Chapter 5
Chapter Five
EVERETT
When I duck into Glory Holes for my meeting with Hutch about growing our search and rescue program, he’s already in line. He’s been away for a few weeks thanks to his honeymoon and getting started with his new job as a medic for Evergreen Hospital, so I’m eager to give him an update.
“It always smells like heaven in here,” I say over the steady whir of the espresso machine blending with the hum of conversation. The line hugs the giant glass display case loaded with different flavors of their famous mini donuts, a tactic I’m sure the owners designed to make us salivate.
“It’s part of why we all love it so much,” Hutch replies with a laugh. Outside, the morning sun pours through the big glass windows, making the tables gleam.
Hutch and I catch up on our families as we shuffle forward in line. He and Ava are building a house on his family’s property, and his sister Beth’s flower business is taking off.
Miranda gives us a warm smile as we step up to the cashier. “I hear congratulations are in order, Hutch!”
“Thank you,” he says, beaming .
“What can I get you guys?”
We both order large coffees, then Hutch gets a mix and match of Boston Cream, plain, and Fudge Heaven. I can’t resist the Dirty Chai Bombs to go with my all-time favorite, the Chocolate Cake glazed with rainbow sprinkles. We carry our coffees, served in the beautiful hand-thrown mugs made by our mutual friend Kirilee Reed to a table facing the big windows.
“I’ve got a new funding idea for that new training program you’re after.” I blow across my piping-hot coffee and take a small sip.
Hutch raises an eyebrow. “I hope it’s better than that state grant.”
“Yeah, it’s?—”
The donut shop door swings open, and Vivian steps through the door holding Mateo’s hand.
As if sensing my focus, Vivian raises her gaze to meet mine. She’s dressed in jean shorts that reveal those long legs I remember from the wedding, and a button-down pink dress shirt rolled to the elbows that highlights the blush rising up her chest and face.
She quickly refocuses on Mateo, who looks like he’s trying to hug the display case.
“You were saying?” Hutch prompts.
“Right.” I try to regain my momentum in explaining my funding idea, but when Vivian places her order, the sweet notes of her voice carrying over the noisy café shreds my focus.
“What do you need from me?” Hutch whips out his phone and starts making a list.
At the edge of my peripheral vision, Miranda offers Mateo their bag of donut holes and a tall paper cup with a tea string hanging over the edge to Vivian. Vivian pays, then spins in the opposite direction and ushers Mateo toward the door.
Would she have stayed if I hadn’t been in here? A part of me wants to know. The other part reminds me that I don’t care.
If Linden were here, he’d second this. When are you gonna learn that not every drowning kitten needs saving, bro ?
A revving engine from the far-right side of the parking lot startles me back to the donut shop.
Hutch leans forward to look out the window just as a maroon station wagon races past the windows. The driver’s going way too fast for a busy place like this. A place where kids regularly congregate. What the hell?
I hurry for the door. I’m too late to stop this guy, but I can at least try to apprehend him. When I push through the door, Vivian is walking across the parking lot. Everything seems to happen in slow motion. She jumps back, yanking Mateo into her arms. Her tea and the bag of donuts go flying. The vehicle misses her by inches, then careens out of the lot, tires squealing.
“Are you hurt?” I ask Vivian as Hutch joins me outside, eyes wide.
“No,” Vivian says in a shaky voice, still holding Mateo against her.
I eye Hutch. “Stay with her. I’ll be back in a few.” Then I jump in my rig and head out of the parking lot.
I call it in and flip on my lights and siren. The maroon wagon turned south, so I accelerate after it, flying past cars that pull over, my gaze shifting from the road ahead to down intersections for any sign of it.
What the hell just happened back there?
I give the pursuit a few more blocks, but the maroon vehicle has vanished. After I call in my abandoned attempt, I turn around and return to Glory Holes.
Thankfully, Vivian’s got a fresh cup of tea and Mateo looks happy sitting next to her with an almost empty bottle of apple juice in one hand and a donut hole in in the other.
As I approach the table, Vivian’s eyes meet mine for the second time today, only now she’s not blushing. Her face is tense and she’s sitting so straight in her chair I could use her spine as a ruler.
