Authors: Parnell Hall
“I didn’t think so. There’s a car parked in the shadows the other side of the station. Pull out, see if he follows.”
“Fine,” Becky said. She started the engine.
Cora looked at Becky, frowned. “Are you chewing gum?”
Chapter
11
The black sedan
followed them up the Merritt Parkway and turned north on Route 7 when they did.
“Believe me now?” Cora said.
“I believed you then,” Becky said. “I just didn’t want to.”
“Well, it answers one question.”
“What’s that?”
“Why Crowley let us go.”
“You mean that’s him?”
“Well, not him personally. But one of his boys. Perkins, perhaps. He seemed to like you.”
“You really think it’s the cops?”
“I prefer it to the killer.”
“Cora.”
“What do you want me to say? ‘There, there, Becky, it’s all right. The killer isn’t on your tail.’ I have no idea who’s in the car behind us. But I prefer knowing about it to
not
knowing about it. Anyway, whoever it is, it’s interesting.”
“Unless it’s a businessman on his way home,” Becky said.
“Who followed us to a service station on the Merritt, parked in the shadows while we went inside, and then followed us out of the station?”
“All right, a rather weird businessman on his way home.”
“Hey, I’ll give the guy the benefit of the doubt if he’ll just turn off.”
He didn’t. The black sedan was behind them all the way up Route 7, turned off when they did, followed from a discreet distance over the local roads. By the time Becky took the last turn toward Bakerhaven, there was no doubt about it.
“Okay, Nancy Drew, you’re up,” Cora said.
“Huh?” Becky said.
“Where’s your car parked?”
“Front of the library.”
“Excellent,” Cora said. “Hop out, get in your car, and drive to the mall.”
“I live right down the alley.”
“Yeah, but you don’t want to go there. Head for the mall. If the guy follows you, I’ll drive up on his tail and get his plate number.”
“What do I do then?”
“Well, since the mall’s closed, I wouldn’t hang out there. Circle the parking lot and drive home.”
Cora pulled up across from the library.
“I won’t be able to sleep knowing someone’s watching me,” Becky said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll sneak up on the guy and blow his head off.”
“Cora.”
“You don’t like that idea? Okay, call the cops. Dan Finley will make a point of cruising by. He’s as smitten as that Perkins guy. You know, it would be funny if Finley was protecting you from Perkins.”
“Yeah, a laugh riot.”
“But I don’t think it’ll happen. I think he’ll follow me.”
“Why?”
“Because of the crossword puzzle. If it weren’t for the crossword puzzle, I’d say he was after you. But you start throwing puzzles in the mix, someone’s out to get me.”
“You’re probably right. So if he follows you, I tag along and get his plate number?”
“Yeah. Not so close he kills you, just close enough to read the plate.”
“And if he turns around and comes after me?”
“I’ve got a gun.”
“No, you
don’t.
The police kept it to compare the bullet.”
“So don’t let him catch you.”
“Cora.”
“Relax. He’ll never know you’re there.”
“What do you want me to do when I get the plate number?”
“Go home and call me. I need to know someone’s sitting on the house anyway.”
“But—”
“Get out of the car already. Fella’s going to think we’re lovers.”
Becky gave Cora a look and got out.
Cora got out of the passenger seat, walked around to the driver’s side. “See you tomorrow,” Cora said. She hopped in and took off.
Cora glanced in the rearview mirror. The guy was still following her. As expected. Despite what she told Becky, Cora felt a slight rush of adrenaline. She didn’t speed up or slow down, just kept going. She drove home without incident and turned up the driveway. The guy had followed all the way. Cora couldn’t see Becky, but she knew she was back there.
Cora parked the car in the drive and walked across the lawn. The lights were out in the upstairs addition. It was after midnight. Cora had left the light on in the living room. She was happy to have it.
The living room drapes were drawn. Cora pushed the curtain aside a crack and peered out. Nothing was moving, everything was quiet, there were no lights down by the road. Not that it meant anything. If the guy was watching the house, he’d have killed his lights. There was no way to know.
Assuming it was the guy. Assuming it wasn’t some stupid cop.
