You Can't Escape (42 page)

Jordanna said, “She got ‘Portland’ wrong and ‘sorry’?”

“Well, it is a text.”

“Yeah, but . . .” Kara’s most common form of communication was texting, and Jordanna always noticed how correct it was.

“Maybe she was driving,” Jennie suggested.

“Yeah, maybe. Okay, thanks.” With that, she tossed her phone onto the passenger seat and pressed her toe to the accelerator, driving as fast as she dared up Wilhoit to Summit Ridge, past the older Benchley’s farm with their N
O
T
RESPASSING
sign, and past the drive to Zach Benchley’s farm. She flew by the entrance to the old cemetery, then slowed for the curves before Fool’s Falls. Suddenly she had to stand on the brakes because there were vehicles parked haphazardly all along the road. One of the cop cars had its light bar flashing. A winch was just pulling the gray sedan over the lip of the cliff.

She slid to a stop and leapt from her SUV. “No sign of Kara?” she asked to the crowd at large.

“You’re going to have to move your car,” the same young officer from the night before warned her.

“Fuck that.” Rusty was hurrying toward her, his strawberry-blond hair disheveled. He swept her into a full-body hug. Jordanna hugged him back, aware his whole body was trembling.

“Kara?” she asked again, when Rusty released her.

He shook his head, looking lost. “They took Todd to the hospital morgue in Malone. I can’t believe he’s gone. Why was he in that car?”

She felt terrible about Todd, but her worry about Kara was in the forefront of her mind. “Do they have an idea when this happened?”

“Yesterday sometime.”

“My sister supposedly texted that she was heading into Portland yesterday. But if this was her car, it doesn’t make sense. You said Todd was found behind the wheel?”

“Yes.”

“Could they have met up with each other?”

Rusty’s eyes moved to the edge of the road, where tire tracks ran over the edge. “Here’s Shitface,” he muttered.

Peter Drummond’s head could just be seen clearing the lip of the road as he trudged up from the crash site. The rest of his body appeared step by step, and then he reached the asphalt, dusting dirt from his hands. He looked at Jordanna, his expression hard to read, then he strode over to her, lifting a chin at the gray sedan that was being moved onto the flatbed of a tow truck. “Your sister’s vehicle.”

“That’s what I heard. But you haven’t seen her?”

“Nope. Did she know Douglas?” Drummond had turned his attention to Rusty.

Rusty shook his head. “Todd just met Jordanna the other day, and he was . . . he liked her. If he knew Kara, he woulda said something to me, or her.”

“He liked you?” Now Drummond was looking at Jordanna again.

“I barely knew him,” she said.

Drummond said, “You seem to have a few admirers. Where’s Mr. Danziger?”

She didn’t want to tell him that Dance was out of town, so she just said, “Working on a story.”

“The story about the missing body in the cemetery?” His tone suggested he thought her account was a total fabrication.

“Among others,” she said shortly.

“What happened to Todd?” Rusty broke in. “He didn’t just run off the road.”

Drummond wasn’t ready to give it up. “This body in the cemetery that you say you saw—”

“That I did see,” she corrected.

“A woman’s body. If that’s true, you think there’s a chance it could have been your sister?”

Jordanna’s heart jolted before reason reasserted itself. “The body in the grave had been dead for some time. I talked to my sister on Saturday.”

“Huh. Well, it’s a mystery then, isn’t it?” He glanced around, their conversation apparently over.

“Someone did this to Todd, Pete,” Rusty said, his voice raspy. “You need to find out who.”

“Oh, I will,” Drummond said, all business again. He strode back to his car, the one with the light bar still circulating with red and blue, and got on his walkie, though Jordanna wondered if he was really doing anything more than posturing. She didn’t trust him to help her.

Where was Kara?

Grabbing her cell phone from her purse, she texted her sister once more. Found your car over a cliff. Looks like an accident. She purposely left out that Todd was behind the wheel. Please tell me you’re okay.

She waited for nearly an hour, but Kara never returned her text.

The person on camera moved with a slight hitch to her hips. Even with the layers of clothes, the wig, the sunglasses that looked more male style than female, the chin tucked into the overcoat, covering up the lower part of her face, Dance would bet it was Carmen.

“You’re saying she pushed the remote,” he said.

