Going for Kona (17 page)

The next morning, Precious anticipated my four a.m. alarm and walked on my face five minutes early.

“You’re too damn smart,” I muttered, shoving her off. I lay in the dark, knowing I wouldn’t go back to sleep, that it was a miracle I’d slept at all. I had left three messages for Detective Young. When he didn’t call back, I tried Marchetti and Nickels. Voice mail for both. I knew Sam was safe with my parents, but, still, I wanted a little backup.

No dice. I was, as usual, completely alone.

The last few days had crushed my tension meter like a stinkbug under a boot heel. I needed a pounding run and the presence of my husband. If only I could lace up my shoes and fly across the trails. Aqua jogging didn’t give me quite the same high, and the thought of pedaling in my living room in the dark wasn’t doing it for me, either. I’d missed a workout that week and had to ride twice as long to make up for it. Rhonda Dale be damned, I had to fly.

***

Thirty minutes later, with La Mariposa loaded on the bike rack, I was on my way northwest out of Houston to Waller. I couldn’t get the miles I needed in the city. I had given the police everything I had on Rhonda in my messages, and I could be at the station by ten a.m. if I hurried. I’d brought Adrian’s Old Spice sports wipes and a change of clothes, so I might even have time to stop for a few dozen doughnuts and a gallon of Starbucks on the way.

“I’m coming, my love,” I said to Adrian.

My heartbeat quickened as I exited Highway 290 at Fields Store Road and saw that my timing was perfect. Fog hugs the ground any time the morning temperature out in the Waller area dips below 90 degrees, and it doesn’t roll away until after sunrise. Flying down the highway through the dark fog with Adrian, feeling the wind through my helmet and moisture on my face and glasses, was just what I needed. I parked the Camry, zipped up my yellow reflector vest over my sleeveless white bike shirt and shorts, and prepped my bicycle. Sweat dripped off my forehead. August in Waller, even before first light, is like my un-air-conditioned middle-school gym after boys’ PE. I drank a bottle of 5-Hour Energy from the stash in my console, then clicked the key fob to lock the rented Camry—such luxury. I pushed off at five thirty, just as I’d hoped.

“Adrian?”

No response, but I’d barely started, so I didn’t let it bother me. I had tried to summon him countless times in the last few weeks, but he never came to me on demand, or any time other than when I trained. He would show up when he was ready. I stood in the pedals and coasted. My bicycle seat had absorbed half a bayou of water and it took some getting used to.

“I quit my job, Adrian. Brian let Scarlett get out of control. She really hurt me and the kids. And Rhonda is even worse.”

Nothing from Adrian. In all the times he’d appeared to me while I was training over the past month, we’d never talked about his accident, or the stories in the paper, or anything else except us. It just never came up, never felt right, so I’d avoided the missing money. I hadn’t told him about Annabelle leaving. I just enjoyed him when I had the chance. Maybe we could talk about what happened, what
was
happening, though, just this once? I could at least try.

“I think she’s the one who hit you and has been following Sam. Maybe sometime when you’re ready, you can tell me what happened. Somehow.”
I swallowed, hard.
“Adrian, I know she’s lying. I don’t understand about the money, but maybe I don’t have to. I’m trying to believe that.”

La Mariposa flew through the fog as if through clouds, a brilliant flame breaking through with the sunrise. The air rushed beneath me, around me, above me, and my heart soared—with joy that I could protect my son. With hope.

“There’s my Butterfly.”
Adrian’s voice came from far, far away. The tips of his fingers touched my nose.
“You are the most loved, the most beautiful woman in the world. You know that, don’t you?”
And then he did the thing I loved the most, slipping his arms around me from behind and staying there, just holding onto me.

“I do. And you are the most gorgeous, most loved man ever. You know that, too, right?”

But he didn’t answer. I don’t know if he heard me. Did he hear me enough when he was alive? Had I made sure he really knew how much I loved him, what he had done for me? I regretted every second of discord, every grumpy moment. I wished I’d given him nothing but happiness every chance I had. That I had complained less, criticized less, lost my temper less. I streaked through the fog with tears in the corners of my eyes.

