Tompkins furrowed her brow. “You’re serious, Mr. Seagraves?”
“I think he is,” interjected Wolanski. “Let’s do this.”
“All right, then,” I said to the befuddled sheriff. “I’ll need you and Special Agent Wolanski to have my back. Take the long way there via Ocean Highway. I’ll go the direct route. We can’t be seen arriving together. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes or so.”
The sheriff and I left the courthouse separately. I sprinted straight to my car and gunned the engine of my Barracuda. The curving road along the shoreline prevented me from reaching top velocity, even though no other vehicles were on this rural byway. I burned up the asphalt at thirty miles-per-hour over the speed limit when I approached the nature preserve. The wind off the Chesapeake Bay picked up force, nudging my car toward the center lane with the stronger gusts. Tightening my grip on the steering wheel, I sped by the last building I would see before reaching the Visitor Center in the middle of the uninhabited park.
The painted wooden sign for Black Marsh Nature Preserve passed by in a blur as I entered the wild wetlands. Thick fields of tall swamp grass extended from the bay inland to the eastern horizon. Muddy creeks and estuaries ran through the dense grassland like the veins and arteries of some monstrous organism. Sunlight reflected on the surface of the waters in silvery shimmers. There were no hikers, park rangers, birdwatchers, or anyone else in sight. Pressing the accelerator hard, I drove past the lush greenery of the huge park. Except for seagulls gliding high above in the churning thermals, I was completely alone.
From Haven Point Drawbridge, the Visitor Center would only be a mile or two farther along this road. The automated drawbridge appeared in the distance, but it was hardly ever raised. Few boats entered the river to reach the remote marinas upstream, and pilots needed to radio in a code to a computerized station to allow passage.
Cutting back on the throttle to cross the span, I saw something in the center of the roadway just a few yards beyond the entrance ramp. It looked like a large purse. I slowed to a crawl, trying to understand why a woman’s bag had been abandoned on a drawbridge.
As I applied the brakes and stopped, I recognized the purse. Jennifer Rybak had carried that same blue-and-white striped handbag in court earlier today, as well as on our boating trip Sunday. I wondered if someone had kidnapped her, and in the struggle, she might have dropped it. I shifted the transmission into park, turned off the growling engine, and exited my Barracuda near the base of the ramp of Haven Point Drawbridge.
The strong breeze tussled my hair and roared in my ears. The midday sun burned harshly. With my hand shielding my eyes, I scanned the area for people and cars, but saw none. Having no better idea, I shouted out Jennifer’s name twice, but the wind carried my voice into the desolate marshland. There was no reply.
Stepping cautiously onto the main bridge, I reached the handbag just before the fissure line where the road panels would rise. The handbag was open, and nothing inside seemed suspicious or dangerous. Just a woman’s large purse with ordinary contents. I picked it up and fished around to see if there was a wallet or phone. They were gone. A notepad with the initials “J.R.” on the cover proved that the bag belonged to Jennifer Rybak.
A shrill alarm bell clanged repeatedly. Behind me, a crossbar with flashing red lights lowered to block the non-existent traffic. The entire bridge lurched as grinding winches and counterweights moved beneath me. The road panels of the drawbridge began to rise at a slow, eerie pace. My Barracuda was trapped in the space between the crossbar and the rising bridge panels. Although my car was safe there, I could not drive anywhere until the bridge lowered and the traffic barrier rose again. If I remembered correctly, these automated bridges stayed up for approximately four minutes, but I was not sure.
From the vantage point of the entrance ramp, I looked along the river for approaching vessels, but both sides of the waterway were clear. No boats were coming. Because I was near the moving parts of the bridge, I took a few steps back and watched. The road panels lifted with wheezing and scraping sounds until hydraulics moved them from horizontal to vertical positions. The solid road in front of me had oddly transformed into a high wall blocking my way.
Realizing that I would be stuck here for about four minutes until the drawbridge lowered, I turned back to face the way that I had come.
In front of my Barracuda stood Jennifer Rybak.
28
As the wind picked up, Jennifer’s dress clung to the smooth curves of her lithe body. Her blue-green eyes held my gaze magnetically, but I did not move toward her. Richard Kostas had died last week on the shore of the bay, reportedly from a spray of cyanide to the face. Now I was trapped on an open drawbridge. All illusions of why I was here instantly vanished. Ten feet away was as close as I dared to be to her.
Against the backdrop of the wild marshlands, Jennifer was an incongruous and elegant beauty. Both of her hands remained casually behind her back, which gently accentuated her shapely breasts. A small black scarf she had not worn in the courthouse hung in a loop beneath her neck. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail, and I recalled how she had pulled her hair back last Sunday on our first date. The hair band she used when we went boating on the bay