The phone rang and Cora jumped a mile. Good God, she was wound up! Who the hell could it be at this hour? For one time Cora wished she had a phone in the living room. She had to go in the office or the kitchen to answer, and she didn’t want to leave the window.
The phone rang again. Cora took one last look and sprinted for the kitchen.
She snatched the receiver off the wall. “Hello!” she snarled.
“Well, I like that. Last time I do you a favor.”
Cora blinked. “Becky? How’d you get home so fast?”
“I have a cell phone, Cora.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Boy are you nervous. Relax. The guy went right on by your driveway and kept going.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. Maybe he
is
just some guy on the way home. I mean, someone’s gotta live around here, right?”
“You sure he didn’t turn around and double back?”
“I sure am. I’m still following him.”
“You’re driving with a cell phone?”
“Don’t worry. If I get picked up, I know a good lawyer.”
“Becky. It’s not funny. If this guy sees you—”
“He won’t. When I passed your house, I dropped back. He’s way up ahead.”
“Did you get the license number?”
“Of course I got the license number. You want it?”
“You gonna read the number on the cell phone driving a car?”
“Why not? I wrote it driving a car. Here we go. It’s two, seven—”
“I don’t have a pencil. Hang on.”
The phone had a long cord. Cora crossed to the sink, wrenched open the counter door to the left. It was a miscellaneous drawer, with everything from rubber bands to razor blades to plastic spoons to screws and bolts and bottle-stoppers. Cora scrabbled through.
“Just a minute. I think there’s one in this drawer.”
“Take your time. It’s a nice night for a drive.”
“Got it!” Cora snatched up the pencil. “Oh, hell!”
“What?”
“The point’s broken. Hang on.”
“Just let me know when you’re ready.”
Cora dug her fingernails in to break the wood off the lead. “There we go. Lay it on me.”
“It’s two, seven, nine— Oh, hell! He’s coming back!”
And the phone went dead.
Chapter
12
Cora had a
moment of dread. Oh God, he got her!
Thoughts flashed through her brain like lightning, laying on layer upon layer of guilt and dread.
Becky’s dead! It’s my fault! It’s
not
my fault! Schmuck, what difference does that make? She didn’t tell me the license number, now I’ll never know. Schmuck, how can you think that? I’m going to kill him! Yeah, like that’ll help Becky. Idiot, who cares?
Cora snatched her purse off the table, raced to the front door, flung it open. Realized she didn’t have her gun. She cursed, ran to the bedroom, wrenched open her bottom dresser drawer, and pawed through the clothes she never wore for the spare gun her ex-husband Melvin had given her. She found it, jerked it out, flipped it open. It was loaded. She flipped it closed and ran out the door.
In the car, she wasted moments fishing for her keys. She gunned the motor without regard for whether it woke Sherry, Aaron, and the baby, rocketed down the driveway, and hung a left.
How far was it? Becky said the guy turned around and doubled back. But she’d been on the phone a long time before that. And she hadn’t called before she passed the drive. So how far could that be? No farther than she could drive in that amount of time. But what amount of time? How long was it?
Cora sped down the country road, her high beams lighting up the woods and fields and an occasional house along the way. No place a car could have turned off. No car off the road. Where were they?
She reached Jackson Corners, so named though it boasted no landmarks of any sort, no houses, nor any corners. Except for the lone street sign, you wouldn’t know where you were. The only excuse for calling it Jackson Corners was that Jackson Road went two directions. Which way had they gone? Had they turned at all? If they’d turned, Becky would have commented on it. Yeah, if they turned off before the black sedan turned around. So they must have gone past. There was no way they could be on Jackson Road. Unless Becky had taken one of the side roads to get away from him after he turned around.
Assuming she got away.
Cora flew by Jackson Corners and kept going.
A car coming around the bend nearly hit her head-on. Not that the car was going fast or that it was on the wrong side of the road. But Cora was. She cut the corner, and suddenly there it was, bright headlights and a blaring horn and sickening squeal of brakes. Cora wrenched the steering wheel to the right, careened across the road. She almost cleared it but not quite. She could hear the ding of her rear bumper catching the driver’s side front bumper of the oncoming car. She fishtailed, spun the wheel, and 180ed. Her car skidded backwards across the road and stopped with a bone-jarring thump against something hard that snapped her head like a whip.