The ride passed quickly. The mist started to lift. I checked my Garmin. Eight thirty. I would be back at my car by eight forty-five as planned. I didn’t want to be, though. I didn’t want to let this warmth go, to let the feeling of Adrian’s arms around me end. I had so little of him. I didn’t want to stop.

As I came around a downhill right-hand curve that cut through thick forest, a car careened straight toward me on the wrong side of the road. For a split second, I thought I was dreaming it. I blinked.

The car was really there.

I could veer to the right, like last time. Only we were about to cross Little Fall Creek and a low concrete wall blocked my way.

Adrian’s breath puffed hot against my neck.
“You can’t ditch to the right, and you can’t let yourself go under. You have to aim for the car, and jump your bike over it, and fly.”

Oh, how I wanted to stay there with him. I nestled into the sound of his voice and steered straight for the car on the damp road, cranking the pedals as fast and hard as I could. But I didn’t crouch. I didn’t prepare to pull up and jump. I pulled in my wings and wrapped them around myself, and right before I closed my eyes, I saw the driver. Limp mousy hair, squinty eyes.

Tires squealed. Air rushed behind and beside me. Shock waves from an impact to my left crashed into my eardrums. Then, nothing.

Something warm covered my face, and I smelled dirt. Was I dead?

My eyes opened. Seconds later? Minutes later? I didn’t know.

Sun. It was sun I felt on my face. No God. No angels. No Adrian. Just me, sprawled in fog-wet grass, by myself on the side of the road. Alive.

I looked around me. La Mariposa lay crumpled ten yards behind me. I groaned. Not my beautiful bicycle. It was like another piece of Adrian had been ripped from me.

I probed along my body. Grass and gravel on my right, wet dirt on the left. Scrapes. A few sore spots, but that was it. I glanced to my left and saw my butterfly locket on the ground, its chain broken. I rolled over and grabbed it and curled around it, fetal, whimpering.

I heard sounds off to my left and pushed myself up to a sitting position, then rolled forward to my hands and knees and stood up one leg at a time. I kept still until the black spots in front of my eyes went away, then I walked about fifteen yards back to the road. A large truck pulling a horse trailer was stopped there. The car wasn’t. The truck had a badly mangled front fender, but no more damage. A man was talking loudly on his mobile phone, and when he saw me, he kept talking and headed toward me. He put his hand over the mouthpiece.

“You all right?”

I nodded. Sort of, I thought.

He moved his hand and resumed his call. “I slammed on my brakes, but I kinda skidded. I just prayed to God to save us all and kept it straight with the brakes locked down.” He closed his eyes. “The Taurus is upside down in the creek, and ain’t nobody got out yet. I’m looking at the lady on the bike, and she’s scraped up real bad, but she’s walking and she says she’s all right.” He gave the location and got off the phone.

I ran down the embankment to the creek bed behind him, slipping in my bike cleats. We peered inside the car, a white Taurus, and I saw her. Stephanie, on the ceiling with her head trapped between the roof and the steering wheel.

The truck driver felt for a pulse, then shook his head and walked away from the wreckage, talking into his phone. “Looks like the other driver didn’t make it.”

I started shaking. Pain shot through my head. I sank to my knees.

“Miss, you okay?”

“I think so. I—I just realized how lucky I am.”

“You shore are. Somebody upstairs must be looking out for you.”

“Maybe so.”

“I ain’t never seen no dead person before. Plenty’a dead animals . . . I’m feeling a little queasy.” He stared at the horizon. “I’m gonna check on my horses.”

As soon as he was gone, I stuck my head into the Taurus, looking for something, anything, to help me understand. Stephanie’s purse lay on the ceiling of the car by her head. I tried not to look at her as I grabbed it. I sat down on the creek bed and pawed through the contents as quickly as I could. The police would arrive soon. I grabbed her driver’s license first: Stephanie Willis, at the address I followed her to the day before. I pulled out a cracked and soiled ID badge for the Houston Independent School District. I found a package of photographs of Adrian taken over the past few weeks, even months—some with me, some with Sam, some with Annabelle, and some with all of us and even other people. That was it for the purse, but the papers, spattered with Stephanie’s blood and brain tissue, included a sheaf of Adrian’s articles.

