Randy rolled away from the woman and lay in the dirt, his hands clenched, his breath sobbing in and out. He thought he was going to retch. He was trembling uncontrollably. His chest felt tight and hot, his heart trip- hammering as it never had before. He was having a heart attack. That must be it. He lay in the dirt and waited to die.
After a while, his heart slowed. He looked at the blue November sky, running like a river between the trees that enclosed his line of sight. His breathing came easier. His trembling slowed to twitches. He still felt feverish and sick, as if his skin were too small for his body, but he had to accept that he wasn’t going to drop dead on the spot. Which meant he had to face the crumpled, unmoving heap beside him. The woman. He turned his head, his throat aching. She was still, too still, and there was blood all over her white face. He rolled his head back. Looked at the river-sky. Oh, God. He was going to die. Not right now, not here in the dirt in the middle of the woods, no. He was going to die strapped to a gurney in a clean room with bright lights in Clinton. Because he had finally, irrevocably lost his temper.
He started crying again, tears spilling hot over his cheeks and running into his ears. His nose clogged and mucus clotted his throat, until he couldn’t breathe and he had to heave himself into a sitting position and hack.
He looked at her again. Should he go to the cops and turn himself in? Did he need to get a lawyer first? How was he going to afford a lawyer? Oh, God, what about Lisa? This would kill her. He had just wanted to stay with her, and now he was a murderer and he was going to be locked up for the rest of his life and die. He rocked back and forth, clamped in place by misery.
What should he do? What should he do? His whole life ruined because he hadn’t been able to keep a lid on it when that teasing bitch taunted him and took his picture. He looked at the disposable camera, abandoned in the dirt. That was it. That was what he was going to the death house for.
Unless he wasn’t.
The thought seemed to settle over him from the cold blue sky, to creep up on him through the gray and groaning trees. What if-he didn’t turn himself in? What if he wasn’t caught? What if he walked-no, ran down the hill and took her car and drove away? Was there any way to connect him to-he didn’t want to name her, but he gave her a wary glance. To
He thought about his day, about the trail he had left behind him. As far as Lisa and his brother-in-law were concerned, he was still at home. Lewis Johnson had seen him at the mill this morning, and Geraldine Bain at the post office at maybe ten o’clock. He hadn’t said anything about his plans to Ed Castle. So he was good there.
It broke down with his bike, though. Triple A would have a record. They had picked up his bike on her card, and he hadn’t even been there. Any cop asked, it’d be pretty damn obvious he had gone with her.
He had figured, when she offered him a ride, to have her drop him off at Mike Yablonski’s. He could pick up his truck there and take Lisa home.
Mike Yablonski’s. What if he had asked her to take him there first? That would have made good sense. If anybody asked, Yabbo’d say Randy had been with him the whole time, no sweat.
He didn’t waste any more time thinking. He snatched up the camera and rolled to his knees. Avoiding looking at
The sound of the engine was like the blast of doom. He froze in his seat, waiting for the fury of the law to hear and overtake him, but nothing stirred. He drove forward. His hands were shaking so, he had to clamp them tight on the wheel. He reached the surfaced road. Stopped. The worn and rutted edge where the dirt road bled onto asphalt stretched before him like some vast gorge. If he crossed over, he was out there, in public, where anyone could see, driving the car that belonged to the woman he had-he shook his head. Took a deep breath. The only thing more stupid than going was staying.
He swung out onto the two-laner, trading the grind of tires over packed dirt for the smooth hum of macadam. The shake became a shiver running down his spine. He had gotten away with murder. Now he had to figure out how to keep getting away with it.
Russ shoved his chair back from his desk, frustration a bitter taste in the back of his throat. He had been tracking down McWhorters for an hour, looking for a Michael who might be Millie van der Hoeven’s lover, without success.
Harlene Lendrum shouldered aside his office door, which he had left half open to let the warm air circulate. She clutched a coffeepot in one hand. “Well, it’s no birthday cake and champagne, but you can have the rest if you want it.”
“Now that’s an invitation I’m hard-pressed to pass up. Three-hour-old coffee dregs. Yum.”
Harlene skewered him with a glance. “Nobody made you come in here on your birthday, mister, so don’t get all snippy with me.” The dispatcher, who had outlasted two prior police chiefs and was bidding fair to outlast him, didn’t put much stock in rank or deference.
“Sorry.” He slapped his pencil against one of a sheaf of papers he was working from. “This search is ticking me off. Finding the right guy is like looking for a needle in a haystack. I ran a printout of Michael McWhorters and M. McWhorters and split it with Noble.” Noble Entwhistle, a fifteen-year veteran of the Millers Kill Police Department, was Russ’s first choice for jobs like this. Noble didn’t have an original idea in his head, but he was dogged, organized, and content to ring doorbells all day, meeting people and checking names off lists. Work that would drive a brighter guy, like his up-and-comer, Mark Durkee, nuts.
“I take it you haven’t rustled up a likely suspect over the phone,” Harlene said.
He grunted. “I eliminated the ones I knew who were too old or too married for the girl, but there are still a lot of names on the list.”
“Being older and being married’s not necessarily going to stop a girl.”
He looked at her sharply. Her face was bland. “I had to do something to whittle the size of the pool down, or I’ll be here all day. There are just too damn many McWhorters.”
“Before you start in on the McWhorters, I’ll remind you my mother was a McWhorter before she wed.”
“So was my maternal grandmother. I’m sure you and I are related somehow.”
Harlene patted her springy gray curls. “You can tell by our resemblance.” Harlene was a good ten years older and a head shorter than he, as straight and square as a weathered wooden plank.
“We-e-ell,” he temporized. “I’ll ask my mom. You know how she is. Loves all that genealogy stuff.” The idea waltzed in on the heels of his statement. “My mother.”
“What about her?”
“You know how she is,” he repeated. “What does she love even more than genealogy?”
“All her causes. Save the whales and get out the vote and all that.”
“Exactly. She’s president of the local branch of the Adirondack Conservancy Corporation. And I’ll bet five bucks for the doughnut kitty that she knows a thing or two about our missing girl. Eugene van der Hoeven said his sister had met with the local ACC members.” He stood. “I’m going to my mother’s house. I’ll keep my truck radio on in case anyone needs to reach me.”
His dispatcher eyeballed his baggy camos and long-sleeved thermal T-shirt. “If you’re going to go on duty, you ought to check out a squad car and get changed. You still keep the spare uniform down in the evidence locker, don’t you?”
He waved her suggestion away. “As soon as I get a lead on this Michael McWhorter, I’m out of here. I plan to spend the afternoon reading a good thriller.”
She snorted. “Now I know you’re over the hill. Taking the day off when there’s a live case to work? I’ll believe it when I see it.”
There was cold air. The smell of earth. And blood. Where was she? The pain made it hard to think. Becky tried to take a deep breath to clear her head, but the movement jolted her sides as if someone had touched her with a live wire. Little, shallow breaths, then. Dog-panting.
