"Wait!" Tessa screamed after me.
"Your dad"s going to be all right!" I yelled, jumping off the porch and sprinting to the rental car.
I threw it in reverse, spit gravel onto the road, and jammed it in gear. I almost lost control going around the hairpin at the back of the cove and slowed at the curve near the spot from where the shooter must have fired. When my headlights came around, I could see an older couple standing, shaken, by the road. But there was no car beyond them.
I roared up to them and they looked frightened.
"I"m a police officer," I said. "Where did that car go?"
The elderly man"s hand was trembling. "Up the road. A white Impala. Almost hit us."
A white Impala. I drove away slow, trying not to spin up rocks that might hit the couple, my attention darting off the road to a stripped and gouged stump with bits of steel embedded in it. I figured he"d hit it hard head-on, which meant the radiator might have been damaged, or the front end.
In any case, I couldn"t see the car being able to maintain its pace down the winding mountain road from the lake back toward town. The moment I turned off the sh.o.r.e road onto the main route, I sped up again.
Halfway down the mountain, I spotted brake lights ahead of me, and then they were gone around a curve. I caught up on the next bend, my high beams finding the rear of the Impala. Judging from the silhouettes showing through the back window, there were only two inside.
The pa.s.senger twisted around as if to look back at me, raised a pistol. I mashed the pedal and rammed the rear b.u.mper before he could shoot. The impact flung the Impala at a steep angle up the road and away from me. My headlights caught the driver clawing at the wheel.
Finn Davis managed to regain control of the car and picked up speed through the next turn. When I came around the curve, a guy was hanging out the pa.s.senger window and aiming a shotgun at me left-handed.
CHAPTER 87.
HE FIRED JUST as I hit the brakes.
Double-aught buckshot shattered the right side of the windshield. I hit the gas again when I saw the shooter awkwardly trying to work the pump action. He wasn"t a lefty.
I swung into the other lane where he couldn"t get an easy shot at me, then caught up and cut the wheel to ram the Impala a second time. My b.u.mper hit the car at a quartering angle. The rear end of the Impala swung hard right. The guy with the shotgun was hurled from the car; he sailed through the air and disappeared into the night.
Finn Davis was in my headlights again, clawing at the wheel.
I didn"t give him a second chance, just sped up and rammed the Impala a third time, hitting it almost broadside. My car threatened to spin, and I had to slam the brakes. But Finn"s car reached a tipping point on the road shoulder.
It flipped off the embankment.
I skidded to a halt, heard sirens coming, dug out my pistol and flashlight, and ran back up the road. The Impala had turned over at least two times and was wedged at an angle against the trunk of an old pine. One of the headlights was still on, cutting deeper into the forest.
I shone my flashlight down into the gully, tried to find the driver-side door and Davis. He wasn"t there.
I flicked the light up to the car"s roofline and found him. He was bleeding, leaning out the pa.s.senger-side window, and leveling a scoped hunting rifle at me.
We fired at virtually the same time, me from the hip at fifty feet and Davis at that same distance from a dead rest. His scope had to have been off because, as it had with Pedelini, the bullet went left of me by no more than an inch or two.
I clicked off the light, threw myself flat on the shoulder, and listened for the sound of a rifle"s action over the hissing of the Impala"s radiator and the sirens coming up the mountain. I counted to twenty, stayed belly down, extended my hand to the edge of the gully, and rapidly clicked the light on and off.
Nothing.
I flicked it on again, slid to the side, and looked down into the gully. Finn Davis was rocked back against the tree trunk, blank eyes open and already dulling. A gout of blood showed in the wound at the center of his throat.
CHAPTER 88.
"ARE YOU ARRESTING me?" I asked eight hours later.
"Just trying to get the story straight in our heads," said Detective Frost, rubbing his belly in an interrogation room.
Wearily, I said, "I went to see Detective Pedelini about some lab tests, and someone shot at him while we were talking on his deck. I saw the bullet had hit him hard enough to knock him out, but nothing fatal. So I left, gave chase. Some folks out on the lake, an elderly couple, were almost run down by Davis making his escape. I tried to follow. His accomplice shot at my car. I took defensive action. Davis"s car went off the side of the road. He tried to kill me. I killed him in self-defense."
"Why would Finn Davis try to kill Pedelini?" asked Carmichael.
Tired as I was, I decided I couldn"t trust the two men interviewing me. I withheld any and all theories spinning in my brain.
"I can"t give you a clear motive," I said. "His adoptive father might be able to."
