A quick peek in the back seat told me she was still alive. I saw Bernice’s hand move. I adjusted the mirror again and saw her lips move. The rain drumming on the roof drowned out her voice.
Night fell in the afternoon. I switched on the headlights. Visibility was zero.
I drove too fast up onto the metal grating at the top of the bridge and down the other side onto the mainland, slamming the car onto the flat surface of the road. A cruiser was parked in front of an orange barrier blocking the left lane to stop anyone from going out onto the island as protection against looters. The cop manning the barricade shook his head in disgust. I wasn’t sure if it was a comment on my driving or our stupidity at still being on the island.
I didn’t care. I just breathed a sigh of relief, sure that I was safe. Wrong again.
Chapter 22
The mainland was as deserted as the island. The traffic lights had all been set to green, and traffic, what there was of it, was only traveling one way, streaming inland away from the coast. But as we traveled inland and neared I-75 the traffic grew heavy. Heaven help anyone coming off a side street who wanted to join the exodus. Never mind, just ahead was the on ramp to the freeway and smooth sailing to safety.
“I’ve been doing some thinking. I don’t think I’ll take the freeway north.” I looked in the rearview mirror to see if there was a response.
Bernice’s eyes were closed, one forearm thrown across her forehead, the other thin hand clutched at the seat.
“We could be in Tampa in an hour and a half but maybe they’ve started to evacuate too. No telling.” At the rate Bernice was losing blood she’d probably be dead before we got there and found a hospital. “Who knows where Myrna will decide to hit. No use turning on the radio, couldn’t hear it over this racket.” Which also meant she couldn’t hear me: but I didn’t see that as a reason to keep quiet.
“Let’s head for Lake Crispin. Lake Crispin is the place to go. It has a good hospital and it’s only about twenty or thirty miles inland. Safe.” Still no sign that she heard any of this. “Right then. That’s what we’ll do.” True, it was the nearest hospital, but what if they’d evacuated it? Best not to think about that.
The ramp to the freeway was backed up. I pulled out to the left, into oncoming traffic and stepped on the gas, pulling sharply back in and barely missing being hit head on by an SUV. The driver’s face was white with horror as I squeaked by.
My own pulse was definitely well past an aerobic workout level but if everything went well, in a half-hour or so we’d be safe. I shot ahead thinking it would be clear sailing. Turned out it almost was like sailing.
Within ten minutes of passing the freeway we were in trouble again. We came up over a rise to see the road disappear into a damn lake. I slammed on the brakes. When the Mercedes stopped the front wheels were in water.
It was only a slight dip in the land but everything, for a hundred yards in all directions, was covered with water. It didn’t look too deep but there were no road signs or guard rails to guide me to the pavement, to show me where the hard surface was under the water and where the deep ditches waited to grab me. I hesitated. Would I be able to find the road through all that water? What other choices did I have?
I leaned forward, trying to see through the tiny hole the wipers swept in the watery window. The headlights glinted and shone on water. I searched out the side windows for a place to turn around and go back. That was just as scary as going forward. Deep ditches, with edges of sand soft, waited to capture the Mercedes.
I turned around on the seat and looked at Bernice. Her face was corpse pale. By the time I turned back, hit Tampa and found a hospital, I was certain she’d be dead, and finding help in-between was problematic.
I eased forward. Not too bad. No immediate disaster.
A collection of wood, looking like some hastily constructed raft, swirled by in front of the Mercedes, missing us by inches. Checking to see if any more debris was coming, I took my foot off the brake and let the Mercedes creep into the lake, looking ahead to where I could see the road rise again, steering straight for it and praying I had guessed right. “Don’t stop,” I begged the engine.
I felt the car begin to float, as if it had turned into a big old boat, while the current took it sideways, making the steering wheel useless.
Chapter 23
The tires gripped. Now sand grabbed the right tires, pulling us to certain disaster. I fought the wheel to the left and the powerful engine dragged us off of the soft shoulder and back to pavement.
Impossible to tell if the engine quit, there was no sound of it above the pounding on the roof. “Keep going,” I begged. A half-submerged tree careened into the door beside me, knocking us to the right again. The tree bounced back along the car and away as I battled the current and struggled for the raised center of the road with my eyes locked on the path to deliverance rising out of the water fifty yards ahead of us.
Large waves broke over both fenders as I stepped on the gas and the Mercedes climbed out of the lake to bare pavement, the Promised Land.
“Hang in there,” I shouted over my shoulder at Bernice. I resisted the temptation to straight-leg the gas. “Won’t be long now.” I was really talking to myself, trying to calm myself down so I didn’t make a stupid mistake. I mustn’t lose it now. How many times had I driven this road? Hundreds probably. We’d be all right. It was straight, it was safe. “We’ll be all right,” I yelled. Hell, I even felt bountiful towards Bernice.
The road went up a slight rise and entered a stand of pine trees. The wind lessened enough for me to hear the groan. It was a good sign, telling me Bernice hadn’t died of shock or loss of blood. I pushed the gas down just a little harder. In between the swipes of the wiper it was a French impressionist world out there. The storm eased and the visibility increased.
