the keys. On top of it she put the unopened package of rubbers from her own purse.
Pelican Bay, Cecca thought as she drove, the accident in Pelican Bay.
Fire. Burning. They hadn't just died in the crash … there'd been a fire, hadn't there? An explosion and a fire?
But it wasn't our fault. We weren't even directly involved. It was the driver of the van, not Katy. We never saw the victims, I don't even remember their names. The highway patrol up there never contacted any of us afterward. We never heard from anybody in Oregon. Who'd want to harm us because of that?
Dix said, “I don't have any idea either. But it's the first possibility that makes any sense at all.” He began to pace the living room in quick, agitated strides. Watching him, Cecca had the unsettling sensation that Katy's “Blue Time” painting was watching him, too, from the wall above. That somehow Katy herself was in the room with them.
“Pelican Bay,” he said. “So that's what Eileen meant.”
“Meant when?”
“When I saw her yesterday. She mumbled something that sounded like ‘pellagrin day.’ Tell Cecca, she said. But I dismissed it, forgot about it; I thought it was a babble phrase. Christ, I should have remembered it was the name of that town.”
“How could you, after four years? Katy didn't talk about that night, did she?”
“Not after she told me what happened when she first got back, no.”
“None of us talked about it,” Cecca said. “We wanted to forget it—everything about that night.”
“I still should have made the connection.”
“So should I, and much sooner, if you want to play that game. When I first heard about Katy, I thought, God, how awful she should die in a car accident after avoiding the one in Oregon. Eileen mentioned it, too, more than once. But the fact is, it happened four years ago, hundreds of miles from here, and we were only peripherally involved. Until now there was nothing to make either of us connect that with what's been going on here. The only reason Eileen did was whatever Katy said to her.”
“You're right.” He scrubbed at his face with a heavy hand. “Trophy,” he said then, “some kind of trophy. What kind?”
“I don't have a clue.”
“And what would a trophy have to do with Pelican Bay?”
She shook her head.
Dix stopped pacing, came back to where she stood. “Can you remember the details of the accident up there? I mean everything before, during, and after.”
“Most of them, if I have to.”
“You have to. Katy's account was sketchy.”
“Let me sit down first.”
She curled up on a corner of the couch, her legs tucked under her. Her mind didn't want to open up to that June night four years before. She had to make an effort of will to force the memories into clear focus.
“All right,” she said, and took a breath, and said, “We were well up the Oregon coast, taking our time, playing tourist. I was in pretty rough shape when we left here, all wrung out over Chet, but by then—five or six days into the trip—I'd regained some perspective and I was actually having a good time. That day, a Tuesday or maybe a Wednesday, we spent shopping in Lincoln City. Katy and I wanted to stay the night there, but somebody in one of the shops told Eileen Pelican Bay had more atmosphere … you know, it's a little fishing village. And it was only a few more miles up the coast. So we drove up and took rooms in a beachside motel. The woman at the motel said the best place to eat was a restaurant a mile or so north of town … Crabpot, I think it was called. We were hungry, so we decided on an early dinner. Thank God we didn't drink much. One glass of wine apiece was all.”
“The accident happened as you were leaving the parking lot?”
“That's right.”
“And Katy was driving.”
“Yes. I was in the front seat with her and Eileen was in back. It was raining, one of those thick, misty rains, and just dark. Visibility was practically zero. You could see bright lights—headlights—at a distance but not much else. There were headlights approaching in both lanes, far enough away for Katy to safely make the turn across into the southbound lane. It just didn't look like there was a closer car in that lane. A car was behind us, people leaving the restaurant like we were, and the driver said he thought the lane was clear, too, that he'd have pulled out just as Katy did if he'd been ahead of us.”
“But it wasn't clear,” Dix said.
“No. Just a few seconds after she made the turn—she was still accelerating—she cried out, something like ‘Oh my God!’ and swung over hard to the right. We were just beyond a turnout on the ocean side; we almost went off the road. The other car, the van came roaring up … only its fog lights on and they were dim. He must have been doing at least sixty.”
“Almost hit you, Katy said.”
“Almost. If the northbound lane had been clear, he might have been able to veer around us without going out of control. But by then the lights we'd seen coming that way—two cars—were too close. The only things he could do were to plow into us at full speed or veer into the turnout.”
“Not much of a choice.”
“No choice at all. We talked about it afterward. Each of us would've done just what he did.”
The cut on her palm had started to burn and itch; she rubbed it through the bandage. Dix hadn't asked about the bandage. Even if he had, she wouldn't have told him about the incident with Elliot. Someday she would, but not now. It was no longer important.
She said, “The turnout was fairly wide, fifty or sixty yards. It overlooked a place called Pelican Point. Steep cliffs, a rocky beach. But he was going too fast. And the highway was too slick and the surface … gravel, but there was mud under it, and deep rain puddles. He couldn't stop, couldn't even slow down. The van kept sliding, fishtailing. The rear end hit the guardrail first and then it … sailed through and dropped out of sight. The crash was awful. We could hear it above the storm, even closed up inside the car.”
“Did it explode, burn?”
“It burned, yes; I remember the fireglow. I don't remember an explosion … it was all so confused …”
“There must have been one,” Dix said grimly. “Gasoline igniting—that would have been what caused the fire.”
“I guess so.”
“What did the three of you do?”
“Just sat there in the car,” Cecca said. “We were all petrified, in a state of shock. It happened so fast. Eileen … she said, ‘I think I wet myself.’ She wasn't kidding. She really did wet herself.”
“Then what happened?”
“Two or three other cars stopped. The driver of the one that had been behind us in the parking lot got out and ran over there, too. There wasn't anything they could do. Somebody at the restaurant called the highway patrol. The three of us stayed where we were, waiting, until the officers got there.”
“There were four people in the van?”
“An entire family. Two young children.”
“But they weren't all killed outright.”
“Three were. The fourth—the driver, I think—was thrown clear. He hadn't been wearing his seat belt. They found him in some rocks partway down the cliff.”
“Alive?”
“Yes. Badly injured.”
“How badly?”
