Maybe she and Jake could use a night out. She could dress up; they could have a cocktail at one of the trendy bars downtown before trying out a new restaurant. Someplace with candles and tablecloths and fresh flowers on the table. Somewhere they could forget all about their problems for a night and just focus on each other.
She had gone only about a quarter mile when a car appeared behind her. It came up surprisingly fast and flashed its brights, nearly blinding her as they bounced off her rearview mirror. She braked hard, hugging the edge of the construction zone to allow the impatient driver to pass her. She was dangerously close to the edge, but allowing the other motorist to pass would ensure that at least they wouldn’t collide.
She glanced in the rearview mirror again and realized that there was only one beam—the other car was actually a motorcycle. She had reduced her speed to less than twenty miles an hour, but rather than passing her, the motorcycle was coming dangerously close to her rear bumper, tailgating. Gin could make out few details about the rider or the motorcycle other than that the bike was large and the rider seemed to be clad head to toe in black. As she tried to keep her eye on both the mirror and the road in front of her, the bike surged forward again, pulling up next to Gin’s side of the car. For a second, they were traveling abreast, and Gin glanced over, taking her eyes off the road for a second.
Something hit her windshield hard, splintering it. Gin screamed and twisted the wheel, reflexively slamming on the brakes. But rather than finding purchase, she felt the wheels lose their grip and begin to spin out. She gripped the steering wheel fiercely and tried to steer through the spin, the terrifying sensation of her wheels skidding over the icy patch. The construction barriers loomed in front of her, and then she’d plowed through them, shards of splintered wood flying through the shattered windshield and hitting her face and arms. Gin could hear her own screams and feel the rush of icy wind on her face as the edge of the road rushed up to meet her front bumper and froze in the awareness that she was about to go over the edge, that her car was about to tumble like a tossed pebble down the rocky cliff.
Behind her, she was dimly aware of a second impact, of the scrape of metal on ice and asphalt, and wondered if it would be the last sound she would ever hear. Images of her parents, her sister, and Jake tumbled through her mind like a kaleidoscope, and then—suddenly, inexplicably—the car shuddered to a stop at the edge, and Gin was staring out the open windshield at nothing but charcoal-gray sky.
She put her fingertips to her face, and they came away slick with blood. More blood seeped into her eyes, and she smeared it desperately away. Her arms didn’t seem to be hurt—her seat belt had held her in place, preventing her from hitting her head on the dashboard—and nothing felt like it was broken. But despite the fact that her foot was pressing the brake pedal down hard, the car groaned and slipped, tipping a few degrees forward, and Gin realized that the front wheels were resting dangerously near the crumbling edge.
She had to get out. Frantically she released the seat belt and opened the door, her fingers clumsy on the handle. As she twisted in the seat, the car pitched even farther forward. It shuddered to a stop only to start slowly sliding again, the sound of the tires on the ice the only sound in the frigid night.
Nothing was going to be able to stop it—the car was going over.
12
Gin took hold of the window frame and heaved herself out with all of her strength, pitching her body out onto the ground just as the front wheels lost their battle with the earth, grinding forward in a spray of scree and mud before finally losing the battle completely and plummeting over the edge. The back wheels missed Gin by inches, splattering her with icy sludge, and she pulled herself into a fetal position, protecting her face with her arms. She could feel the impact of the car through her body—once, twice—as it smashed against the protruding rocks before coming to rest hundreds of feet below.
The sudden silence was broken by a clatter a few yards away. Gin forced herself up onto her knees in time to see the rider disentangle himself from the motorcycle downed right in the center of the road. Had the object that struck her windshield bounced off and hit the rider? Had they both been the victim of some random accident—or, as Gin struggled to make sense of the last few moments, had the motorcyclist been responsible for running her car off the road?
The rider seemed dazed, but as Gin watched, he managed to drag himself out from under the bike, grunting with the effort. There were rips in his leather jacket and black pants and one glove had come halfway off, but once the rider managed to free himself from the bike, he began crawling away. After a few feet, he struggled to his feet and started to run, a compact figure with his head down, staggering at first before managing a limping jog. He disappeared almost instantly into the gloomy forest lining the other side of the road.
The silence returned, blanketing the scene. Gin rolled slowly and painfully to a sitting position, taking inventory of her body before trying to stand. Both arms felt bruised; a splinter of wood was embedded in her palm. Her forehead stung where something had struck her. But thankfully, none of her injuries were life-threatening or even serious.
She stared over at the wrecked bike, traced its tire tracks to where they practically joined with her own. Then she did a double take: lying in a glittering field of broken glass in the road, right next to the crashed motorcycle, was a tire iron.
It had to be the object that had struck her windshield. And it hadn’t been an accident at all.
The motorcyclist had deliberately smashed it.
She thought of the repair shop she had visited yesterday, of the simmering anger in Griffin Rudkin’s eyes when he talked about his family and losing the land he thought he would inherit.
Of the heavy wrench in his hand as he watched her go.
Could he have been so concerned about her investigating him that he would have resorted to trying to harm her, to either incapacitate her or scare her away from writing the story she was pretending to be working on?