“Thank God.” I could hear my voice but I knew the calm was temporary, a small lull before the next wave of fury hit us; Myrna messing with our heads but I was still grateful for the reprieve. “Why you?”
I heard the words clearly. I thought she was asking what I was doing out in South Beach, a good question but a little complicated and one I didn’t know the answer to.
“Useless. How could Jimmy do that to me?” she screamed. I let my breath out in a huge sigh. I’d heard this all before. “Don’t distress yourself. You need all your strength.”
But haranguing me was more important even then the pain or saving her strength. “At least you could have given me a grandchild, something of Jimmy.”
We came out of the trees and onto pasture-land, letting the wind and sheets of horizontal rain hit us harder but at least it covered the sound of Bernice’s venom. Suddenly there was an orange blur that just shouldn’t be there. I hit the brakes and jerked the wheel to the right. A large transport truck, its sides made of steel mesh to hold oranges, swung out across the road. The Mercedes slued sideways and rocked to a stop. The back end of the truck cleared our left bumper by inches. In the back seat, Bernice was screaming.
I slammed the transmission into park, releasing my safety belt as I turned on the seat. “Are you all right?” I scrambled to my knees to see over the seat.
Her right leg dangled to the floor. She clawed at it with both hands, trying to raise it. I reached over and lifted her leg, as gently as I could, startled by the quantity of bright red blood oozing from beneath the belt. The clothes I’d padded under the leather were sodden with blood. I settled her leg on the seat and was trying to decide what more I could do for her when her right hand came out and caught me hard across the face, knocking me sideways into the door. I bounced off the door, my fist coming up as I dove over the back seat.
The sight of her stopped me. Her eyes were tightly closed, lips drawn back from clenched teeth and tears ran down her face.
“I think you’ve ruined my leg,” she wailed.
“Good!”
> “It’s going to be crooked.”
I flopped back in my seat and said, “It will suit your personality.”
Chapter 24
The bitch in the back seat stayed silent for miles. I almost managed to forget she was there while I hunted for signs to tell me where we were. Visibility was nil and I’d lost all sense of time and distance but the silence was too good to last.
“He’ll never marry you, you know.” She moaned in pain and then added, “Clay, I mean.”
Well, I hadn’t thought she was talking about Santa Claus. “Let it go. There’s no need for you and I to discuss it.” I couldn’t think of anyone I wanted less to discuss my life with. I searched for road signs. I wasn’t even been able to make out stop signs, which was really terrifying.
But Bernice wasn’t done yet. “I’ve known Clay longer than you. A man with real class.” “Well, at last we can agree on something.” I had no idea where we were or how much longer it would take to get to the hospital. How much blood could you lose before you died? I looked harder. There were several small settlements between I-75 and Lake Crispin, crossroads with half a dozen houses set under spreading oak trees. Surely there should be some sign of them but the only thing I could identify was just the fifty yards of wet pavement in front of me. Finally, through the curtain of rain, I glimpsed the gleaming metal stake of one road sign but the square part with the information I craved was gone, frustrating and scary. The wind would take out the signs all over the county, leading to more accidents and making emergency measures even more difficult. I began to think I’d missed Lake Crispin. Another sign appeared but it was gyrating so frantically in the wind I couldn’t read it.
Silence from the back seat was at first pleasant and then worrying. Apprehension crept over me. I slowed, searching for a place to pull over, needing to know if she was dead.
“I suppose it’s just sex.”
No need to worry anymore. I stepped on the gas. “I don’t know what else he sees in you. Heaven knows, that’s the only way you got Jimmy.”
My hands hardened on the wheel. I felt my shoulders rise to my ears against the attack coming from behind me.
“But that body won’t last much longer. Then you’ll be alone.” The pleasure in her voice was pure evil.
“And don’t think he’ll get you into the Palms. I’ll blackball you. It doesn’t matter how well you play golf. No one cares at the Palms. It’s about who you are — and you’re trash.”
A broad white sign flashed into sight and was gone. Thank God, I knew where I was now. “Won’t be long,” I called out like a demented cheerleader. “We just passed the county line.” Already driving too fast, I drove faster. “Don’t talk. Save your strength.”
She seemed to take my advice. But not for long.
“Poor Jimmy.” Her voice broke in a wave of ugliness on the shore of my indifference. I was more concerned with us surviving than I was in talking about Jimmy. “Why did he have to die?”
“Maybe because he was a blackmailer?” Bernice chose to ignore this as she had ignored all the bad things Jimmy had done or been.
“He was so perfect in every way.” I said, “It’s over. Let it go.”
“He could have been a champion.” She was thinking about golf but I wasn’t.
“He was a champion all right,” I muttered. And it was true. He was a champion heel: a champion scam artist: a champion asshole.
She moaned again.
“I have some aspirin in my purse.” I reached over to the passenger side for my bag, forgetting it was back in the car with Gina.
A car overtook us, going too fast and with an overloaded trailer whipping behind it. I slowed and pulled as far to the right as I safely could. “Idiot,” I yelled after him.