"We put calls in to Marvin"s house and cell," Carmichael said. "He isn"t answering."
"Go to his place on Pleasant Lake."
"A trooper did about an hour ago. No answer at the door, so he went inside. There were signs of a struggle. Know anything about that?"
"Nothing," I said. "For all you know, Bell ordered Finn to kill Pedelini and is now running, making his house a mess so you"d think otherwise. But whatever. The fact remains that Finn shot at Pedelini and me. Test his rifle. I guarantee it will match the one that killed Sydney Fox."
"You think Finn killed Sydney?" Frost said.
"I do," I said.
"Why?"
"Spiteful ex-husband. Maybe more."
They fell silent. Carmichael drank from a Diet c.o.ke can. Frost sipped his coffee, said skeptically, "You make yourself out to be an innocent bystander."
"With the attempt on Detective Pedelini"s life, most definitely. How is he, by the way?"
"In a medically induced coma," Carmichael said. "Mild brain swelling."
"Someone taking care of his daughters?"
"They"re covered," Frost said.
I sat back in my chair confidently, said, "Then I"m not saying anything until Pedelini wakes up. You talk to him. He"ll back me up."
The door opened, and Naomi entered, saying, "Not another word, Alex."
"That"s already the plan," I said.
"You charging him?" my niece snapped.
"Not at this time," Frost admitted.
"Then I"d appreciate his release," she said. "Dr. Cross is an integral part of my defense. He"s not leaving town. You"ll find him in Judge Varney"s court if you need him."
Ten minutes later we slipped out the back door of the police station to avoid the television news crews and walked down the alley toward the courthouse in the dawn light. Part of me wanted to go home and get some sleep. Instead, I called Nana Mama, told her I was okay and would see her at the trial. I texted Bree to call me as we went to a cafe for breakfast with Pinkie.
I drank three cups of coffee, ate three eggs sunny-side up, bacon, and hash browns, and related everything that had happened to me during the night.
"Why would Finn Davis want to kill Guy Pedelini?" Naomi asked.
"Maybe Davis saw Pedelini as I do: an essentially good guy corrupted by circ.u.mstances," I said. "Under duress, these kinds of people don"t hold secrets long before they break, confess, and implicate others."
"So the sheriff, and then Pedelini?" Pinkie said. "You think someone"s trying to clean house?"
"If you add in the busted brake line of our car, it sure looks like it."
"Someone"s under pressure," Naomi said.
"Someone?" Pinkie said. "Try Marvin Bell."
"Bell"s vanished," I said.
"Which means we were getting close, right?" Pinkie said.
"Close to something. But it"s still like a jigsaw that won"t piece-"
My phone rang. A number I almost recognized but couldn"t place.
"Cross," I said.
"Drummond."
I smiled. "How are you, Sergeant?"
"Peachy," he said. "Mize is copping to it all and pleading insanity."
"He might be right."
"Not my call," Drummond said. "Your case? You get that guy Bell?"
"Close," I said. "But he"s vanished."
"Runner."
"Looks like it."
"Your nephew"s trial?"
"My cousin"s trial. And, to be honest, unless we can come up with some counterevidence fast, he"s looking at death row."
Drummond didn"t reply for several beats, and then said, "You never know when something"s going to turn things around."
"True," I said. I heard a clicking, looked at the caller ID, saw it was Bree.
I told the sergeant I had to take another call but would keep him posted, and then I switched lines.
"Hey," I said. "Where are you?"
"At National Airport, about to board a flight back to Winston-Salem," Bree said. "I just got some preliminary results e-mailed to me from the FBI lab."
"And?"
CHAPTER 89.
JUDGE VARNEY GAVELED the court to order at nine o"clock that Tuesday morning.
Before either of the attorneys could speak, the judge pointed his gavel toward the spectators, said, "Cece Turnbull? You in my court?"
Cece"s eyes were beet red and rheumy when she stood up and nodded.
"You gonna cause any more trouble?" he demanded.
"No, sir, Judge Varney," she said in a tremulous voice. "I ... I apologize. It"s just that-"
"Just nothing," the judge said. "Long as you"re quiet, you can remain. But the first peep out of you and you"re gone for the duration. You understand?"
Cece nodded, sat down. Ann Lawrence leaned forward and patted her on the shoulder comfortingly. Sharon Lawrence sat next to her mother, pale, weak, and looking at her cell phone. Cece"s mother and father were behind the Lawrences. Mrs. Caine was staring into her lap while her husband sat ramrod straight in his business suit, arms crossed, focused completely on Judge Varney.