On Blue Falls Pond (7 page)

After that depressing encounter, she’d driven past the old house trailer where she’d grown up. The day had turned itself over completely to a wave of thunderstorms and heavy rainfall. It cast an even more dismal pall on the sight. What had been tidy and well maintained while Glory and her mother had lived there had deteriorated greatly. A rusty Chevy Citation was parked in the overgrown grass in the front yard. It looked like it hadn’t moved since the grass greened and began to grow in the spring—maybe long before that. The screens on the windows of the trailer were torn and the body of a waterlogged headless doll lay sprawled on the rusting metal steps to the front door.

She’d driven on, resolved to get as much unpleasantness out of the way as she could. She stopped at the bank that held the homeowners insurance money from the fire—which she’d refused to touch—to register a change of address. Doing that had made her start thinking of all of the things she’d been neglecting. She’d intended to donate the full amount to a charity, but hadn’t really applied herself to researching and selecting which one.

And throughout the afternoon, Mrs. Landry’s last comment nagged and nibbled at the edges of her consciousness. Had Ovella said something to the woman insinuating that the fire report was wrong? Or was that just Mrs. Landry’s way of fishing for more information? Certainly, Ovella had never made such allusions to Glory.

After one quick stop at the Shop-n-Save for a few groceries, Glory headed back toward the hollow. She glanced at the piece of paper with Eric’s phone number lying on the seat. It pleased her that she’d navigated her way though the emotions of her first encounter with Dawson without falling apart and having to have him rescue her . . . again. She’d always hated weak women, never been one to swoon and be catered to.

The trip left her flooded with emotion, both warmly nostalgic and deeply mournful. She realized she didn’t feel she belonged here any more than she’d felt she belonged anywhere else since the fire. Maybe this was going to be the way of things for the rest of her life. Maybe she was looking for something that would never be; she was destined to drift and never fit anywhere.

One small storm had passed earlier in the day, but the heavy, humid air said there was more to come. Shortly after she left town, it let loose. She flipped on the radio to listen for tornado warnings.

The weather got progressively worse as she drove out of town. The wind-driven rain came in pelting waves, the water sheeting across the pavement and running swiftly downhill, filling the narrow ditch beside the road. She drove carefully, mindful of her speed, knowing she was no longer used to navigating these twisting mountain roads.

She turned off the highway and started up the road to Cold Springs Hollow. Turning her wipers on full speed, she was still having difficulty seeing clearly.

Suddenly, a tree limb crashed onto the pavement in front of her as she entered a hairpin turn. She slammed on the brakes. Her car swerved into a skid, heading straight off the curve. She gripped the steering wheel tighter, mashing the brake pedal harder.

Let it off! You can’t steer. Let the brake off!

But her adrenaline-infused body refused to listen. Her leg remained rigid, the brake pedal pushed hard against the floor.

The back end of the car swung wildly to the right.

There was a sickening moment when her tires left the earth completely. It seemed to last forever, her car hanging suspended over the steep slope. The roar of the racing engine echoed in her ears.

My God, this is it. This is how I’m going to die.

Then the nose of the car tilted downward. The last thing she registered was the sound of breaking branches as she slammed into a tree.

Chapter Six

A
S ERIC DROVE
slowly back toward town, he was very glad he’d insisted on picking Scott up himself. Jill was an okay driver, but the storm was the worst he’d seen in a very long time, coming in wave after wave of wind, rain, and lightning. In a couple of places the water edged out of the shallow drainage ditch and washed across the road in a muddy stream. Already the creeks were moving fast enough to be a problem for those who weren’t aware of the deceptive power of water. The wind lashed the trees, sending small broken branches and leaves slapping and ticking against his windshield and the side of his car.

He frequently checked Scott in the backseat, worried needlessly that the child was afraid of the storm. Scott was snug in his car seat, slowly turning a small ball in his hands, his gaze fixed on the moving pattern of colors.

There was a curve in the road where the water normally sluiced over it in heavy rains. Eric slowed as he approached. Which turned out to be a very good thing. In the lane going the opposite direction on the outside of the curve there was a four-foot-wide, three-foot-long washout. The asphalt and the underlying roadbed were tumbling down the mountain in large, muddy chunks.

After getting out to inspect the safety of the right-hand lane, he was able to drive past, hugging the inside of the curve, undergrowth scraping along the passenger side of the Explorer. Once clear of the hole, he got on his radio and called the sheriff’s dispatch. “We’ve got a six-foot washout in Cold Springs Hollow Road, eastbound side, about a mile from the highway. You’ll want to get some barricades up.”

“Right. What about the westbound?”

“This road’s barely wide enough for two cars as it is, I wouldn’t trust it with the way it’s coming down.”

“Hold on a second, let me tell the sheriff.”

In a minute the dispatcher was back. “We’ll send the road crew out to barricade at the highway. Deputy Martin is off duty and lives in the hollow. We’ll see if we can get him to take care of it from that end.”

“I’ll hang here until it’s secured. Let me know when those barricades are up.”

“Will do.”