But she had given him a false name. How would he ever have found her? Could he have somehow followed her back to Trumbull? She hadn’t noticed anyone pursuing her, but then again, she hadn’t been looking.
Another set of headlights lit up the scene, the car rolling to a stop. The door opened and a woman in a puffy parka got out, slipping and nearly falling on the ice before grabbing the car to steady herself.
“Oh, my God,” she called. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Gin replied. “I’m fine. Please be careful, it’s icy so watch your step.” The last thing they needed was both of them flattened on the ice.
In seconds, the woman reached her side and knelt down beside her. “Why on earth would you go for a ride on a night like this?”
It took Gin a moment to understand that the woman thought she’d been on the bike.
“No, no, I—my car—it went over.”
The woman’s eyes widened. There was something familiar about her; curly mahogany-colored hair cascade out from under a cherry knit cap, and expressive brown eyes showed concern.
“But—but you’re the only person here,” she said gently. “Did you maybe hit your head? I feel like I should hold up fingers and ask you how many, but—I’m sorry, I took CPR, but at the moment, I can’t remember the first thing. Give me a second; I’ll remember.”
“I truly am fine,” Gin said impatiently. “Just minor cuts. But my phone was in the car—could you call the police?”
“The police?”
“The motorcycle—the rider—he forced me off the road.”
The woman looked uncertain. Gin could tell she wasn’t convinced that Gin had her wits about her, but she placed the call, reporting their location and only saying that there had been an accident.
“They’re on their way,” she said after she hung up. “Are you cold? I have a blanket in the car. Maybe for your legs . . .”
“I’m truly all right.” Gin knew the paramedics would insist on checking he
r over. Before that happened, and she lost the opportunity to see for herself firsthand what had happened to her car, she needed to get up and go see.
She got to her feet, ignoring her Good Samaritan’s protests, and carefully shuffled across the slick pavement to the edge of the road. The construction barriers were smashed and lay in pieces on the road. Her tire tracks were quickly being obscured by the white, fluffy flakes that had begun to fall. Soon, any evidence of the incident, any proof that the other driver had ridden much too close to her, would be gone.
She held onto one of the construction barriers that was still standing and peered down into the gully far below. There—slanted obscenely and marked by long creases in the metal—was her car, just short of the creek that meandered through the bottom. One headlight still burned, facing askew into a tall pine.
The night was as silent as a grave.
A wave of nausea passed through Gin, and her breath grew ragged. Someone had tried to injure her—maybe even kill her. But why? She had a nagging feeling that it had something to do with the discovery of the body on Jake’s construction site or the fire or both. But how was that possible? Gin hadn’t discovered anything that could help solve either mystery.
Unless she had missed something in the autopsy.
Gin shook her head. That was ridiculous—she and two qualified colleagues had examined the body, and none of them had noted anything extraordinary besides the clothing.
And yet, the motorcyclist had acted deliberately, she was sure of it. It hadn’t been an accident. The tire iron proved it. Gin had stared into the visor of the helmet, behind which the eyes of a would-be killer had been hidden. She was sure that her confusion and fear were written all over her face, but all she had seen was the black void that covered the rider’s face.
Maybe her attacker had made a mistake, a case of mixed-up identity. Maybe the motorcyclist had been after someone else—someone who drove a similar car, or someone else who was meant to be in the darkened school parking lot that night. Gin scanned her memory for the parents who’d come to pick up their daughters after the practice but came up with ordinary men and women, tired from their workdays, eager to get home to dinner.
She heard the sound of approaching sirens as the woman followed her to the side of the road and gently took her arm. “Come away from the edge,” she implored. “You might be in shock and not even know it. It isn’t safe, you could fall.”
Then she stared down past Gin at the ruined car below, and her face went pale. “Oh, my lord,” she whispered.
Two vehicles rolled to a stop with their lights flashing. In addition to an ambulance, there was the familiar Trumbull Police Explorer. Chief Baxter had come himself. He’d told Gin he was headed home for the evening when he dropped Cherie off; he had responded to the call anyway. He was out of the car in seconds, slamming the door forcefully behind him and striding her way in heavy, lug-soled boots far more suited to ice than the athletic shoes she’d worn to practice. He barely glanced at the overturned motorcycle before addressing the two women.
“What the hell,” he muttered. “I heard the call go out, and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would be up here at this time of night, except for the basketball practice. What happened, Gin?”
“She says a man on that motorcycle ran her off the road,” the other woman explained. “I thought—I’m sorry, honey, I thought you must have been drinking—but she was right. Her car’s down there smashed flat.”
Gin let the comment pass. “The rider ran into those woods,” she said. “He’s on foot, and it’s snowing. Do you think there’s any chance you could catch him?”
Her attacker’s footprints were barely visible anymore under the blanket of fresh snow, and it was impossible to tell where the tracks led once they disappeared into the knee-high reeds and shrubs on the other side of the road.
But it was unthinkable that he would get away before they could question him and find out why he had come after her.
“He was wearing a black—a black jacket. Leather, or heavy wool, but definitely black. Black helmet, black pants. Boots . . .”
