”
She nodded her head and smiled brightly. “Gemma. You lived down the street from us in Los Angeles. You and my daughter played together quite a bit when she was a child. Sari. That’s my daughter.”
“Yes, Sari is your daughter. Mrs. Chesney, we got him. We got the man who hurt your daughter.”
“Hurt? Sari’s fine. She was here this morning. Such a silly girl. It’s practically summer, and the whole time she visited, she complained about how cold it was,” Mrs. Chesney said. She pursed her lips. “Darling girl needs money. I wish I could help her more.�
��
I bit my lip as tears suddenly welled in my eyes. She noticed them.
“Oh heavens, don’t cry. Why are you crying? This is just a silly show,” she said, gesturing at the television. “It’s all make believe, honey. You can’t take it so seriously.”
I nodded and looked around the room, desperate for a distraction. I took in the faded watercolor paintings on the walls, the dusty novels on a leaning bookshelf, a glass vase with dying red roses on the small kitchen table.
The water in the vase was murky and brown. A few petals floated on the top of the water, their softness and beauty changed to slime and decay.
Like drowned girls …
I stood up abruptly. “Can I give your flowers fresh water?”
Mrs. Chesney glanced away from the television. “Please. I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten your name. My daughter, Sari, gave me those flowers. She brought them with the books.”
Half listening, I took the vase to the sink in the corner and poured the slime down the drain. The flowers were beyond saving, but I added fresh water to the vase anyway and replaced it on the table.
“That was sweet of her. Do you like to read?”
The woman laughed. “These books are secret books, honey. Sari made me promise to keep them hidden. Gosh, you and Sari used to spend hours hiding in the backyard. The two of you would play all day. Oh, the fun you had! You kept her secrets all these years, didn’t you?”
I stepped away from the table, the flowers forgotten.
Access to the museum … expensive tastes …
“Where are these secret books, Mrs. Chesney?”
She pointed to the leaning bookshelf. “The red one, there, and the funny old brown one next to it.”
Holding my breath, I walked to the shelf and pulled the two she pointed at. “These?”
But her attention was already back on the television.
I looked down at what I had in my hands. They weren’t published books and the final piece of the puzzle fell into place.
They were journals.
Lost Lake Page 30