Before I can get a word in, she stands and takes Mateo’s hand. “I need to go.” She stuffs the bag of donut holes into her purse and picks up her tea.
“So you don’t want to file a report?” I ask, resting my hands on my belt. I eye Hutch sitting behind her, but his lips press together, like he doesn’t have any answers, either.
“No.” She hurries past me and slips through the door. I join Hutch at our table while outside, Vivian helps Mateo into the backseat of her Kia.
“Tell me I’m not the only one confused here,” I say in a low voice to Hutch.
He shakes his head. “Whatever she’s scared of, I hope it hasn’t found her.”
I chew on this while Vivian climbs in behind the wheel. Her brake lights come on and she backs slowly out of the parking stall.
Scared? Of the driver? Or something else? I give Hutch a curious look, but he just shrugs.
Vivian drives off, and I track her white Kia until it disappears past the building. “If it has, why do I get the feeling I’ll be the last to know about it?”
“Ava says she keeps to herself,” Hutch says, sipping from his coffee.
“Fine by me.” It comes out harsher than I intended, but my curiosity about Vivian was piqued that night in the blizzard, and it’s only strengthened since.
Especially now. Everything about what just happened feels off. From the second she walked in and saw me here to the reckless driver incident to her rushing off just now.
Did she recognize the driver of that car If so, why wouldn’t she tell me?
Hutch raises an eyebrow. “Is it?”
“Of course.” I should try harder to put Vivian out of my mind. She either has an aversion to the law, or to me. Both spell trouble.
The kind I’ve sworn to avoid.
Tuesday morning, I’m out patrolling, my mind chewing through the latest dead end in our two open murder cases, when a maroon car flies past me going sixty-eight in a forty. After checking both directions, I pull a U-turn, then call it in and flip on my lights.
Accelerating, I try to identify the car’s make and model and how many occupants, but thanks to our leaden skies and the fall morning’s lingering fog, I only get the color—a deep maroon—and that it’s a wagon.
At Thrasher’s Corner, the guy barely slows down before careening left through the four-way stop. It gives me a better view of the vehicle—it’s a Ford Taurus station wagon. One occupant.
Shit. Is this the same guy I chased from Glory Holes parking lot last Saturday? I’ve been on the lookout for him ever since.
I follow the Taurus through the four-way stop, finally gaining on him.
“Suspect is driving a maroon Taurus wagon heading east on Route ten,” I relay to dispatch.
Is he trying to get to the river?
“Same Taurus as last Saturday?” my dispatcher, Gerry, asks as the Taurus accelerates.
“It’s possible,” I say.
“You need backup?” Gerry asks.
“Negative.”
The Taurus wagon banks a sudden right, disappearing down a spur that dead ends at a boat ramp popular with fishermen in the summertime. I relay this to dispatch as I follow, the thick cottonwoods and tall pines edging the road making it impossible to see what I’m heading into. The fine mist falling doesn’t help, either.
The gravel road is potholed and littered with fallen leaves in a patchwork of red, yellow, and brown, probably scattered in last night’s windstorm. The one that woke me at four a.m. Instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, my thoughts turned to Vivian, and Hutch’s comment.
Is she in trouble?
Or is she the trouble?
Then I relived that little spark between us when our eyes locked. If she can’t stand being near me, why did she blush like that? It’s like she wants me but wants to hate me, too, which should not have gotten me hard.
I round the long curve to the small parking area for the boat ramp, empty except for the Taurus wagon parked at an odd angle.
There’s no movement from inside the car. No silhouette either.
I scan the surrounding woods, but the mist makes everything hazy. Where in the hell is this guy?
I pull close to the back of the Taurus, my senses on high alert. The parking area is framed by thick forest on three sides, with the steely blue river running swiftly past the high banks. Did the driver make a run for it into the trees and is hiding, watching? Or did he have a boat stashed, and he’s already downriver?
I raise dispatch to relay this development and ask Gerry to run the plates. Because Idaho’s license plates use a code system linked to location, I already know the car is from Bonneville County, in the southwest corner of the state. Or at least that’s where the vehicle was most recently registered.
