She must have seen Lindy following her, Lindy realized as she moved from one cold foot to the other. So here it came, the dreaded, hoped-for confrontation. And now, something strange. As the figure came closer, she got the distinct impression of a much larger person than Rachel. That must be her own fear blowing Rachel up. In the dimming light, Rachel looked immense, and so dark, dressed in bulky black clothes like a Ninja. And where was her face?
An instant later, Rachel, who had never slowed in her amazingly swift ascent uphill, knocked Lindy down. But Lindy had seen it coming, so she toppled softly into a snowbank. She leaped up, ready for a real round, if that was what Rachel wanted. And that was when another very strange thing happened. Rachel pushed right by her without stopping and ran down the road, faster than Lindy had ever seen the indolent Rachel do anything.
Nonplussed, covered with snow, Lindy stared after the girl until she disappeared around the bend. A few hundred more feet and the idiot would reach Highway 89. There she could flag someone down easily. Maybe she had a concussion or some other brain injury. Or… could she be afraid just at the sight of Lindy? Even though she knew it was disgraceful, Lindy enjoyed a delicious moment of pleasure at the thought.
What now? Get back in the Jeep and chase after her? But Lindy realized Rachel would blame her for the accident. The smart thing for her to do was to leave. Yes, time to go, pretend this had never happened. How humiliating it would be, having to admit she had been trailing Rachel, and she was sure Rachel would blow it up into a lot more. Maybe she just wouldn’t admit it. Truth had its limits.
A keening sound like the cry of an injured animal interrupted her thoughts. She ran over to see what could make a noise so terrible.
The front of the car appeared to be stuck in a snowbank. Rubbing away the snow on the window Lindy saw the strangest thing of all. There was a woman inside in the driver’s seat. Utterly confused at the sight, she stepped back. The woman stirred and she heard that awful sound again.
Lindy tried the handle. The door fell open, and Rachel tumbled out into the snow onto her back, still wearing her sealskin coat. She was semiconscious. Her eyes fluttered. Blood began to flow from somewhere.
Her eyes opened. When they landed on Lindy, she screamed and scrabbled at the snow, trying to use one arm to drag herself backward.
“Let me help you,” Lindy said, but Rachel’s eyes bulged out and she tried to shriek again and then her eyes closed and she stopped moving. Had she fainted? Was she dead? Lindy bent closer to find out.
A big black Ford Ranger came down the road from the direction of the plant, and Lindy recognized the driver as George Demetrios. Within seconds George came running. “What happened?” he asked, panting.
“I don’t know,” Lindy said. “Do you have a phone in the truck?” While George ran back to call an ambulance, Lindy sat in the snow beside Rachel. She wanted to do something, so she lifted Rachel’s head very gently off the snow and put it in her lap.
She had a dizzy, disoriented feeling. The sun shot bright ice picks through her sunglasses. Her scarf and one mitten had fallen off and the snow burned her hand. A few feet away, the forest turned dark and mysterious again. Rachel’s face seemed to shine in its ghostly sleep, so young and pretty, almost virginal-looking in its freshness.
A thought struck her. Here was Rachel in her arms. So who was the other one? The Rachel who ran?
Had Lindy run Rachel off the road? Maybe Rachel had recognized her car, felt Lindy’s fury behind her, and in her own fear had run her own car over the edge after all.
The figure running up the hill must have been a passerby, nothing more.
She heard a siren. George appeared on the side of the road. “Get the hell out of here, Lindy,” he shouted. “This doesn’t look so good. Let me take care of things from here.”
Propping Rachel’s head over a soft part of the sealskin coat, Lindy grabbed her scarf and mittens and ran all the way up the hill to her Jeep, pulling away just as the ambulance arrived.
11
At ten Monday morning, on a threatening day with clouds billowing day with clouds billowing over the western mountains, Rachel Pembroke entered Nina’s conference room looking as if she’d stepped off the runway at a New York fashion show. The dress was Isaac Mizrahi, the shoes Manolo Blahnik. The perfume made you want to lean in and breathe deep. Her long black hair gleamed like an oil strike, geysering down the front of her dress. A diamond on her left hand flashed prisms of expensive light. She was young, beautiful, and about to be very, very rich.
Everyone had heard about her trip to the emergency room on Friday afternoon, and that she had told the police she was convinced that Lindy was involved in some plot to harm her, but the only obvious sign of her troubles was a long scratch on one cheek. Apparently, Nina thought, Rachel was the kind of person who came out fighting.
Genevieve followed her to the conference table, looking understated in a sensible wool suit with a rose-colored blouse. She laid her notepads and pens out neatly on the table in front of her. Winston was a no-show. He and Genevieve must have decided to alternate on the depositions. Riesner had called to say he was running late.
