One Deadly Sin (32 page)

She shifted in her seat. Why did she never look before she leaped? Impulsive, headstrong, she could hear her aunt’s voice now.

“The world’s not as black and white as you’d like it to be, Eden Swanford. One day you’re going to plow right into that truth.”

She sighed. Damn Aunt Penny for being so right.

“Things didn’t go your way?” Lucy said.

Edie looked over at the older woman.

“You sighed,” Lucy explained. “Like the whole world was pressing you down. Sounded to me like the meeting didn’t go too well.”

“Amy Lyle was there.”

“Uh oh.”

“No, she was actually… nice. Apologized for the scene at the bar.”

Lucy sniffed. “Too little, too late, in my opinion.”

“She’s got a lot going on right now.”

“Well, look at you, all forgive and forget.”

Edie smiled wryly. “Yeah, who’d have thought it?”

Lucy turned the windshield wipers to high. “So what now? You all fat and rich?”

“Fat? Hell no. Rich?” Edie thought about all those zeroes. “I don’t know. Doesn’t seem right somehow. I never even met Fred Lyle.”

“What are we talking about? In dollars and cents, I mean.”

Edie told her.

“Jesus H. Christofaro,” Lucy breathed, and for a moment, the truck swerved along with Lucy’s astonishment.

“Whoa—watch it.”

“I am watching it. Damn road’s slippery. And there’s some asshole on my tail.”

Edie turned around. Couldn’t see too well in the rain. Looked like a black pickup of some sort. “Slow down, maybe he’ll pass you.”

But instead of passing, the truck butted right into their rear.

Lucy’s smaller pickup swerved again, and she struggled to stay on the road.

“What the—? Hey—asshole!” Lucy shouted, and sped up.

The black truck butted their rear again. Harder.

“Jesus!” Edie thought of that Acura. If this was another stunt by the locals…

They got hit again.

Lucy’s pickup headed for the shoulder. She spun the steering wheel, trying to correct the direction, but the tires slipped on the slick road.

Edie shouted. Lucy screamed. The pickup careened off the pavement, went over the road edge, and into the black abyss.

By two o’clock, the city council meeting was long over, and the state bureau of investigation, in the person of Agent Jackson Lodge, had made its appearance, taken possession of the Black Angel files, and relieved Holt of his duties regarding the case.

Sam was appalled.

“You’re lucky I don’t bring you up on charges of obstruction of justice,” Lodge said to him. A small, compact man with an officious air, he was already rearranging things on Holt’s desk.

“To be fair,” Sam said, “the chief didn’t know she was the Black Angel when he was… uh… fraternizing with her.”

Holt shot her a shut-it look, but she felt awful about how Lodge was treating him. She hadn’t intended to get Holt into more trouble. Exactly the opposite.
See, she told herself, that’s what happens when you go outside the chain of command.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “About everything. I just… I didn’t think he’d—”

“You did the right thing, Deputy,” Lodge said.

Which was also true, and everyone knew it. But if she’d done the right thing, why did it feel so wrong? She looked over at Lodge. He was collecting all the writing utensils—pens, pencils, whiteboard markers—and putting them in Holt’s coffee cup.

“Uh—that’s the chief’s—” Sam said.

Holt’s phone cut her off. He answered, got a weird look on his face.

“Something wrong?” she asked him.

Immediately, his face cleared. “Miranda,” he said, and to Lodge, “My daughter. Do you mind?” He gestured toward the door.

Lodge shrugged. “By all means. Continue with your normal routine.”

“Everything okay?” Sam asked.

“Oh, you know Miranda. Always some crisis.” Holt dashed outside, and Sam was left with Lodge.

Without another word, the agent plopped himself into Holt’s chair, leaned over Holt’s desk, and began reading files.

40

O
utside, Holt pulled his collar up against the rain and flew to his car. Edie’s voice was wailing in his ear. “Holt, hurry. Please. Lucy is—God, she’s hurt. Bad.”

The lie he’d told Lodge and Sam would keep them out of his hair for a while. “What happened?”

In gulps and stutters, Edie told him about the ride home from Nashville in the rain, the attack by a black pickup. The fits and starts told him more about her condition than the words.

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know,” she wailed.

He started the engine, but couldn’t move until he had some fix on her location. “You were heading back to Redbud. What highway did you take?” She told him. “Okay, that’s good.” He sped south, turned the siren on once he was clear of town. “Now look around. Any landmarks?”

“I can’t see anything in this rain.” She was stuttering. Adrenaline aftermath. Cold. Shock. Neither was a good sign.

“All right. Stay with me, Edie. I’m on my way. How long were you on the road before the truck hit?”

“Don’t… know.”

“Yeah, you do. Calm down. Count to thirty if you have to. Clear your head.”

Silence.

“Edie!”

“I’m counting.”

“Do it out loud.”

“—eleven, twelve…” It took her to thirty-five until her voice steadied and she was breathing relatively normally.

“Okay, now think about the trip back. Were you on the road half an hour? Forty-five minutes?”

“Closer to thirty, I think.”

“Good. I’ll be there soon. Can you find a dry spot? Is there a tree nearby?”

“Don’t want to leave Lucy.”