Rafferty said, “Seems likely.”

They were in a video room at the station. Dance couldn’t take his eyes off the image on the screen. Carmen was just stepping into the building’s lobby.

“Can you think of a reason your ex would want to kill you?” Rafferty asked.

He almost laughed. “She’s Carmen Saldano.”

“Meaning?”

“She’s been trained to get what she wants at all cost. If she can’t achieve it, she’s just as likely to destroy it.”

“She didn’t want the divorce.”

He shook his head, his throat dry. Though she was the one who’d initiated divorce proceedings, he’d always known she hadn’t really wanted it. He’d just thought she’d finally recognized there was nothing worth saving in their marriage.

Rafferty cleared his throat and said, “Maxwell Saldano was called away from the bomb site because of his father’s illness.”

Dance ripped his gaze away to meet the detective’s eyes. “Carmen wouldn’t have told him. You think Victor knew and faked it.”

“It’s a possibility. Maybe Maxwell knew, too.”

Dance struggled with all of it. He’d considered them his family.

“Federal agents Bethwick and Donley are on their way,” the detective said. “They’re already pissed that I’m involved. Seeing this isn’t going to improve their moods. They’re going to want to talk to you.”

“They’ve got ten minutes, then I’m out of here.” He hesitated. “What about Carmen?”

“We’re picking her up,” he said. “Don’t go home.”

“Don’t worry.”

Jordanna tried calling Dance, but the phone went straight to voice mail for the third time. She knew he and Rafferty had probably picked up the audiotape from the bank and were at the police station by now. She needed to talk to him, but he’d probably turned his phone off. It’s what she would do when facing the police, not to mention the FBI or any other federal agents.

She texted him, also for the third time, saying the same thing she’d said the first two times. Cops found my sisters car at the bottom of a cliff. Todd Douglas was in the drivers seat, dead. Kara’s not answering texts or calls. Don’t think she ever left for Portland.

When he turned on his phone, he would see that and call her.

The crime tech team was scouring Summit Ridge Road. She realized they were collecting bits of blood. Todd’s blood . . . or Kara’s. She inhaled sharply. She couldn’t think like that.

“I’m going to go,” she said to Rusty, who’d wound down into silence.

“Where?” he asked, as if there was nowhere he could think of to be.

“I don’t know yet.”

She walked back to her car. She kept going back to her last conversation with Kara. Who had her sister seen in town? She’d recognized someone . . . Emily’s old boyfriend? That had been the thrust of the conversation. But who was that? Not Martin Lourde. According to him, Emily had broken up with him, not the other way around, and he was still affected by her death. Not Rusty. He was Jordanna’s age and Emily wouldn’t have looked at someone younger, and even if she did, Jordanna would find it hard to believe she’d choose goofy, freckled Rusty. There were tons of guys from Emily’s class who could fill the bill, guys Jordanna scarcely remembered. She’d only had eyes really for Nate.

Nate.

Jordanna swallowed hard, making herself think back. She’d been entranced with Nate Calverson. A really deep crush. He’d been the handsome, wealthy, everything guy, whereas she was the doomed, half-crazy Treadwell girl, not even the prettiest one. That had been Emily.

Someone had said how attractive the Benchleys were . . . Virginia Fowler? Well, that was certainly true in Emily’s case. And something had switched inside her mentally toward the end. She’d become promiscuous, and she never had been before, as far as Jordanna knew. Was that a function of the disease? And would Nate Calverson, Mr. All That, have decided to take advantage of her? Maybe helping her onto the righteous path of the Lord, something Emily might have needed to hear at that point in her life?

Jordanna headed back into town. It was noon and the skies were threatening rain. Would Nate be at the ranch now, or would he be at lunch? She supposed she could call Rusty and get his number, but she liked the idea of surprising him.

She drove past Green Pastures Church and then under the arch to the Calverson property. The driveway curved around, flanked by magenta rhododendrons on either side, their blooms just past their zenith. Several dogs began baying at her arrival—beagles, she saw, as they darted out of the main ranch house, both brown and white splotched, their tails wagging rapidly in eager greeting.

Pru came to the door. “Down,” she ordered, snapping her fingers at the dogs, who wanted to put their muddy paws on Jordanna’s jeans. They sniffed her and sniffed her, and then suddenly tore around the outside of the house, baying madly some more. “Well, hi, there,” Pru said. “What a surprise. Come on in.”