There wasn’t much traffic out here, the road went deep into the hollow and ended there. But it only took one unsuspecting driver to become a statistic. He thought of Glory. Tula had said she’d gone into town and wasn’t home yet. He hoped she had the good sense not to try until the storm passed.

Less than a quarter mile farther was a dirt fire road that took off on the right. Eric pulled off the main road and parked. Deep rivulets had already been etched down the length of the fire road, depositing a large amount of mud in the culvert where the drainage ditch passed under it. That sinkhole was bound to get much, much larger.

He would try to locate Glory when he got back to town. No way was she going to make it back to Tula’s tonight.

“Daddy has to get out of the car for a minute,” he said as he turned to look at Scott.

Scott continued to stare at the little ball. That was another thing that worried Eric; his son didn’t seem to have any sense of abandonment or danger. Where most children cry when left alone in a car, Scott was oblivious—unless you tried to take away the object of his attention.

Eric reached back and patted Scott’s shin. “Love you, baby.” The words were little more than a whisper around the lump that had gathered in his throat.

He shrugged on a department rain slicker and got out to place warning flares on the road. The instant he stepped out of the car, the wind ripped the hood from his head and tore at the hem of his raincoat. He squinted against the driving rain, managing to get the flares placed, but he might as well not have bothered with the slicker. He was soaked to his boxers.

He considered running back up the way he’d come and putting flares out there too, but he couldn’t do that and still keep Scott in sight. Again he assured himself that of the few folks who drove this road, they should all have the sense to stay home or go easy.

He walked a few yards closer to the hole for another look. Another foot of asphalt had collapsed. If he’d been a few minutes later, he’d have been spending the night at Tula’s. He could think of worse things—a stormy night with Tula as company sure beat the hell out of sitting around his place waiting for the electricity to go out. And it would. It always did.

When he got back into the car, Scott was still sitting as passively as he had been when Eric had gotten out. Cell phones didn’t work in the hollow, so he radioed his own dispatcher and had her call Jill to tell her he’d be late and not to worry.

Then he waited.

Downtime was never a good thing when he had something nagging his mind. And the Harrison fire report sure as hell qualified as nagging.

He recalled the details of the fire from a professional perspective: The 911 call had come in at 3:50
A.M.
from a neighbor who was up with a sick child. As the Harrison house had been situated on a wooded five acres, that neighbor was nearly a quarter mile away. When the department had arrived on scene, half of the house had been fully involved.

As fate would have it, Eric had been on his once-monthly night rotation. He had been the one to go on search and rescue while the remainder of his firefighters battled the blaze. He’d located Glory first, near the back door. The far end of the house, where the bedrooms and Andrew were, had been too hot to enter. Later, when it was safe to go in, Andrew’s body was discovered in bed.

Eric’s ensuing investigation had revealed that there had been no battery in the carbon monoxide detector. The smoke detector’s battery backup had been intact.

Both Glory and Andrew had suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Nothing surprising there.

Burn patterns indicated that the fire had started in the area of the furnace—the
two-year-old
furnace; it had been replaced under warranty. A malfunction in a furnace that age was surprising—not impossible, but definitely unusual.

Eric had calculated that the fire had begun sometime around three a.m.
Arson hour.

Glory, the only living witness, couldn’t remember anything about the hours prior to the fire.

All of these things were common enough in an accidental fire. But when lumped all together, they should make an investigator look more closely.

And he had, looked, that is; making every effort to ignore his personal suspicion that there were too many coincidences. He had to conduct his investigation without prejudice. There had been no damning evidence that would have held up a ruling of arson.

Still, he knew Andrew—and history often repeated itself. Eric’s own knowledge might be the missing link to arson—the unsubstantiated missing link. But his gut had told him that something had been very wrong behind the closed doors of that storybook cottage.

Years ago, while he and Andrew had been teammates in high school, he’d seen things in Andrew’s personality that more than gave him pause. The guy was perfect on the outside, yet Eric suspected something darker lurked beneath that perfection. Andrew had dated Jill’s cousin, Meghan, for a while. Jill’s aunt had been thrilled, always said how she couldn’t have picked out a nicer boyfriend for her daughter. But months into the relationship, Meghan had dumped him for no apparent reason. Jill had seen bruises on Meghan’s upper arms. She never admitted Andrew had given them to her . . . still.

Maybe the guy had changed by the time he married Glory. Or maybe not.

After looking at all of the evidence in the Harrison fire, Eric had ruled as logic dictated. A faulty gas line on the furnace. Accidental fire. Even after going over the report again today, he couldn’t point to anything to contradict that finding. And yet—

His radio interrupted his thoughts. “Chief Wilson?”

“Yes, dispatch, go ahead.”

“Sheriff’s Office says the barricade’s up on Cold Springs Hollow Road.”

“Thanks. Tell them I’m leaving my flares on the road up here.”

“Right.”

He started the Explorer, and said to Scott, “Bet you’re ready for your supper, big guy. Won’t be long now.” He pulled back onto the blacktop and headed toward the highway, windshield wipers thudding back and forth on high. Lightning flashed, followed quickly by a crash of thunder that said it had been very close. Eric’s grip on the steering wheel tightened.