“Slow down,” Baxter said. “What makes you so sure he was deliberately trying to hurt you?”
The paramedics were hurrying over with their equipment bags.
“Ma’am, can you come with us?” one of them asked. “Can you walk?”
“Of course I can walk.” Gin felt impatient. She didn’t want to waste time in the ambulance—she wanted to make Baxter understand the urgency of tracking down her attacker. “Please, I’m a physician; I can assure you I’m fine. Just a few contusions that I can treat them at home, I—”
“Ma’am,” the paramedic said firmly. “This won’t take long, but you know we have to check you out.”
They were right, and arguing wouldn’t change anything. Gin sighed and resigned herself to the examination. A second police cruiser arrived and two more officers got out; Baxter went to confer with them as they shone a flashlight across the road.
As the paramedics examined her and treated her cuts, Gin watched the officers take a statement from the woman. A tow truck arrived, but after Baxter had a word with the driver, he climbed back in the cab and rolled up the windows, running the engine to stay warm.
Finally the paramedics finished with her and started packing up their equipment. She walked over to talk to Baxter.
“Your friend wanted me to give you this,” he said, handing her a piece of pale-blue notepaper with a phone number on it.
“What friend?”
“Your witness. She said she thought she remembered you, but she wasn’t sure until I told her who you are. Does the name Rosa Barnes ring a bell?”
A memory came to Gin’s mind of a shy, quiet girl who had struggled to keep up in school; she’d disappeared the summer before high school. Gin tried to remember if she’d ever known what became of Rosa and her family and came up blank.
“I went to school with her a long time ago,” Gin said. “Her last name was Escamilla then. She must have gotten married.”
“Well, she was pretty concerned about you. Asked me to have you call her and let her know you’re okay.” Baxter shrugged. “So call her tomorrow. Now, you want to tell me what the hell happened here?”
The heater inside the ambulance had warmed her, but the cold seeped relentlessly under her thin jacket, and her teeth chattered as she went over the incident again. As she described the rider’s pursuit and inexplicable actions, a few more details came back to her.
“His gloves had a strip along the cuff—neon yellow or green reflective material. And his boots were old-fashioned, like—industrial, you know, with a thick sole?”
“We can have you look at some images,” Baxter suggested dubiously. “Best chance is going to be tracing the bike, obviously. They’re just about finished up here, and we’ll get it towed to the yard. Even if it’s stolen, we’ll check it over for prints and other evidence.”
Gin’s heart sank. She hadn’t considered the possibility the bike was stolen; if her attacker had been wearing gloves when he took it, there would be no prints. Nothing to connect him to the incident at all, now that his trail had been covered by the snowstorm.
“Look, there’s no sense in having you freeze to death here,” Baxter said. “If the paramedics are finished with you, I’ll have Sanders take you home. I may want you to come in tomorrow, though. The tire iron makes this a little more complicated.” His jaw hardened. “I assume Crosby can bring you.”
“I’ll call my insurance company,” Gin said. “I’m sure I can get a loaner.”
“Safe to say, no one’s going to be driving that car of yours.”
“Listen, Chief Baxter—”
“Tuck. Rhymes with duck. Remember? We’re on a first name basis.”
“Okay. Tuck. There’s something that I need—that I should probably tell you.”
She explained briefly about going to see Griffin Rudkin while Tuck’s expression grew stony.
“You
’re telling me you pretended to be a journalist so you could go and ask Griffin Rudkin if he wanted vengeance on his estranged family?”
“It wasn’t like that,” Gin protested.
“It sounds like it was exactly like that. Look, Gin, if the man is as unhinged as you’re implying, that was stupid and dangerous. You also could compromise the investigation.”
“I don’t see how,” Gin said hotly. “No one else was going to talk to him.”
“You don’t know that.” Tuck paused, then sighed. “Although, you’re probably right. But you could have come to me with your concerns.”
“You’re not on the case either.” Before Tuck could scold her further, Gin had another thought. “You got to see the autopsy report, right?”
“Yeah, they shot me a copy as a courtesy.”
“Then you know that we weren’t able to determine how long the body’s been there.”
“I know that your report suggested that. I also know that quite a few pieces of evidence have been sent out for analysis, so basically we don’t know shit until the results come back.” He shifted from one foot to another, his breath making clouds in the frigid air.
“How do you know that? Since they took the case away?”
“I checked with a friend. And before you ask, yes, it’s someone in the ME’s office, and no, I’m not telling you who.”
“We’re on the same side here,” Gin said in frustration.
“You’re not on any side. You’re a civilian with no connection to the case other than a dubious consulting relationship that my contact says probably wouldn’t hold up in court. And besides, I’m the chief of the fucking police, and I barely know what the hell’s going on with this one.”
And yet he’d taken the risk of going behind the backs of the detectives to learn what had been discovered in the autopsy, Gin thought. He wasn’t going to let go of the case easily.
“We both have our own reasons for wanting to know what’s going on,” she amended. “I don’t want to see Jake caught in the crossfire when he didn’t do anything wrong.”
All the Secret Places Page 12