Page 61 of Mean Streak

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S he hadn’t actually promised Hayes a ten-minute head start before she called the sheriff’s office. He had just assumed she would comply with his request. As soon as he was gone, she plugged her dead cell phone into the charger.

She checked her contacts for Sam Knight’s number, but before she could send it through, her phone rang in her hand, startling her. Even more startling, her LED read: Alice.

With a resurgence of anger, she answered. “I know, Alice.”

Alice made a hiccupping sound. “Jeff told you?”

“No. But it doesn’t matter how I found out. The point is, I did.”

“Emory—”

“Save it. I can’t talk to you now. In fact, I want nothing more to do with you. Ever.”

“What about the clinic?”

“Did you take its future into account when you started sleeping with my husband?”

“I deserve that. I deserve your scorn. More. But you must listen to me now.”

“Nothing you say will change—”

“I lied to the detective.”

Emory stopped herself from disconnecting. “What?”

“I told Sergeant Grange that Jeff was with me from the Friday evening you left for North Carolina until Sunday afternoon.”

“He wasn’t?”

“He was, except…except that I woke up early Saturday morning to go to the bathroom, and he wasn’t there. I thought he’d just decided to slip out, go home, and sleep in his own bed for the rest of the night. I didn’t like it. I had hoped we’d have one night to spend—”

Caring about none of that, Emory interrupted. “Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. I went back to bed, and to sleep, and when I woke up, he was at the bedside, bearing a tray, serving me brunch in bed. He never mentioned leaving. He didn’t know I’d missed him. I never brought it up.”

“And you didn’t tell Grange.”

“No. When he showed up at my house unexpectedly, it rattled me. I owned up to the affair, but the idea of Jeff being implicated in a crime against you was so preposterous, I covered for him. You reappeared that same morning, so my lie was vindicated. Or so I thought. But now I think your suspicions have merit.”

Emory’s heart rate spiked. “What makes you think so?”

“Things he’s said, evasive answers—but I’ll save all that for later.

There’s something more urgent you need to know.

” In stops and starts, her speech so rapid that words stumbled over themselves, she said, “Jeff has cooked up some scheme with these Floyd brothers, using their sister to lure you and Hayes Bannock out. It’s crazy. ”

“Oh my God. Hayes got a frantic call from Lisa. He’s on his way up to their place now.”

“And Jeff tore out of here no more than—”

“Where is here?”

“The suite hotel.” She told Emory about Jeff’s call to her the night before.

“I got a sense that he was maneuvering me into thinking you’d gone insane.

I drove up this morning to confront him about all this and caught him just as he was leaving.

I faked being sick, and as soon as he was gone, I called you. ”

While Alice had been talking, Emory realized that Hayes hadn’t given her the number to his cell phone, an oversight which might have been intentional in order to protect her, but it left her with no way to alert him to the trap being laid for him.

Then she noticed the set of ignition keys on the dresser.

She stopped Alice in midsentence. “Do you still have Detective Grange’s number?”

“Uh…I think…yes. He gave me his card. It’s here in my bag.”

“Call him. Tell him what you’ve told me. Everything. Tell him to dispatch people up to the Floyds’ place. Now. Immediately. Impress on him that Hayes is in danger. In the meantime, I’m going up there to try and head him off.”

She unplugged her phone from the charger, swept the keys into her hand, and left the motel room. Outside, she depressed the rubberized button on the remote key. The headlights blinked on a nondescript sedan parked in one of the nearby spaces. She ran toward it.

Her phone rang. Alice again. She answered by saying, “Call Grange! Do it, Alice. You owe me this.”

“You’re serious about going up there?”

“I’m on my way now.”

“Then there’s something you need to know. Jeff has a pistol.”

That almost slowed Emory down. Almost.

Instead, she clicked off, jerked open the driver’s door, and slid behind the wheel of Jack’s rental car, the one in which he’d gotten lost in the fog. Which was easily done when it was this thick.

***

Jeff made it as far as the door to the suite and was reaching for the knob when he thought about Knight and Grange’s visit to him this morning.

Just stopped by to check and see if you’d heard from Emory overnight.

That had been Knight’s explanation for their unannounced arrival. He’d accepted it at the time, but as he thought back on it, he wondered why Knight hadn’t simply telephoned to ask. Had he and Grange been checking up on him? Did they still suspect him of wrongdoing?

