“I don't know. We never found out. They were still trying to get down to him when the officers let us go back to our motel. We couldn't bear to stay there any longer than we had to.”
“You said ‘him.’ The father?”
“Yes.”
“Katy told me she called the hospital the next morning, before the three of you left Pelican Bay. He was still alive then?”
“In serious condition. That was all they'd tell her.” Cecca licked dry lips. “One of us should have checked back again later, to find out how he was. But we didn't.”
“You can't blame yourself for that. You didn't know him and the accident was his fault.”
“Still, we were responsible. If we hadn't been there, if Katy hadn't pulled out when she did …”
Dix said slowly, “It could be somebody else thought the same thing. Blamed you, the three of you, for the accident.”
“Revenge after all this time?”
“It's possible. There could be a valid reason for the four-year time lapse … an incapacitating injury that took that long to heal, for instance.”
“… The father?”
“If he lived. Or someone connected to the family. Do you remember their name?”
“No, it's gone. Completely gone.”
“Well, we've got to find out. The family name, if the father survived, and what happened to him if he did. There's only one way I can see to do that quickly, and it doesn't involve St. John. We'd have to convince him it was worthwhile and then he'd insist on going through official channels. That could take days.”
“You mean go to Oregon ourselves.”
“That's right,” Dix said. “Fly to Portland, rent a car, drive over to the coast. And don't tell anybody we're going. It's a gamble, sure, but it's better than waiting around for the tormentor to make his next move. What do we have to lose except a day and a few hundred dollars?”
“When? Tonight?”
“The sooner the better. It's early enough; we ought to be able to drive to SFO in time to catch one of the last flights out. Stay at a motel near the Portland airport, get an early start in the morning. Are you up to it?”
“I'll call United while you pack a bag.”
TWENTY-THREE
It was raining on the Oregon coast.
There had been overcast and scattered showers in the Portland area, more of the same on the drive west on Highway 6 in the rented Datsun. The heavy rain started near Tillamook and hammered them in gusty streamers as they headed south on Highway 101. The storm had a wintry feel; its chill penetrated the car, even with the heater on, and numbed Cecca's feet. Neither she nor Dix had thought to check the Oregon weather before leaving Los Alegres, and they were both dressed according to California conditions. The suede jacket and thin sweater and slacks she wore weren't nearly adequate.
They hadn't said much since leaving the airport motel shortly before nine. There was nothing left to say; they'd picked and probed at it last night on the drive to SFO and throughout the flight, until they had reduced it to raw, bleeding tissue like a wound with the scab torn off.
The digital dashboard clock read ten-forty when they passed through Neskowin, the little village north of Pelican Bay. The sea was close on their right here, partially obscured by low-hanging clouds and mist: slate-gray, heavy-swelled, the waves throwing up dirty white spume when they battered against the rocky shore. Visibility was poor; most of the daylight had been consumed by the storm, and what light there was had a dusky, nebulous quality. Dix had long ago turned on the headlights, but the beams seemed to deflect off the wall of wetness ahead rather than penetrate it.
Cecca said, “This is the way it was that night.”
“Raining like this?”
“Yes. Clouds down low over the road.”
“Miserable driving conditions, especially after dark.”
She nodded. “Even if he'd had his headlights on …”
“Katy might not have seen them. But the accident would still have been his fault for driving too fast. How much farther to Pelican Point?”
“It can't be more than a few miles now.”
It was about four miles. The Crabpot restaurant's big blue and white neon sign, unlit at this early hour, swam up out of the mist ahead; Cecca sat forward as soon as she saw it. “There,” she said, but Dix had seen it, too, and was already tapping the brakes.
The restaurant and its front and side parking lots looked the same to her as they had four years earlier. The turnout across the highway also looked the same, except that the new guardrail rimming the cliffs edge was larger, sturdier. Slowly, Dix swung in off the highway. The turnout was empty except for them, a flat expanse of rain- puddled gravel glistening blackly where the headlight beams traced over it. He pulled up near the guardrail, at an angle to it. Left the engine running and the lights on, but set the hand brake.
“I'm getting out for a minute,” he said.
“Why?”
He shook his head, as if he wasn't sure himself. Through the rain-streaked glass Cecca watched him walk to the guardrail, lean forward cautiously to peer down the cliff wall. Without making a conscious decision she opened her door and joined him. The wind was abrasively cold, the rain it flung into her face as stinging as thrown sand. She had to squint and shield her eyes to see what lay below.
The ocean seemed to be boiling. Surf lashed over huge offshore rocks coated with seaweed, over the base of the curving promontory to the south, sliming them all with white froth; inundated smaller inshore rocks and a tiny rind of beach. Jets of spray burst fifteen, twenty feet into the air when big waves surged in. The violence of it made Cecca cringe inside. She shivered and backed up a step.
Dix put his arm around her shoulders, said something that the wind tore away from her ears. She tugged at his jacket to draw him back to the car. Inside, she turned the heater up as high as it would go; sat hugging her breasts, her hands tucked inside her jacket and under her arms to try to warm them.
“You should have stayed in the car,” Dix said.
“I wish I had. What did you say out there?”
“I said it must be more than a hundred-foot drop. It's a miracle the father wasn't killed, too.”
She shivered again. “Miracle?” she said.
He was waiting when Amy came out through Hallam's rear entrance. Sitting on the passenger seat of her car: She must have forgotten to lock that door.
As soon as he saw her he got out quickly and came toward her, smiling. His car wasn't anywhere around; he must have walked over. There was nobody else in the alley, just the two of them. She almost turned back inside. Instead, she stood nibbling her lower lip, waiting for him. She was glad to see him and yet she wasn't. No matter how desperately she wanted to believe in his innocence, he scared her now almost as much as he attracted her.
“Hi,” he said. “I was beginning to think old man Hallam was working you overtime.”
“Um … overtime?”
“It's quarter past one. Half day on Saturdays, right?”
“Right. I had some things to finish up.”
“Well, now you're free for the rest of the weekend. Any plans?”
“No. No plans.”
“Not going anywhere with your mom?”
“No.”
“Where is she, anyway?”
“At home, I guess. Or at Better Lands. I don't know.”