Cora straightened in her seat and looked over the dashboard just in time to see the headlights of a car bearing down on her. She instinctively flung up her hands as if they could protect her from a couple of tons of onrushing steel.
A car pulled to a stop in front of her. An ashen-faced man got out, ran over, and wrenched the door open.
“Good God, are you all right?”
“Who are you?” Cora said stupidly.
“I couldn’t avoid you. I nicked your bumper. I saw you fishtail.”
“Uh-huh,” Cora said. She unsnapped her seat belt.
“You probably shouldn’t move.”
Cora heaved herself out of the car, pushed by him to look at his.
“My car’s fine. I didn’t skid.”
Cora ignored him, walked around so his headlights weren’t blinding her.
His car was a blue Subaru.
She turned back to the driver. “Where you coming from?”
“Over the mountain.”
“You pass anyone?”
“No.”
“I mean going my direction.”
“No. No one.”
“Any car off the road?”
“Just yours.”
“Comedian,” Cora muttered.
“Huh?”
“I gotta go.”
The man was amazingly polite, considering Cora had nearly killed him. He was also a middle-age stick-in-the-mud fuddy duddy who insisted on exchanging insurance information. Cora nearly had to pull the gun on him to escape from his clutches. She fled the scene of the accident, and spent a half hour searching the side roads for any sign of Becky’s car.
It was long gone.
Chapter
13
Cora came in
the front door to find Sherry and Becky sipping coffee in the living room.
“What are you doing here?” Cora demanded.
“I live here,” Sherry said.
“Not you, damn it.”
“You don’t have a cell phone,” Becky said.
“Huh?”
“If you had a cell phone, I could have called you and told you where I was. But, oh no, I call here, get no answer, don’t know where you are.”
“I was looking for you.”
“I knew that. I just didn’t know where.”
“So you came here and woke up Sherry.”
“I was awake. Someone started a jet plane in the driveway.”
“It wasn’t me,” Becky said. “I was quiet as a mouse.”
“She let herself in,” Sherry said. “I looked out the window to see if it was you, saw her car in the drive.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Cora slumped down on the couch.
“Have some coffee. It’ll calm you down.”
“Coffee?”
“Decaffeinated. Hot and comforting. Like hot cocoa. Without all the calories.”
“I thought he got you.”
“Got me?”
“I thought he realized he had a tail and came back to rub you out.”
“I’m fine. Sherry was just filling me in on the joys of motherhood.”
“Jennifer’s got a strep throat. She’s not happy about it. Sounds like an angry buzz saw cutting metal.”
“She likes telling me stuff like that,” Becky said. “Thinks it makes up for stealing my man.”
“Don’t you think stealing’s a little harsh,” Sherry said, “after several years’ absence?”
“Hey, when I brand ’em, it’s for life.”
“Damn it,” Cora said. “I’ve been frightened out of my wits and nearly wrecked the car. You wanna tell me what the hell happened?”
“Wrecked the car?” Sherry said.
“Nearly, nearly. I banged the bumper.”
“On what?”
“Well, technically, the other guy banged the bumper. I slid off the road.”
“What!”
Cora described the accident.
“Idiot,” Sherry said. “You could have been killed.”
“But I wasn’t. I thought
she
was.”
“I just dropped my cell phone,” Becky said.
“What?”
“He startled me. Turning around like that. Suddenly there’s bright lights coming at me. I dropped my cell phone.”
“He wasn’t after you?”
“Hell, no. Went by me like a house on fire. Took off down the road. I swung a U-turn, tried to keep up. I think he turned left on Mountain Road.”
“You think?”
“There were lights in that direction, none up ahead. I tried to follow, but it’s twisty, there’s a zillion forks, he could have gone the other way on any one of them. When I came out on Colson and didn’t see him, I figured he was gone.”
“You went all the way to Colson Road?”
“Not that far if you’re doing ninety.”
“You went ninety on Mountain Road? And I’m the one who had the accident. Damn it, why didn’t you call me back?”