I slid one out and a sob caught in my throat: “My Personal Best.” It was highlighted in yellow and underlined in black pen so hard the paper had ripped. This time I read past where I’d stopped last time.

I was so proud of him when that article came out. It really touched his readers, and even now, it made my tears roll. What had it meant to this woman, though, that she had carried it in her car, marked to bits? I stared at the documents in front of me, no closer to understanding why she had ruined my life, until I heard sirens approaching.

I needed to get out of this woman’s things before the police drove up, so I shoved the purse and papers back into the Taurus with what was left of my husband’s killer.

I perched gingerly on the seat of the squad car, trying to keep my bare thighs off of the sticky vinyl seat that bounced under me. The car smelled of sweat and cigarettes. I fought nausea. The officer pulled away from the accident and I felt a visceral tug at my heart—I turned back and saw La Mariposa. I wanted to jump out of the car and run back, to throw myself over the bicycle and weep.

“You okay back there?”

“I’m good.” I had popped two Aleve at the scene and declined medical attention. The pain settled into me, worse than I’d expected.

“Your car’s parked by the old stadium?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I called that HPD detective. Just wanted you to know.”

My phone rang: Robert. As tempted as I was to put him off, I’d have to tell him what happened sooner or later. “Hello?”

“Sam’s missing, Michele. He stayed in the barn apartment at your parents’ place last night, and we couldn’t find him this morning. We searched the whole property. Please tell me you’ve heard from him.”

“What? No! I’m in a police car, riding away from an accident. I haven’t heard from him, or anyone at all.” I scrolled through my missed calls and messages. Nothing.

“Shit! I can’t believe he would take off.”

“He wouldn’t, Robert. Sam wouldn’t do that.”

I stared down at the bloodstains on my clenched fists, trying to figure out where I was bleeding, then realized it was Stephanie’s blood. I wanted to scrub my skin with a wire brush, scrub myself clean of her, the crash, that damn Taurus.

The Taurus.

I screamed at the officer. “Turn the car around!”

I heard “What?” in one ear from Robert and “What?” in the other from the officer.

I was screaming and sobbing, “My son is in that car. I think my son is in that car. Please turn around!”

Firing questions at me, the officer turned on his flashers, wheeled the car around, and radioed ahead all at the same time. Robert’s voice rang out from the phone in my lap.

I hit speaker and leaned as close as I could to the front seat, holding my phone where the officer could hear it. “Officer, I have you on speaker. My son’s father is on the phone, and he said our son Sam is missing. This woman, the dead woman from the accident, has been following Sam for a few weeks, maybe longer. I told you earlier but I’ll repeat it for my ex-husband now—I believe she killed my husband a month ago, after stalking him. I just didn’t figure out her identity until yesterday when I confronted her. Sam was visiting his grandparents in Seguin. I told her he was far away and safe from her. Twelve hours later, she tried to kill me, and my son is missing.”

“Did you see your son in the car, Mrs. Hanson?”

“No, but I know he’s there somewhere. He didn’t have a car in Seguin. He wouldn’t have run off. He had nowhere to go. Stephanie took him. I know it.”

“Houston is a long way from Seguin, let alone from Waller.”

“Two hours to my parents’ place, and the same back to Houston. One hour to kidnap my son. She had more than enough time.”

“Well, ma’am, the fellas on the scene didn’t see a kid.”

“Did they check the trunk?”

He radioed my question. A crackly response came back through. The officer translated. “The car left on the back of a wrecker at the same time we did. They’re trying to raise the driver on his cell phone now.” He glanced back at me and the car swerved. He corrected it. “They couldn’t get the trunk open.”

“He could be injured! Can we catch the tow truck?”

“They’re en route, but I can head in their direction.” He slowed down and turned the car around again. “Young and Marchetti with HPD said this wreck is part of their homicide investigation. They’ve got more resources than us, so we sent the vehicle to a yard north of downtown Houston. It’ll take ’em about forty minutes to get it over there and take us about the same from here. If he is even in there, which he may not be, ma’am. Maybe you should call the police in Seguin, too.”

Robert yelled something I couldn’t understand.

I took the phone off speaker and put it to my ear. “What’s that?”

“Your parents are calling the police on the other line. What in the hell have you gotten him into, Michele?”

