Chapter Seven #2
The last was total fiction but she couldn’t resist.
Red replaced the pallor that had claimed his face. “Well, let them,” he sneered. “We’re doing everything we can with the resources we have. This ain’t Chicago and we can’t just pull stuff out of our—”
“I know.” Charly nodded vigorously, almost feeling guilty. “I’m sure you’re doing all you can.” Despite the guilt, she decided to dig. “I’m sure that video footage we got from Vince Cox will be very useful.”
He harrumphed. “Worthless. You can’t ID a vehicle without seeing the license plate or the driver or something. That damned SUV could be from anywhere. The footage is worthless.”
Exactly what she’d expected. “Well, we tried.”
“More likely,” Cohen argued, “the two had a big argument and she took off with someone else and then her new husband dumped their rental in the water just to spook her. Newlyweds do stupid stuff. They’ll probably show up any day now and make up like nothing ever happened.”
Was he serious? “May…be,” she offered.
He leaned his head closer to her open window. “For all we know the two were drugged out of their minds. They could be anywhere.”
Charly held her mouth shut for five seconds until she could speak without telling him what a stupid idea that was. “You never know.”
He eyed her suspiciously then. “Has he—this Jagger guy—told you anything else? Or said anything about our department?”
Charly’s head was moving side to side before he finished speaking. Time to smooth the feathers she’d ruffled. “I’ve told you everything. He’s beginning to realize, I think, that ours is not your usual small-town department.”
“Good. Because we’re not. We’re the best.” He shoved his sunglasses back into place. “Now, you let me know if he tells you anything else you feel we need to know. We locals have to stick together and don’t you forget it.”
As if the situation couldn’t get worse, Laney Rogers drove past on her way out of the parking lot. She stared a hole through Charly and the scene playing out at her front driver’s-side window.
“Well, I should get the groceries home,” she announced as she reached for the gearshift once more.
“Good talking to you, Charly.”
She grunted something she hoped he considered to be an agreement. What was one more fib even if unspoken?
Charly watched in her rearview mirror as he sauntered away. When the coast was clear, she shifted into Reverse and exited the slot. The whole conversation had been utterly ridiculous. She hadn’t exactly helped.
By the time she merged into traffic headed home, she was outright indignant and more than a little ticked off.
Had the sheriff asked him to bug Charly or had Cohen taken that duty upon himself?
If she thought it would do one bit of good she would call and report him, but the sheriff would only be pleased by his deputy’s loyalty.
“Jerks.” Both of them.
For the next few miles, Charly focused on breathing deeply, holding and then releasing.
She refused to let that bully get to her.
And that was what the man was. A bully. Thankfully, most of the deputies were really nice, competent people.
But there were always a few who weren’t in every walk of life.
By the time she turned onto Bakers Chapel Road she had calmed down.
She wrestled with the idea of whether she should tell Billie what the jerk had said.
Nothing he uttered was relevant to anything or news of any sort.
Not really. His words only added to the idea that Southerners could be…
Well, no need to go there. She would tell Billie if the need arose.
As she approached the next curve, a vehicle roared up close behind her. She hadn’t even noticed anyone in the distance of her rearview mirror. Where the heck had they come from? Suddenly, the larger vehicle was right on her bumper. SUV…black.
The driver wore a baseball cap, the bill pulled low.
The image of the driver in that video footage suddenly zoomed into vivid focus.
Fear rushed through Charly’s veins and her foot pressed harder on the accelerator. She rounded the curve way too fast. The other vehicle still right on her tail. Close enough to nudge her.
She hit a pothole and the steering wheel seesawed in her hands. She slammed on the brakes, tires squealing, and tried to straighten the front end but she was spinning.
Another glimpse of the black SUV…trees swirling around her and then she was looking into the ditch…deep ditch. Oh, God!
Her heart rocketed into her throat. She gripped the steering wheel tighter as she bounced over the terrain. Tried to slow down…tried to navigate. Not working. All sound and thought vanished…there was only the up and down motion of the vehicle and the blur of landscape.
A tree popped up in front of her. She wrestled again with the steering wheel in an attempt to swerve away from it but couldn’t.
The rupture of metal interrupted the silence.
Her seat belt snapped tight.
The airbag deployed.
Her side of the SUV—right behind her—curved around the tree. Wood splintered.
She bumped against her door.
Then everything stopped and there was silence again.