Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Have you seen Charley?” Sully asked Cash, who was herding his group of dude ranchers across the wide, front porch where Sully was standing under the festive orange lights. It had rained during the party and was sprinkling again. The night was dark due to the heavy rain clouds covering the moon.
“No, not since Tracy and I were talking to you two earlier,” Cash said and turned in the direction of the cars and the hay wagon. “Tracy, do you know where Charley is?”
“No,” she said as Sully walked down the porch steps. Tracy was in the passenger’s seat of Kellie’s car as she replied, “The last time I saw Charley was when she and Carly were eating pizza mummies together.”
“I love Charley and pizza mummies,” Carly called from the back seat.
“Thanks,” Sully said, and then the ladies left with a wave at Cash who was headed toward the hay wagon.
Sully loved Charley, too, and wondered where she was.
His dad was out on the driveway and had just said goodbye to Chase and family.
At that moment, the headlights from Chase’s SUV lit up the darkness where Sully had parked Charley’s Mini Cooper earlier.
Her little red car was gone. He remembered giving the car keys back to her. Charley had left without telling him?
“Where’s Charley?” his dad asked, walking to him.
“I don’t know,” Sully replied. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Ten minutes or so,” Owen said, with a wave goodbye at the hay wagon.
“Derek, did you see Charley before she left?” Sully asked as Derek came toward them with twins, Austin and Abilene, in tow.
“No. Last time I saw her, she was talking to a friend of Chloe’s,” Derek replied.
Waving goodbye to Chase and family, Chloe and Cooper joined them in the driveway near the porch. Then the three Brevard children said good night and hurried inside to their candy.
“Friend is a loose term,” Chloe said. “Trish wormed one invitation out of me years ago, but never again. She showed up tonight totally uninvited. Why?”
“Charley’s gone,” Sully said. “We came together, and I’m confused as to why she would leave without me.”
“The last person I saw Charley talking to was Trish,” Chloe said. “I thought Charley looked trapped and was about to go intervene, but when I looked back, they were both gone.”
“Okay, thanks,” Sully said. “I’ll call Charley and find out what’s going on.”
“I hope it’s not something to do with another murder in her neighborhood,” Derek said.
“Right,” Owen agreed. Then to Sully, he said, “I’ll give you a ride home, son.”
“Thanks for having us tonight,” Sully said and shook Derek’s hand.
As it started to rain harder, headlights at the end of the driveway suddenly flashed.
“Maybe this is Charley,” Chloe said as a car came toward them in the darkness.
“Need a ride, Sully?” Trish asked as she came to a stop in front of them.
Sully took a couple of steps closer to Trish’s car as his dad made his way to his own vehicle. Chloe and Derek gave them privacy by going into their house but left the porch light on out of courtesy. Sully’s dad got in out of the rain but waited.
“Trish, did you happen to see Charley leave tonight?” Sully asked.
“Who?” Trish asked.
“Charley, the Coopers’ cousin,” Sully said patiently. “You met her at my house.”
“Oh, the dog,” Trish said with a contemptuous wave of her hand. “Hop in and I’ll give you a ride, Marshal Earp.”
“My dad’s waiting to give me a ride.”
“Come on, Sully. For old time’s sake?” Trish asked. “I’ll take you straight home. Cross my heart,” she said, making a show of running her finger across her barely covered breasts.
“No thanks,” Sully said and stepped back from her car.
“I might know why the bitch left,” Trish said.
Sully clenched his jaw. “Yeah? Why?”
Trish shrugged and said, “Get in, Sully.”
Sully crossed his arms over his chest and said through gritted teeth, “Tell me here, Trish.”
“If you don’t want to know—” Trish shrugged and started to pull away.
“Hold on,” Sully said. He motioned to his dad to go on as he strode around the rear of Trish’s car. Owen pulled away, heading onto the highway. Sully yanked open the door to Trish’s car and slid into the passenger’s seat. “What do you know about Charley leaving the party?”
“Let’s discuss it at your house,” she said. “I promise not to jump your bones—unless you want me to.”
Trish turned her car around and drove down the drive.
This was not the car Sully wanted to be in, nor the woman with whom he’d planned to spend the night.
Sully called Charley’s phone, but it went to voice mail.
Trish turned east, as if keeping her word to take Sully home.
They passed Triple C-Central, and after passing Triple C-East, in the far distance up ahead Sully saw his dad turn south and disappear.
As they neared Triple C Ranch-South, despite the pouring rain, Sully rolled down his window.
His eyes were peeled for Charley, and he asked Trish to slow down.
She sped up. Ponderosa pines whizzed past in a blur, and then Sully caught a side view of Charley’s car.
It was paused at the end of her gravel drive close to the highway.
In the headlights of Trish’s car, he saw Charley behind the wheel.
And she saw him. As Trish raced past Charley, Sully called her cell again, but Charley didn’t answer. He left a quick message.
“Stop!” Sully told Trish. “Go back!”
She didn’t. Where Sully’s dad had turned south as Trish should have, she didn’t.
“So, how have you been, Sully?”
“Slow down and turn the damn car around, Trish,” he ordered.
She didn’t. Instead, Trish sped up even more and said, “Here’s a trick, let’s treat ourselves by going to my house and screwing each other until we pass out.”
“Hell no!” he barked. “You’re drunk and I’m not interested. Stop the car. I’ll walk.”
“No! They wouldn’t serve me at the wet bar. So, I went to my car and emptied my flask, waiting for you to come out of the house. If I’m drunk, it’s your fault,” she spat and made a show of stomping on the gas pedal. “You were mine until that bitch came along.”
“Bull!” It had been at least six months since they’d last gone out, and he’d been done back then. “I was never yours,” Sully said as the car flew down the wet highway. “Is that what you told Charley?”
“Halloween’s a night for tricking and scaring people.” Trish laughed way too loudly and purposely swerved through the rain from one side of the road to the other. “Oooh! Scared?”
“Stop it!” he said as to her intoxicated, erratic driving. “What do you mean tricking and scaring people?”
Trish took her eyes off the road and said to him, “I told the bitch I was pregnant and you’re my baby’s daddy.”
“Dammit,” Sully growled through his teeth as Trish drove ever faster. “You and I both know that’s a lie.”
“Boo!” Trish laughed. Looking at him instead of the highway again, she hissed, “Tricked her, and now you’re scared you can’t get the bitch back. Happy Halloween, Sully!”
Sully made a grab for the ignition key to turn off the car. But Trish yanked the steering wheel so hard they careened into the other lane of the road. An oncoming car blared its horn. Sully grabbed the wheel and brought the car back into the correct lane.
“Stop the damn car!” Sully yelled.
Trish shouted no and stomped on the gas again.
She yanked the wheel so hard rounding a curve in the road, they fishtailed across the highway.
Tires hydroplaned on the rainwater, and they careened over a slippery embankment.
Trish screamed as the world flipped upside down.
The car rolled over and over down the hill, and the last thing Sullivan Custis saw was blackness.