“Is Nate here?” Jordanna asked tensely.

“Well . . . nooooo . . . he’s down at the barns with some of the workers.” She looked slightly alarmed that Jordanna wanted her husband.

Jordanna didn’t plan on telling her about Todd Douglas and Kara. She wanted to see Nate’s reaction firsthand. “I need to ask him some questions. I won’t stay long.”

“What kind of questions?” Now she was fully alarmed, either for some reason she wasn’t saying, or just because she was so afraid of any woman getting near him.

“I see the barns,” she said, looking into the fields. “Why don’t I just hike over there?”

“They could be out a ways away branding cattle,” Pru tried to discourage her.

“I’ll find him.” Jordanna picked up her pace, practically race-walking away. She didn’t want to give Pru too much time to think about it, and she didn’t want her accompanying her, either.

The barns were a little farther away than she’d initially thought, the distance deceptive. By the time Jordanna reached them, she was out of breath from hurrying.

Nate was right inside the doors, leaning against a stall door, looking lazily at a young man who was cleaning the straw and horse dung from another stall. “Put your back into it,” he said. “There are ten more of these, and if you don’t get going, it’ll be midnight before we’re done.”

He spied Jordanna and straightened up, looking surprised to be caught idle while the young man was working hard. “Well, how do you do, Ms. Winters.”

“I’ve been up at Summit Ridge. Todd Douglas is dead. His car went over the cliff, right where my sister did years ago.”

“Holy shit,” he said. He came out of the barn, grabbed Jordanna’s arm, and walked her out of earshot of the younger man. “Douglas is
dead
?”

“Rusty called me. He thought I might have talked to Todd, but I didn’t. Todd’s truck is at the lookout at the top of the falls, but he was found behind the wheel of the car my sister, Kara, rented. We haven’t heard from Kara since Saturday.”

Nate was blown away. “Wow . . . that’s terrible.”

“Kara supposedly left Rock Springs and went to Portland. She left a text to that effect. But she saw someone in town the last time I talked to her. Someone she thought was familiar, and she acted like it was Emily’s boyfriend from her last year of high school.”

“Emily dated a lot of guys,” he said carefully.

“I know.” Jordanna didn’t have time for pussyfooting. “That’s the last time I talked to Kara, when she met up with this guy. No one’s seen her since, and now her car’s been found.”

“But she texted you that she was leaving?”

“Someone texted Jennie,” Jordanna corrected. “I’m not sure it was Kara.”

“What are you saying?”

“I wondered if it was you she saw in town. I thought Kara might not really remember you from high school. Maybe she saw you, and you looked familiar.”

“Oh, Kara knows me. Rock Springs had the best basketball team in its history when I was a senior, and I was the captain. Of course she knows me.” He sounded affronted that Jordanna could suggest otherwise. “And I remember her. Kinda cute. She was a freshman or maybe sophomore?”

“You didn’t run into her in town the other day?”

“No.”

“Did you take Emily to the old homestead cemetery in high school? I remember you talking about some girl you’d taken there.”

“Now, wait a minute. I mighta taken somebody, maybe Emily, to the cemetery across the road, but I never went to that one. A lot of people did, but not me. I was here.” He was positive. “What are you really getting at?”

“I want to know who Emily was seeing at the end of her senior year. Her boyfriend. Because that’s who I think Kara ran into on Saturday, and now she’s missing.”

He stared at her a long moment, then his mouth turned down at the corners. “I don’t know how to say this much plainer, but Emily was kind of a slut. She’d make out with anybody. Hell, she was with
Lourde
. Did you ever meet his wife? She was as homely as a mule, and even she divorced him.”

Jordanna held her temper with an effort. “Emily was with someone after Martin. She broke up with him around Christmas.”

“You’d have to go through the yearbook. It’d be easier to know the ones she didn’t sleep with.”

“You’re a real peach.” She had to work herself out of her anger. “It was someone religious, who got her on the path to righteousness. Give me a few names. I’ll take it from there.”

He glowered at her. “Most of the real Bible thumpers stayed away from you Treadwells, no offense.”

“Who told you there was a Treadwell Curse?” she asked.