Chapter 15 Flight Risk #2
“My homeschool pod?” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “We don’t do anything but study the Bible. Dad says that women don’t need to be educated. Our highest good is to be a fertile vessel for more children, to bring God’s love to the world.” She spat the words with venom.
“My dad…My dad did some really awful things, too,” I said slowly. “But not to me.”
She looked at me. “Then you know. You know the lies.”
I nodded. “And I know how much I loved him. And how much I hate him.”
“Is your dad in prison?”
“My dad went to prison. He’s dead now,” I said.
“So everyone’s safe.”
“Yeah. It’s a relief, honestly. I never confronted him. I’m not as strong as you are, Leah.” I had never stood up to my father to the extent that Leah had in her living room, accusing him of killing her mother.
Leah shook her head and whispered: “I’m scared of him.”
“I know. I know.”
I exhaled. I certainly wasn’t giving her back to her father.
I leaned forward and put my elbows on my knees. “Leah, if I could take you away, to a safe place, would you go? And would you stay there, and not run away?”
Leah blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I have to contact Social Services. I have a colleague there who will take good care of you.”
“Will my dad know where I am?”
“No. An investigation will need to occur, to determine if you should go back to him.”
Her shoulders slumped. “They would give me back to my dad. I don’t have any marks. And the basement is creepy, but I don’t think—”
“That’s not for you to decide. Or me to decide,” I said. “I can’t say for certain what would happen from here on out. But I’d like to put you in the custody of Child Protective Services. If you’ll let me.”
She met my gaze. “As long as they don’t have a basement.”
I went outside, called CPS, and explained the situation.
My colleague Kara listened. “I’m going to deem this an emergency placement. There’s a nice couple who fosters kids for us who would take her. Let me give you the address.”
She read off the address, and I jotted it down. “Thanks, Kara.”
Kara sighed. “I’m willing to fight for her. But you have to know that you’re gonna bring a shitstorm down on your head for interfering with that church.”
“Sounds like you’ve dealt with them before.”
“Let’s just say they’ll close ranks and not take this lying down. But this is the right thing to do.”
I agreed, and went back for Leah. She was hugging Gibby and sobbing into his ruff.
“Leah,” I said gently.
She looked up at me with a tear-streaked face. She seemed so very young then. “I’m ready.”
We walked around the gas station, to the car. My gaze rested on the graffiti on the door.
“Do you know what that is?” I asked her, pointing to the ouroboros.
Her eyes quickly slid away. “No.”
She might have been lying. Or just scared. I couldn’t tell.
I opened the car door for her, and she climbed in. Gibby clambered in after her, and we headed off into the dark.
“What’s going to happen to my dad?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But that’s not for you to worry about.”
We pulled up before a two-story farmhouse. The lights were on. I walked Leah up to the door, which was immediately opened by a couple who looked to be in their fifties. The man was sunburned and wearing overalls, while the woman had indelible smile lines.
“Hi, Leah,” the woman said. “I’m Margie, and this is Dave.”
“Hi.” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other.
“We promise to keep you safe.” Dave stuck his calloused hand out to her.
Leah took it and shook it.
They took her inside. I had a good feeling about the two of them. They seemed…normal. Good. And goodness was a rare thing in this world.
I just hoped Leah could stay with them as long as she needed to, and that the Kings of Warsaw Creek didn’t pull strings to get her back into Sims’s basement by morning.
—
I wanted to be the one to tell Sims that his daughter was safe. Safe from him.
I drove toward the parsonage. Just as I was about to pull into the church parking lot, a black vintage Mercedes peeled out of the lot and disappeared down the road in a flare of brake lights and screech of tires.
That was Sims’s car.
I gripped the steering wheel and floored the accelerator. I slapped my magnetic bubblegum light on the roof of my car and lit it up. Red and blue light flashed into the darkness, and Sims hurtled through the night.
Cool night air slid through my hair, and my lips peeled back into a smile.
I had only intended to inform him that Leah had been found safely, and not to tip my hand by arresting him right away.
I was going to gather bulletproof evidence and bury him.
But he was going to make this easy. He wasn’t pulling over, so I was going to pop him for fleeing and eluding.
As he zipped over hills and into valleys, I radioed for backup. Beside me, Gibby hung his head out the window, as thrilled by the chase as I was.
