In the Dark aka The Watcher

Tish wiped her mouth. “Stop this!”

“Finn watched us make love in his bed that night. I knew he was there. But the next day, he went and told Laura what happened in Fargo. It was our secret, his and mine. He had no right to tell her. He just wanted to split us apart. To scare her away.”

Rikke’s face was black. Horror descended on it like a shadow off the bridge.

“Finn never told Laura that I did it for him. For him! I knew what our mother was doing. I had to put a stop to it, and I knew Finn would never lift a finger to protect himself. He just crawled into his little hole and let her keep coming back for more. So I was the one who had to be strong. I was the one who had to save him.”

If Dad were abusing me, could you kill him? Do you have to be insane to do it?

Tish finally understood. Laura wasn’t talking about her father. She was talking about Rikke. About her secret.

“I came back to our farm,” Rikke went on, “and I took that bat, and I beat our mother until she was nothing but mush and pulp. Finn watched me do it. He knew I didn’t have a choice. No one was ever supposed to know. But then he went and spilled his guts to Laura. I heard him. The stupid, jealous bastard! Laura should have let me explain, but she ran away. What was I supposed to think? If she had stayed, I would never have hurt her, but she left.”

Tish’s eyes were wild. “She never told me.”

“Oh, but she would have told you eventually,” Rikke said. “I don’t blame her. I don’t blame Finn, either. We could all have worked it out if it weren’t for you. You’re the one who destroyed us. Now it’s my turn.”

Rikke let the car keys dangle from her finger in front of Tish’s face.

“This is the end for both of us.”

As Tish screamed, Rikke casually flicked the keys out over the side of the bridge, where they fell in a silver flash.

49

As Stride and Serena drew closer to the glowing white arch of the Blatnik Bridge, brake lights turned red, and traffic around them ground to a dead stop. The bridge lights over their heads were bathed in fog. Ahead of them, horns blared in a singsong whine as cars trickled forward, slowly merging into a convoy over the span. He lowered the window of his truck and leaned out to study the highway, but he couldn’t make out the summit of the bridge through the white cloud.

“Is it an accident?” Serena asked.

“I don’t know. Every time the fog rolls in, people start running into each other.”

Serena peered over the edge. “Long way down.”

“One hundred and twenty feet to the water.”

On the opposite side of the center barrier, traffic streamed toward them out of the haze. In the westbound lane, people jostled for position and cut each other off as they merged. He didn’t like the speed or impatience of the other drivers. He reached behind his seat for an emergency flasher and slapped it magnetically to the top of his Expedition. The red light turned and shot a beam around them. He turned on his four-ways and shut off the engine.

“You want to come?” he said to Serena.

“Out on the bridge?”

“You can stay here if you want.”

“Hell, no, I’m with you.”

He opened the door and stepped out onto the bridge deck. Serena did the same on the other side of the truck. She was closer to the edge, where the dirt and gravel of the narrow shoulder bumped against the concrete barrier.

“Be careful,” he said.

“Now you tell me.”

He waved his hands to alert drivers around him and walked up the highway, following the white paint marking the two lanes. Serena veered away from the shoulder and marched beside him. They could only see a few cars at a time in the swirling fog. On their right, steel girders sloped upward toward the semicircle of the bridge arch. Lights came and went over their heads as the mist drifted in pockets. He slapped the metal frame of each car they approached, so the driver knew they were there. He didn’t want anyone bolting across the lane as they came up from behind.

Inside his pocket, his phone rang. He flipped it up. “What’s up, Mags?”

“I’m at Rikke’s house. No sign of her here.”

“Get an ATL out on the tan Impala.”

“Already done. Where are you?”

Stride shook his head. “You don’t want to know. We’re hiking up the bridge deck on the Blatnik.”

“Hiking?”

“Yeah, traffic is almost stopped. Something’s going on.”

“Watch your ass, boss. That’s a mean bridge.”

Stride hung up. He and Serena threaded their way through traffic, but the fog grew thicker as they increased their altitude over the water. Cars pushed and shoved around them as if they were trapped in an amusement park ride.

“Let’s get back to the shoulder,” he told Serena. “I don’t like being in the middle of traffic.”

“Great,” she said without enthusiasm.

He held up his hands and crossed in front of a Chevy minivan that was angling toward the left lane. When they reached the shoulder, he increased his pace, marching faster.

“Watch your step, the gravel’s loose here,” he told her.

“You, too.”

He passed the first of the thick girders that sprouted upward like an erector set into a tree of beams and rivets. Circular holes allowed the wind to pass through the steel. Twin sets of cables hung elegantly from the top of the span like piano strings, suspending the roadbed on which they walked. From the lake, gusts pummeled them, dancing around the towers like sprites. He steadied himself against the concrete barrier, but the sensation of height briefly took his breath away. He could feel the rocking sway of the bridge up here.

Traffic accelerated around them. Cars that had merged into the left lane squealed and left rubber on the asphalt as they roared out of the clogged pipeline of vehicles. Stride made a frantic downward motion with his palms, trying to slow them down. No one paid attention. They sped by like giants.

He heard something. Not the howl of the wind. This was a scream.

An updraft separated the fog like a curtain. Thirty yards away, he spotted a tan Impala, half blocking the right lane of traffic at the very peak of the bridge. A trail of restless cars sped around it, sailing down the open space of the highway toward Duluth. A tall woman stood outside the car, buffeted by the wind. She was dressed in black, and she came and went in the cloud like a witch.

Rikke.

“Son of a bitch,” he said.

Serena saw her, too. “What do you want to do?”

Stride grabbed his cell phone and pushed it into her hand. “Call Maggie and get Duluth cops up here from the other side of the bridge. Then see if you can stop these goddamned idiots and shut down the traffic.”

He jogged away from her, then turned back and shouted. “Tell Maggie to get hold of the