Chapter 36
They had just finished their meal when Donna’s cell rang. She pulled it from her purse. “Richard,” she said and punched the answer button. She listened intently and checked her watch. “I have a couple of errands to run, but I’ll have it done by the time you get back from lunch.”
Donna folded her napkin and laid it beside the plate. “I hate to eat and run, but Richard needs some research completed for a contract he’s working on.”
“I’ve enjoyed our discussion.”
“Me too . . . But I do wish you’d drop your investigation into Walter’s death. Nothing good can come of it.”
“I wish I could, but I don’t think it’s fair that a man spent twenty years behind bars while Walter Livingston’s killer walked around free.”
Donna held her gaze, then stood. “I guess you have to do what you have to do, but if I were you, I’d be watching my back. And thanks for lunch.”
“You’re welcome . . . and don’t worry, I always watch my back.” For more reasons than Walter Livingston’s investigation.
By the time she paid for their meal and stopped off at the restroom, Donna was long gone. A text chimed on her phone. Amy. She was an hour from Logan Point. That would give Tori time to get home and check out Jenny’s Ancestry Line account.
Wait. She didn’t remember the code to get past the gate.
Tori quickly called Scott, but it went to voicemail.
She exited the restaurant and hesitated.
Ben said to call him and he would come pick her up .
. . reluctantly she scrolled to his number and pressed call.
Since it wasn’t quite twelve thirty, maybe he would be at lunch and wouldn’t hear the phone.
When it went to voicemail, she grinned. She’d tried.
Tori started walking the three blocks toward the sheriff’s office where her car was parked. Instead of hurrying home, she could run by Jenny’s house and at least walk through if she could get a key from Drew. She called her nephew, and it went straight to voicemail as well.
Where was everyone? Last time she’d seen Drew, he was with Scott, but where were they? Her dad probably knew . . . She brushed that thought off. Calling him would be a last resort. She tried Scott again and was ready to hang up when he answered. “Hello? I don’t . . . recept . . .”
“Where are you?”
“. . . Lake.”
She pressed the phone closer to her ear like that would help and stepped off the curb to cross the street.
Spinning tires screeched behind her.
Tori glanced over her shoulder and screamed.
A dark car hurtled toward her.
For a second she froze.
Run!
Not enough time to make it across. Tori wheeled around and dashed to the curb.
The car grazed her and sent her sprawling face-first on the asphalt. The last thing she remembered was grasping for her phone as it slammed against the street.
Tori didn’t know how long she was out, but someone was asking her a question. She focused on their lips.
“Are you all right, Miss?”
“Yeah . . .” she mumbled. Concerned blue eyes surrounded by a mass of wrinkles bored into hers before dizziness made her close her eyes again. But she’d seen enough to think the grizzled man with gray streaking his beard wouldn’t hurt her.
“Let me sit up.” Tori groaned when she tried.
“Don’t move. An ambulance is on the way,” he said. “You took a nasty blow to your face—gonna have a shiner for sure.”
Sirens wailed nearby. From the sound of it, the police were on their way too. She lifted her fingers to her swollen cheek and winced. “Were you driving the car?”
“Me? No way. I heard you scream and caught the back of the vehicle as it raced away. Didn’t you see it?”
“No, it came out of nowhere. Did you get the tag number?”
“Sorry. I don’t see too good, and it happened so fast.”
That was an understatement. Where was her phone? She’d been talking to Scott. He must be frantic. “Do you see my phone?”
“I’ll see if I can find it, but you have to stay put. Okay?” She agreed, and he stood and searched for her cell. “Here it is.”
Tori examined it. It looked to be in one piece. She tapped the screen. Nothing happened. She tapped it again. No! It couldn’t be dead. What if she’d lost the photos of Jenny’s username and password to the Ancestry Line account? Sirens approached as she tried to reboot her phone.
An ambulance rolled to a stop in the intersection. She dropped her phone in her lap and pressed her hands to her ears until the siren died and EMTs descended on her. Along with Ben Logan.
“I thought you were going to call me,” he said.
“I did. It went to voicemail.”
Ben stepped back and let the emergency medical techs tend to her. Once they assessed her, and she agreed to let them transport her to the hospital, he approached again.
“I’m glad you’re going to get checked out,” he said. “But you might want to let Scott know you’re all right—I have two frantic messages from him.”
She checked her phone. Still black. “I think my phone died when I dropped it. Do you mind letting him know?”
“Will do, and I’ll stop in at the hospital and get your statement.”
“I can give it to you right now—I didn’t see who hit me.
I wasn’t expecting anyone to try and run me down, and it happened so fast I didn’t see the driver and can’t identify the vehicle other than it was a vehicle.
” She winced as they settled her on the gurney.
“Would you give me a minute and please raise my head before you transport me?” she said to the EMTs.
It scared her that she couldn’t remember anything about the vehicle that could have killed her.
She turned back to Ben. “I don’t know why I can’t describe what hit me. ”
“What do you remember?” Ben asked.
She leaned back on the gurney. “Leaving the restaurant where Donna Curtis and I ate, calling you . . . trying to call Scott and Drew.”
He jotted something in his notebook. “Maybe you need to drop the Livingston case and the domestic violence case as well and let the authorities handle them.”
Tori leveled her gaze at him. “The Livingston case is a cold case at the bottom of probably thousands of others just like it, and if I don’t investigate it, who will? And there is no domestic violence case—all I did there was encourage an abused wife to get help.”
“Tori . . .” He stretched out her name.
“Is Jenny Tremont’s house still an active crime scene?”
He did a double take. “What? That has nothing to do with Walter Livingston’s murder.”
“I don’t know about that. I’ve been asking questions about Jenny, and she worked in Walter’s old office. What if she discovered something linked to his death? Maybe that’s why someone tried to run me down—they’re afraid I found something.”
“Now I know you need a brain scan.”
She mustered a smile. “If it’s such a harebrained idea, then you won’t mind if I look around her house.”
He stared toward the heavens before he answered. “I haven’t released it yet.”
“Come on, Ben, I’m good at finding things other people miss. Please?”
He shook his head. “Oh, all right. I was going to release it today, anyway. We returned everything that wasn’t evidence, including her laptop since we didn’t find anything pertaining to her murder on it. But I don’t have the key with me.”
She could get a key from Drew or her brother. And if her phone had totally died, maybe the username and password to Jenny’s Ancestry Line account was somewhere in the house.