“You sorry son of a bitch,” I hissed at Sims. “You’re not getting away from me.”
I got close to him, feet from his bumper. He was the only one in the car. My headlights flashed off his mirrors and his round glasses. He caught a little bit of air with his car on one hill, and then his ancient undercarriage slammed down on the pavement with sparks. He swerved between the lines.
“Oh God. If he’s drunk, too, this is my lucky night.”
We came out of the two-lane road to the Silver Bridge crossing the Copperhead River. Where the hell was he going? Out of state?
He floored it on the straightaway of the bridge, and I struggled to keep up. I heard the rev of his engine, the hiss of air in my ears, and…music. He must have had the radio on…
I heard thin notes of a woman singing, a song that sounded familiar…
I reflexively slowed.
Sims accelerated ahead of me, then jerked a hard left. His car sprawled across the oncoming lane.
“What the hell?” I whispered. I didn’t see a deer or another animal that he might be trying to avoid.
The car launched through a guardrail with a shriek of metal and hurtled through space, disappearing into blackness. Something splashed like a bomb exploding below.
“Fuck.”
I parked and erupted out of my car, sprinting to the ruined guardrail.
The bridge creaked and sighed.
I stared down at headlights receding into the blackness and disappearing. I shouted into my radio for EMS and God and everyone to show up. I swept my flashlight below me, into the rushing water, waiting for Sims to bob up from the depths, but he never came up.
A melodious giggle sounded below me, and I shivered.
—
Sims didn’t emerge.
EMS, the fire department, and the sheriff’s office closed off the bridge.
The fire department sent out people in boats to search for Sims. They couldn’t pinpoint the site of the wreck exactly, and there was supposition that the strong current had shifted the small car.
The river might have to be dredged. I sat on the bumper of my car, holding a cup of coffee, relating the story to the chief and Monica. I omitted the part about the singing.
The chief rarely came out into the field, but I understood that this was likely a political nightmare. “You didn’t touch his car?”
“No sir.”
“How fast were you going?”
“Um…fifty-five? He accelerated, though. Maybe sixty-five at the end.”
“I think he knew Leah would talk,” Monica said.
“You think suicide?” Chief asked.
“Maybe. With Koray on his tail, he might have thought the jig was up.”
“There’s no way he knew it was me,” I said. “I had lights on, so he couldn’t see my face.”
Chief’s expression was unreadable under his moustache. “There’s no going down after that wreck tonight. Go home, Koray.”
—
I did as I was told.
I took Gibby home to give him a bath. I didn’t want him getting sick from any contaminants that were in the river earlier in the day. I filled the bathtub, lured him in with his rubber-ducky squeaky toy, and lathered him up. When Gibby was done, I showered and threw my clothes into the laundry.
I focused on simple household chores, deliberately trying to dissociate from this evening’s events.
I didn’t see how Sims could’ve survived that accident.
I didn’t feel sorry about that, about him being dead.
I did feel sorry for Leah. She was going to have all kinds of things to work through.
But at least I could guarantee that her father wouldn’t hurt anyone ever again.
I paused. I should be feeling other things.
I should be sorry about the waste of life.
I should be worrying that my actions contributed to Sims’s death, that I chased him to death.
I should be analyzing my performance for errors, errors the Kings of Warsaw Creek would no doubt analyze with their legal team.
Now, that bothered me. I might get desked for this.
I reviewed my steps in my mind. I had followed procedure.
I had radioed for backup, established that Sims was in flight.
There wasn’t a scratch on my car. My gun hadn’t been fired.
The skid marks on the bridge showed a sharp left turn, just as I said.
There was no point in worrying about that. I had been aboveboard in my actions, even if my motives had been deeply wrathful.
No one could see inside my head. As long as I kept that anger behind my eyes, no one could touch me.
I thought of the giggle I heard, the singing. Had Sims heard it, or was that all in my head, too?
Gibby crawled into bed, and I wrinkled my nose. No matter how often I washed him, he still smelled like wet dog. Wet dog was a reassuring, safe smell. I came back to myself and kissed his brow.
I opened up my laptop and stuck in the SD card from the trail cam at the Hag Stone.
I held my breath, skimming over the footage.
The motion detector caught birds during the day, then a couple of hikers.
At night, deer drifted through, munching leaves near the camera.
The flash of an owl’s wing washed over the night vision in a flare of black and white.