said Diane. ‘‘When you feel better, I’m going to go to
call for help. Rescue will come and get you out of
here, but you have to hang on.’’
‘‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’’ he said. ‘‘Have
me waiting here while you go get help. Pretending to
be my friend.’’
‘‘I’m not pretending to be your friend. Obviously
we aren’t friends. But I don’t want you to die out here
either,’’ said Diane.
He looked up, apparently reassessing his situation,
deciding maybe he could climb back up after all. ‘‘I’m not going to die. You are.’’ He took aim with
his knife, preparing to throw.
‘‘Don’t do that,’’ shouted Diane.
He grinned, reared back, and threw the knife hard
at Diane.
Chapter 6
Diane flattened herself against the rock face and watched in horror as the knife whizzed in a spinning blur toward her. She had no way to dodge it, nowhere to go. She threw one arm up in a defensive move just as the deadly blade struck the rock next to her abdo men and glanced off her waist.
The sudden move, the twisting of his body from throwing the knife, had shifted Harve’s center of grav ity, spoiled his aim, and left
himself upright. The laws of
him struggling to hold physics are hell when
you’re balanced precariously. His grip slipped on the rock. His arms flailed wildly, and his foot became caught in the crack. Diane heard the ankle break as his body fell backward, headfirst, his foot trapped in the fissure. He screamed, hung there for a moment; then his foot slipped from the crack and he fell five hundred feet to the bottom of the gorge. Diane didn’t look. There was no way he could survive; there was nothing on the way down that would break his fall, nothing to grab on to, no help, no hope. Diane winced when she heard the thump of his body impacting on the rocks at the bottom. She felt sorry for him, living his last moments in terror.
She didn’t move for several long moments. She felt drained, her energy gone with Harve. Her heart beat faster and she felt sick. She couldn’t throw up. Not here. After a couple of minutes, her nausea subsided, her head cleared, and she moved again. She climbed over to Ram Rock and up to the top. It was an easy climb for her.
She walked to her car to call for help. Her cell lay on the pavement, smashed beyond use. She walked back to Harve’s vehicle and called dispatch on his po lice radio.
‘‘Who is this?’’ the female voice interrupted. ‘‘Diane Fallon,’’ she said.
‘‘You’re a civilian. You aren’t allowed to use this
channel,’’ the voice said.
Diane started to tell her,
‘‘Ma’am, you have to get off this channel. Where are you calling from?’’
‘‘A police car. I don’t know the number,’’ said Diane. ‘‘It belongs to Harve Delamore.’’
‘‘Where is the officer?’’ said the dispatcher.
‘‘He’s dead. He fell into Chulagee Gorge,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Where are you?’’ the dispatcher asked.
Diane gave her location. She got out of the police car and walked to her own vehicle, climbed in, and locked the doors. She was shivering, so she started the engine and turned on the heater. She looked in the rearview mirror at herself. Her face was a puffy, blood-smeared mess. Her blackened eye was swollen half shut. Her hair was in tangles, blotched with dried blood. She suddenly felt the way she looked. She put her forearms on the steering wheel, rested her head gently on them, and waited.
It wasn’t long before she heard the sirens, faint at first, then growing louder and louder—coming in high volume to the rescue of a downed officer.
Diane didn’t move until she heard a knock on her window. She jumped. It reminded her of how all this had started. She didn’t have the strength to do it again. This time she wouldn’t roll down the window.
She lifted her head. It was Izzy Wallace. She smiled wanly and rolled her window down, glad to see a friendly face. Izzy looked at her.
‘‘What the hell happened?’’ he asked. ‘‘Wait a min ute. I’ll come around.’’
He picked up the smashed cell phone and looked at it, worry on his face. He walked around and got in the passenger side of Diane’s red SUV.
Diane explained all the events of the morning— from being pulled over by Harve Delamore to the fall.
‘‘So he’s at the bottom of the ravine?’’ said Izzy.
‘‘Yes. His gun is down there somewhere. I knocked it out of his hand. His knife is down there too. So is my jacket. My billfold with my driver’s license is in it,’’ she said.
‘‘We need to go to the police station, and you will have to give a statement again. We need to take a picture of you too. You look like hell,’’ he said.
Diane looked at her face again in the rearview mirror. Her left eye was black and swollen, and she had a huge