“Oh, hi,” said Rachel to Genevieve, peering at herself in a silver-backed mirror, obviously mistaking the woman at her side for a secretary. “I’m dying for some coffee. Think you could get me some?”
Nina paused at the door to see how Genevieve would respond. Up came the curly head. “How do you take it?” Genevieve asked sweetly. “In your lap or on your head?”
Rachel snapped her compact shut. “Excuse me?”
Genevieve laughed lightly. She held out her hand, which Rachel shook, looking confused. “Forgive me for not introducing myself to you right away. I’m Genevieve Suchat, jury consultant for the other side.”
She held on, and apparently pressed a little hard, because Rachel gave out a teeny squeal and pulled sharply away. “Well, I certainly didn’t mean to offend you,” Rachel said, massaging her hand.
“Oh, God, no. I’m sure you didn’t,” Genevieve said, with a false smile.
Genevieve put her vexation with Rachel into one word during the lunch hour, as they walked down the snowy path that led from the office into the Truckee marsh now piling with snow. “Flaunting,” she said, her Southern accent very pronounced. She seemed most Southern when she was most upset. “Don’t you just hate flaunting?” She kicked at a loose clod of hardened snow. “Must drive Lindy Markov insane, seeing Rachel dolled up like that in clothes only Mike could afford.”
“She’s going to be tough for us,” Nina said. “I already told you I think she’s very convincing. According to her, Mike makes every major decision.”
“Naturally, she says that. She’s his girlfriend.”
“But she sounds so reasonable,” Nina said. “She’s full of facts and figures. She remembers specifics the rest of them have forgotten all about. She’s very personable and very professional, once she starts testifying. And she also comes across as being so understanding of Lindy’s situation. I hated the way she so magnanimously excused Lindy for attacking her the night of Mike’s party.”
“She ought to get that plane ticket early.”
“Plane ticket? For what?”
“The Oscars,” said Genevieve, and they both laughed. “She’s got a lock on Best Actress for next year.”
“Her believability makes our job harder.”
“I’m watchin’ her,” Genevieve said. “I’m studyin’ every eyelash on that gal. I’m going to help you prepare for her testimony at trial. And when we get done, Miss Rachel’s going to look like a ten dollar hooker at the Tailhook convention.”
“Well,” Nina said. “I don’t know. That kind of approach might backfire. I don’t feel comfortable with all these stereotypes. Like-Mike’s the man, so he ran the company and Lindy helped. Or Lindy’s the greedy, cast-off mistress. Let Riesner rely on those old stereotypes. I don’t want to sink to that.”
Genevieve rolled her eyes. “Nina, I know it’s a temptation. I’ve seen it a thousand times. The lawyer wants to state the logical, honest truth of the matter. But that’s all head stuff. You don’t win the heart of the jury appealing to their reason. And if you don’t win the heart of the jury, you go home with a hole in your pocket.”
This statement made Nina stop and turn to face Genevieve. “That’s all I know how to do, Genevieve. I don’t want the jury to decide based on sentiment. I want them to decide based on the-”
“Oh, honey, you have so much to learn. You want to make that big fee or not?”
“Of course I do. I just-”
“Well, I’m going to make sure you do. Now let’s go back to that primped-up thing and wipe the fifty dollar lipstick off that smart mouth of hers.”
Over the weekend, Lindy had holed up in her trailer, tying up personal business, paying bills, lying on the couch, and gazing out the window at the cloudless sky. She expected Rachel to accuse her. She expected to be arrested.
Tuesday afternoon, when no one had come, she broke down and rode Comanche to the little store. There, she changed a few bills for quarters and went to the phone to call George Demetrios at the plant. He wasn’t there anymore, a coworker told her, but she had a number at home which Lindy tried.
She hated having to call George. He had a crush on her, and she didn’t like to encourage him. Still, it was lucky George had come along when he did out there on the snowy hillside. Or had it been luck?
“Hey, Lindy. How are you?” George asked with real concern.
“Fine, George. But why aren’t you at work?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“I got canned.”
“What? You’ve been with us for five years! Mike has lost his marbles. How can they fire you?”
“Oh, he had nothing to do with it. It was Pembroke got me fired.”
“But… she doesn’t have a lot to do with manufacturing directly, does she?”
“I don’t know what she does. I just know she talked with my boss, and the next thing I knew I was out on my… fired.”
Picturing his thick lips and olive skin, she thought for a moment. “You think they did this because of what happened on the road?”
She could almost hear his brain chugging around the idea. “Maybe, so,” he said.
“How is Rachel?”
“She’s okay.”
“George, how is it you happened along when you did? Were you following me?”
“I guess I was,” he said.
“Why?”
There was a long silence. “I saw you at the plant,” he said. “I saw you take off after Rachel.”
“Oh.”
“I just didn’t want you to get into any stupid kind of trouble.”