He approached the last hairpin curve with relief, creeping along at a speed that made his grandpa look like Mario Andretti. He’d be very glad to be back on the main highway with two wide, paved lanes and better runoff ditches.

As he navigated around a small limb in the sharp curve, he saw something dark on the left side of the road. At first he thought a deer had been hit, then he saw that the figure beside the road was human. He got a bit closer and recognized Glory sitting in the pouring rain. She wasn’t moving, just letting the rain pelt her.

He stopped the car. “Daddy’ll be right back,” he said to Scott as he jumped out.

“Glory! What happened?”

She looked at him, her movements sluggish, her eyes unfocused and blinking against the rain. Slowly she raised a hand and pointed down the embankment beside the road.

He looked over the edge. Her car was smashed against a thick-trunked pine; he couldn’t believe she’d gotten out and scaled all of the way back up by herself. She had to be injured.

He went down on one knee and put his hands on either side of her face, checking her pupils. Her lower lip was split and bleeding. She had a raw place on the side of her cheek from the airbag. He ran his hands over her head, feeling for lumps. He felt the alignment of the bones in her neck. And she sat mute while he did it.

“Glory.” He lifted her chin so she had to look at him. “Glory. Does anything hurt? Do you have pain?”

She shook her head, blinked, then nodded.

An earsplitting crack rent the air at the same time as a flash blinded him. He jumped. She didn’t. The smell of ozone burned his nose.

She started to shiver, her teeth chattering.

“I’m going to help you up.” He moved beside her and put an arm around her, then hoisted her to her feet. “Slow. Nice and easy. Let’s test and see if you can walk.”

She put one shaky foot in front of the other, until they made it to the car. He sat her in the passenger seat and buckled her seat belt for her. He was leaning close when she grabbed his arm. He looked into her eyes, which were now focused and afraid.

“It’s okay.” He touched her cheek, brushing the wet hair away from her face. “You’re okay. I’m going to take you back into town and have the ER check you out.”

“No!” The fear in her eyes was edged out by raw panic. “No! No ER.” Her fingers dug deeply into his arm.

“Glory,” he said softly, “we have to make sure you aren’t hurt. I wouldn’t be doing my job—”

“Please, Eric.” Her green eyes beseeched him, her plea pitiful in its intensity. “Please. I’m all right. Don’t leave me there again.”

Again.
He’d left her there the night of the fire, and she’d miscarried her baby. When she’d first seen him two days ago she’d been terrified by memories brought on by his face.

He didn’t want to see her frightened any more.

“I won’t leave you. But you might have a concussion.”

“I don’t.” Her fingers dug deeper.

He knelt on the running board and forced her to look him in the eyes. Water was running down the back of his neck, but he ignored it. “It’ll be all right.” He touched her cheek. “I’ll stay with you the entire time. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

Her eyes closed briefly, and she swallowed hard.

He took that as acquiescence and got back in the car and headed toward town.

Jill listened to the rain pelt the house. She paced in front of the living room window, rarely taking her gaze from the street out front. Eric should have been back by now, even with the washout in the road.

That road into Cold Springs Hollow could be treacherous in a storm. What if there had been another washout or a mudslide, and Eric hadn’t been able to stop? What if a tree fell on the car?

She had just about given herself a sour stomach when she saw him pull up. Breathing a sigh of relief, she hurried and opened the front door.

Eric left the car running with the windshield wipers beating back and forth when he got out and pulled Scott from the backseat. There was someone else in the car. The rain was so heavy, Jill couldn’t even make out if it was a man or a woman.

He ran up the front steps with his department slicker thrown over Scott’s head. When she looked at Eric’s rain-soaked face, Jill suddenly realized she was as worried over Eric’s safety as she had been Scott’s.

Reaching out to take her son, she said to Eric, “You’re soaked! You should come in and dry off; have something hot to drink.”

Eric swiped his wet hair off his forehead. “Can’t. Glory Harrison’s in the car.”

“Oh?”

“Bye, Scottie.” He kissed Scott’s cheek. “Bye, Jill.” He hurried down the steps without responding to her questioning tone.

She stood there for a few seconds after his Explorer had disappeared down the street. Glory Harrison. What was Glory Harrison doing with Eric?

As she got Scott settled for his dinner, she couldn’t get Glory out of her head. Mother’s question about Eric’s fire inquiry earlier today took on new light. Jill recalled that there
had
been something about that investigation that had been different. Eric had been so preoccupied, almost troubled, for weeks after. Jill had written it off as dealing with Andrew’s death. But maybe, just maybe, there was more to it. Suddenly she wished she’d paid more attention.

When Eric got back in the car, he looked at Glory and wondered how in the hell she had managed to get out of her wrecked car and climb out of that ravine. She was a strong woman, just like her grandmother.

He drove directly to the hospital, not opening the topic for discussion again. When they stopped at the emergency door, Glory didn’t protest. In fact, she looked more pale and tremulous than she had minutes ago.

When they got inside, he was glad that being fire chief had its perks. The nursing staff just about tripped over their own feet to accommodate them.