“Okay. Just try to stay dry.”

“Don’t leave me.”

“I won’t. I’m right here.” He wanted to keep her talking, keep her from passing out. “What were you doing in Nashville?”

“Fred Lyle’s attorney. About the… the will. Amy Lyle, too.”

“She was there? That must have been interesting.”

“She didn’t hit me.”

“Good for her.”

“I f-f-feel sorry for her.”

“Now that’s not the Edie I know and love.”

“I was thinking.”

“Yeah? About what?”

“The money. Should I k-k-keep it?”

“What would you do with it if you do?”

“Don’t know.”

“Buy a new bike?”

“Give up my… my girl?”

“A new sound system?”

“Uh huh.” Her voice grew faint, and his alarm shot up.

“Edie?”

“Yeah, still here.”

“What else could you do with Fred Lyle’s money?”

“Buy… buy a house.”

“A house, huh? Bet I know which one.”

“Needs a lot… a lot of w-w-work.” Her voice was fading.

“Yeah, but I’ve got two hands. You’ve got two hands.”

Silence.

“Edie?”

More silence. He pressed down on the gas, kept the phone line open, and used the car radio to call for an ambulance.

He spotted the wreck an hour out of town. Flew off the road and onto the shoulder with a squeal of brakes. Bolted down the side of the embankment, sliding in mud and brush.

The truck was on its side, the driver’s side embedded in the ground, the door open. Looked like Edie had managed to drag Lucy free—her body was outside the pickup, face down in the mud. Edie was lying next to her, passed out.

Holt checked both women for a pulse. Both alive, thank God, though Edie’s was stronger than Lucy’s. Looked like she’d broken a leg. No telling what else. He covered her with a blanket and poncho from his trunk, then put one over Edie. He ran to set up flares on the shoulder for the ambulance driver, then slid back down the dirt.

He slapped Edie’s face lightly, coaxing her awake. She groaned, opened her eyes. Saw Holt, and started to cry. He scooped her up.

“You all right? Nothing broken?” His hands were searching, but he found nothing serious. Bruises and scrapes, the blood washing down her face and neck in the rain. “It’s okay,” he crooned. “You’re okay.”

A siren pierced through the rain, and seconds later, two EMTs were heading down the embankment into the gully. They did a fast assessment on Lucy, got her into a stretcher and, with Holt’s help, up the mound and into the back of the emergency vehicle.

Holt helped Edie up the slippery dirt wall, where one of the EMTs gave her a quick once-over.

“I’m fine.” She sat huddled in the wet blanket, half-in and half-out of Holt’s car, and waved the EMT away. “Lucy needs you. Go. Go.”

“I’ll get her to the hospital,” Holt assured the medical team.

The ambulance left, sirens blazing, and Holt got a dry blanket out for Edie, then tucked her into the car.

“You see anything of the driver?

She shook her head. “Too rainy.”

“And the truck?”

“Full-sized. Black. That’s it.”

“You okay for a minute or two?”

She nodded, and Holt went back into the rain. Walked up and down the highway looking for tread marks or anything that might indicate the type of truck that had pushed Lucy’s pickup over the edge. But if there had been any evidence, the rain had washed it away.

Cursing the weather, he returned to his car, started the engine, and followed the ambulance.

Edie huddled into the blanket all the way to the county hospital. It was blazing hot outside, despite the rain, but cold shudders jolted her relentlessly. She couldn’t get the picture of Lucy out of her mind. The blood on her face. The soft feel of her chest where the steering wheel had crushed it. The sick sight of the raw bone sticking out of her leg.

She closed her eyes, and started crying again.

“Dammit,” she gulped, “Damn, damn, damn. Fucking God damn it.”

Holt pulled over to the side of the road and pulled Edie close.

“Jesus,” she stuttered through tears. “What good does crying do?” She pounded dully on his chest. “Why Lucy? What did she ever do to anyone?” She inhaled a huge, quivery breath, hiccupped, and swatted him away. “Go. I want to get to the hospital.”

“Easy there, supergirl. We’ll get there.” He put the car in gear and set off again.

She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrated on breathing, and the tears soon stopped. But it was as if her heart had stopped, too. Or dried up. Cold and numb, she set her gaze straight ahead, trying not to feel anything.

The county hospital was ten miles outside Redbud. Edie pushed through the emergency room doors, and despite her protests, Holt insisted someone take a look at her. It was only later, when she saw herself in a mirror, that she realized her face was cut in several places, including a nasty one just over her right eyebrow that required stitches. She’d been thrown clear of the truck, and her body ached where she had landed, but for some inexplicable reason, she hadn’t broken anything. Someone patched her up, but she didn’t pay attention to who. All she wanted to hear about was Lucy.

She and Holt sat at the hospital while Lucy went into surgery. News of the accident spread somehow, the way all news seemed to spread in Redbud. Red showed up, and took a seat next to Edie in the waiting area. They didn’t say anything except a lackluster greeting, but then no one was talking much. A nurse came around with papers to fill out.

“She have any relatives close by?” she asked.

“A son,” Red said, surprising Edie, who hadn’t known Lucy had children. “But he’s in Atlanta.”