“I’m not an idiot. It could have happened to anyone,” Bernice protested from the back seat.
Chapter 25
“How did you break your leg?” the nurse asked, looking up from cutting the three-hundred-dollar pair of French jeans off Bernice.
“I fell,” Bernice got out from between clenched teeth. Her forearm was up across her forehead, her jaw frozen against the pain.
The nurse laid her blunt-nosed scissors aside and gently peeled away the white denim to reveal bone sticking through the pale skin. “Ouch,” she said.
I looked away. Taking a sliver out was about as brave as I got.
Another nurse was drawing blood and hooking Bernice up to an IV. Bernice grabbed her arm. “Get me something for the pain.”
“I can’t.” The nurse’s voice was soft and regretful. “Not ’til the surgeon sees you. They’ll have to operate.”
Bernice cursed. My, did she curse, even my daddy would have blushed at her vocabulary.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse said calmly. She patted Bernice’s hand and drew the IV pole closer to the bed.
The hospital was filled to overflowing. Patients all along the coast had been evacuated inland, plus there seemed to be a whole load of emergencies. A busload of migrant workers being evacuated to Tobicco had rolled over, causing multiple injuries, and the hospital was still dealing with them. Bernice lay on a gurney in the hallway waiting to go into surgery and was still in horrendous pain.
“Where’s Dr. Travis?” I asked, trying to make conversation and also because frankly I wanted to dump her onto someone else and leave. “Atlanta.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“Conference.” Her face, bitter and angry, twisted into a grimace of distaste. “He’s learning a new procedure, but it’s an old old one he’ll be practicing.”
Like father, like son. Bernice Travis was chewing the same bitter fruit that I’d had to swallow.
“I haven’t got my purse or my cell phone. Where’s yours?”
“Kitchen counter. I was going back in.” A spasm of pain gripped her, lifting her head off the pillow and twisting her body sideways, leaving her panting like she’d run a marathon.
When she fell back again I straightened her covers. “Tell me where to reach him and I’ll get the hospital to call.”
She didn’t reply. Her eyes were squeezed tightly closed. “Mrs. Travis?” I asked. She just shook her head no. When they took Bernice away to the operating room, the hospital let me make an emergency call to the police back in Jacaranda. Calls to Jac’s police force were being patched into emergency measures further inland. It took several tries before I found someone at emergency services to take the information. I told them about Gina but I don’t think they considered a woman already dead an emergency.
The waiting rooms and even the halls were full of people taking shelter or waiting for treatment. I stepped over people curled up on the bare floors. Fixed on a wall overhead, the television showed silent images of the disaster that had brought us all here. The eye of the storm came ashore north of Fort Myers, about forty miles south of Cypress Island but it was too early to say how Jacaranda would fare.
So tired I felt sick, I looked around for a place to lie down. The wailing of a small child drowned out the open-mouthed snoring of an elderly man stretched out in a chair with his feet propped up on a magazine-covered coffee table. There wasn’t a seat or piece of floor left. I decided to go back to the Mercedes.
It was black outside and rain still fell on the four inches of water already covering the parking lot. Even wearing the high-heeled clogs, water swirled around my ankles as I stepped down from the front step into the parking lake. I made a dash for the car, splashing water up over my knees. I was almost to the car when the pole light reflected on something in the water in front of me. A primitive but accurate instinct stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t just a branch shining there three feet in front of me. Besides it was going against the flow.
Chapter 26
Oh heavens, it was now a perfect day. A four-foot-long snake swam between me and the car. No way of telling what ki
nd it was in this light. I could only hope it wasn’t a Water Moccasin or a Rattlesnake or a Cottonmouth or any other poisonous snake washed out of its home.
The snake swam around the front of the car and disappeared into the blackness. I searched the inky dampness in all directions. We re there gators swimming about out here as well as snakes? That got me moving. Screaming and swearing, I clomped through the water for the safety of the car while splashing water up to my thighs.
In the car I took the precaution of locking the doors before I tilted the seat back and slept.
I hadn’t called Clay or Marley, which I’d sworn to do, nor did I call Ruth Ann, Peter or Brian. I didn’t know I was considered missing. I didn’t care. I just slept.
Because I didn’t call him, Clay called the police sometime before morning to report me missing. He discovered Bernice Travis hadn’t shown up where she was expected and was also considered missing. This was too much of a coincidence for Clay — both Travis women disappearing. Even though they hated each other, they had to be together.
Clay got into his car and headed south for Jacaranda. Somewhere around Tampa his latest call to the police delivered another shock. Sherri Travis’s personal effects had been found in a car with a dead woman out on South Beach.
I slept.
Banging and knocking dragged me back to consciousness. I unpeeled my cheek from the leather seat. Groaning, I tried to focus on the unknown face pressed up against the window. The face had a hand and it tapped on the glass.
“Okay, okay,” I said. My mouth was dry, probably because I’d been drooling all over the baby’s-bottom leather. I fumbled for the window crank. Too fancy. I had to turn on the key. I opened the door instead.
The young man, his face full of concern, stepped back as I dragged myself out of the Mercedes.
Sex in a Sidecar Page 7