“Now is not the time to point a finger at me, Robert. Luckily, I am alive to help you figure out where Sam is. There was a stalker, a killer—not to be confused with Michele, a mother, and the person who figured all this out.”

I dropped the phone. “Sir, I had a thought. She had time to go by her house, so she could have left my son there. Could someone go check?”

“That’s a great idea.”

He got back on the radio and in minutes had ushered up assistance in Houston. “Give ’em about thirty minutes, ma’am. HPD said they have officers close by.”

I closed my eyes and pictured Sam. I held his face in my mind. The pull I’d felt not to leave the accident. I held back another sob. “Hold on, Sam. I’m coming.”

“Still no answer from the driver of that tow truck, ma’am. We’ll get there soon, though.”

I put my phone to my ear again. “Robert, are you there?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to stay on the phone while we’re en route?”

“I do. And Michele, I’m sorry for what I said earlier. That was out of line. I’m scared about Sam.”

“I understand. I’m scared, too.”

The drive seemed to take forever, but twenty minutes later we pulled into an impound lot on Dart Street, with downtown Houston looming over us in the near distance.

The tow truck and the old Taurus had an ambulance parked beside it.

Just then, the radio crackled to life. Garble, garble, garble.

“What did they say?”

“It’s the officers at the suspect’s home. They didn’t receive an answer to the knock on the door. They have entered and are searching. No sign of anyone yet.”

In the office, the driver was logging in the Taurus. I was in his face in a split second. “Why don’t you answer your phone?”

He scowled at me. “Who the hell are you, and what’s it to you?”

The officer held his hand up to quiet me. “Sir, I’m Officer Dodge, and we called ahead. That’s our ambulance. We have reason to believe there’s someone in the trunk of the vehicle you towed in. We need to search it.” He turned to the desk officer and flashed his badge. “This accident occurred in my jurisdiction, and I am working in cooperation with Detectives Young and Marchetti of HPD. Can I get some help opening the trunk, please? It’s an emergency.”

The man at the desk nodded and talked into an intercom.

I went outside and started pacing in front of the building, where the scents of urine and gasoline assaulted me. I breathed through my mouth, trying not to hyperventilate. The tow truck driver came back out with a large man in greasy clothes wielding a crowbar and some other tool. They took Officer Dodge and me back out to the Taurus.

The two men worked together on the trunk, grunting and straining as one worked on the lock and the other levered with the pry bar. The ambulance attendants stood beside them.

“Sam, honey, Sam, are you in there?”

Officer Dodge’s radio crackled to life again. This time, without the highway noise, I could understand the voices clearly.

“No sign of anyone at the residence of Ms. Willis. The officers have completed their search. Detective Young was on the scene, and he identified pictures of the boy and his family in her things.”

I swallowed hard and looked back at the Taurus. The roof and front end had sustained the worst damage, but two strong men couldn’t get the crumpled trunk to budge.

I spoke into my phone. “Robert, are you there?”

“I’m here, I heard.”

A popping noise drew my attention to the officer working on the trunk. “I think we’ve got it. Stand clear.”

I couldn’t swallow the enormous lump in my throat. Tears stung my eyes as I prayed, “Please, God, let him be all right. If he’s in there, let him be all right. If he’s not, let him please come home and be all right. Just please let my Sam be okay.”

The trunk latch released, but it didn’t pop open. The officer bent his legs and positioned himself low with his hands around the bottom of the trunk lid. He pushed with his legs in a dead lift, crying out with the strain until the lid groaned, then with a long, loud creak, opened.

My son lay motionless inside.

I yelled so loud my voice hurt my own ears. “It’s him!”

Robert’s voice crackled from my phone. “Michele, is he okay?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t know the answer. I watched the two paramedics as they reached into the trunk to do their work. He was wrapped in a wool blanket, with a strip of something white through his mouth. His forehead had a gash, and there was blood, a lot of blood, but I couldn’t tell how bad it was.

One of the paramedics turned his head toward me. “We’ve got a pulse. His respiration is slow, though. We’re going to move him out of here. Please stand clear.”

“Robert, he’s alive. They’re getting him out now.” The phone fell from my hand, and

I dropped my head into my hands and sobbed.