Call him paranoid, but…

The door to the suite had narrow glass panels flanking it.

Keeping his body out of sight, he peered through one of the panes.

On the far side of the parking lot sat an unmarked car, noticeable because it was seemingly so innocuous.

The driver’s door window had been lowered only far enough to accommodate a cigarette whose smoke curled up into the fog and became part of it.

Amateur surveillance at best. But Jeff still had to get around it. He was deliberating on how to accomplish that when he heard Alice’s voice coming from the bedroom upstairs. Maybe she’d called the clinic to check in. Or maybe not.

He crossed the living area to the staircase and climbed the carpeted treads as lightly and as silently as possible. The bedroom door stood ajar. He heard her say in a frantic undertone, “But now I think your suspicions have merit.”

Damn her! Damn her and Emory both!

His outrage mounted as he listened to one incriminating sentence after another. She outlined his plan with the Floyds. Then, “Emory? Emory, are you there?” She must have been redialing as she repeated in an urgent whisper, “Come on, come on, answer.”

Then, “You’re serious about going up there? Then there’s something you should know. Jeff has a pistol.”

After that, silence.

He put the tip of his index finger to the door and pushed it open, following it as it swung inward until he was standing in the door jamb. She’d been sitting on the bed. When she saw him, she came quickly to her feet, trying but failing to conceal her fear.

“Jeff. I thought you’d left.”

“I got sidetracked.” He looked pointedly at the phone clutched in her hand and made a tsking sound. His gaze came back to connect with hers. “As I told you earlier, Alice, your visit this morning is very untimely.”

***

Emory’s hands soon turned slick with nervous perspiration on the steering wheel.

On her way through town, she searched for a police car, any type of official vehicle which she could flag down and ask for help, but saw none. Dialing while driving was risky, especially in the fog, but she took the chance and placed a call to Jack Connell.

After three rings, his phone went to voice mail.

In a rush, she said, “It’s Emory. Hayes tore out of here after getting an urgent call from Lisa Floyd.

But it’s a trap. Jeff set it up with the brothers.

Alice is calling Sergeant Grange with details.

Also, she lied about Jeff’s alibi. But the important thing is, get people up to the Floyds’ place immediately.

Hayes is walking into danger, and every moment counts.

I’m in your rental car on my way up there. ”

Suddenly she realized that she was talking into a dead phone. She cried out in dismay and checked her LED, which confirmed that her meager supply of battery power had run out. But at what point during her message?

She tossed the phone into the passenger seat and concentrated on driving.

Lisa’s safety, Hayes’s life, depended on her getting there, but the conditions prohibited speed.

Since leaving the city limits and taking the mountain road, the fog had grown even thicker.

Little was visible beyond the hood of the car. She strained to see through it.

Yesterday, on the way up to Hayes’s cabin, she had focused on the view out her window, which benefitted her now.

Landmarks and signposts sighted yesterday guided her and kept her on the right road, when otherwise she would have become hopelessly lost. Taking a curve slowly, she saw a familiar row of rural mailboxes.

Farther on, the piece of metal yard art shaped like a bear, then the house flying the US flag, the dilapidated and abandoned barn.

She knew she was getting close when she passed a fence lined with hydrangea plants as tall as she. She could imagine a profusion of blue flowers in the summer, but the leafless branches of the shrubs were now ice-encrusted, which was what had drawn her attention to them.

Beyond that fence, how much farther had they traveled before reaching Hayes’s cabin? Two miles? Five? She couldn’t recall.

She drove as fast as she dared, ever in the back of her mind the malice that Norman and Will Floyd harbored for Hayes. Men who would rape their underage sister wouldn’t have any qualms against maiming or killing an enemy.

But Grange would have responded immediately to Alice’s call. Deputies would have been dispatched, and possibly some were already at the Floyds’ place. Connell would also be on his way to help Hayes. Having just now reunited, Connell wouldn’t permit—

The sharp curve appeared suddenly, and she saw it too late to avoid the collision.

The car crashed into the gray wall of rock. The seat belt caught. The airbag deployed. It no doubt saved her life, but the impact was bruising. The interior of the car filled with choking powder.

As soon as the bag deflated, she batted at it and groped blindly for the door handle. She all but fell out of the car, the hood of which had been squashed against the sheer rock face like a soda can.