“Reported stolen a week ago from a supermarket in Rigby,” Gerry replies.
Rigby’s northeast of Idaho Falls on the 20, down in the Snake River Plain. That the vehicle is stolen doesn’t surprise me considering the driver fled and is now MIA. But it means I will be spending my lunch hour doing paperwork.
“I’m going to take a look.”
I give the forest and the opposite riverbank another sweep, making sure I haven’t missed a rifle pointing at my head, then grab my Stetson and step from my rig. The steady shush from the river rolling past and the chill of the mist on my fingers crowds my senses.
I pause in the space created by my open door and the side of my rig and scan the woods and the river’s banks once more, this time tuning in with all my senses. But there’s only mist dripping from the trees and the damp air on my skin. No faint whine of an outboard motor downriver that would indicate the driver fled by boat.
Though I don’t have proof, I sense this guy’s gone.
I draw my weapon and shut my door, then walk to the back of the Taurus. Garbage bags filled to the brink with clothing are heaped in the open trunk area, along with several plastic water bottles. Walking slowly, I take in the rest of the vehicle’s interior, hoping the driver left something behind I can use to identify him. Like a wallet. But the backseat has what looks like a Slumberjack sleeping bag—the cheap kind sold at surplus shops, the metal zipper busted. The front seats are empty.
There’s a chance the guy left prints, like on the steering wheel or other areas. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a match. Not that it would do us much good if he’s fled.
But if it’s the same vehicle that was at Glory Holes…
I continue walking to the front of the vehicle, but it’s intact, no obvious marks or missing license plate, then scan the riverbank and the concrete ramp sloping into the current. Doubtful the guy is hiding in the frigid water, but the only way to avoid nasty surprises is to cover all the bases, even the improbable ones.
After walking back to my rig to call in a tow truck, I holster my weapon and slip on a pair of nitrile gloves. When I try the Taurus’s door handle, it’s unlocked. I do a quick search under the seats but find only wrappers, dead leaves, and trash. I check the glove box hoping for the registration, but it’s empty.
I widen my search to the area around the Taurus. The boat ramp, the underbrush leading into the trees. It’s overkill, but if I find footprints, then I’ll at least know how this guy got away. I’m about to turn back to my rig when I spot a paper coffee cup behind a thick bramble. There’s no telling if it came from the driver of the Taurus, but I bag it and label it anyway .
Rex Rolland, our overworked county prosecutor, isn’t going to approve the department spending money for a DNA analysis on what could be anyone’s trash for a stolen vehicle likely being used as temporary housing, but collecting it costs nothing.
Dispatch raises me on my portable. “Go ahead,” I reply while scanning the last stretch of underbrush.
“Uh, we got a call from the middle school,” Gerry says, concern lacing his tone.
We have a safety officer posted at the high school. Did I miss his call for backup?
“In regard to…?” I ask Gerry just as my cell rings. FINN RIVER MIDDLE SCHOOL flashes on the caller ID.
Unease tickles the back of my gut as I answer my cell. “Everett Rumsey.”
A woman with an even, calm tone greets me. “Good morning, Mr. Rumsey, this is Vice Principal Peggy Cromwell. Can you come down to the school?”
“Is there an emergency?”
“No, no emergency.”
It dawns on me that they’re calling not about a police matter, but a personal one . A niggling unease burns into my chest. “Is Logan okay?”
“Yes.”
I exhale a full breath, puffing my cheeks. It gives me the moment I need to put the pieces together. “He’s in trouble?”
“Come to the main entrance.”
“Right.” I nod, even though she can’t see me. “It’s going to be, ah—” The tow truck comes rumbling down the gravel road “—at least twenty minutes.”
“Like I said. No emergency, and he’s still with the nurse.”
The nurse ? “Hold on. You said he was okay. What happened?”
“He’s fine. He was in a fight, and just um, needed an ice pack.”
I blink at the tow truck slowing to a stop behind the Taurus. This makes zero sense. “All right.”
“We’ll see you soon,” the vice principal says.