Lake Silence

CHAPTER 73

Vicki

Watersday, Sumor 8

I pictured opening the car door and flinging myself out of the vehicle while Detective Swinn had to concentrate on something in the road. I pictured him punching me in the face if I reached for the door handle. I was in the front seat with him—couldn’t have me looking like a prisoner—but I didn’t know if a passenger could unlock the door. So opening and flinging weren’t good options.

I pictured myself grabbing the wheel like a plucky young woman in a TV show and sending the car out of control and off the road, rolling a couple of times. Of course, the villain would be trapped and Ms. Plucky would crawl out of the wreck with a couple of dramatic cuts but would still be able to show everyone why she had been a high school track star as she ran to warn the good guys that they were walking into a trap.

Since I wasn’t plucky and, at thirty, I wasn’t considered young, and my experience with track-and-field events did not make me any kind of star, I was more likely to end up looking like bug goo on the windshield while Swinn walked away from the wreck.

Cross off grabbing the steering wheel from my save-the-day list.

Then Swinn turned onto the farm track that ran between the Milfords’ orchards and The Jumble.

“Where are we going?” I asked, feeling numb.

“Back to the beginning. You should have just rolled over like you were supposed to, fireplug. All this trouble happened because of you.”

Actually, all of it happened because Yorick tried to renege on the divorce settlement, but I was pretty sure Swinn didn’t want to hear that.

“What the . . . ?” Swinn said.

A chubby brown pony with a storm-gray mane and tail stood in the middle of the farm track, blocking our way. When he stomped one foot, dirt swirled around his legs.

“Oh no,” I breathed, recognizing Twister.

Instead of stopping because, hey, there was a pony in the way, Swinn floored the gas pedal. Instead of running away from a speeding car, the pony charged—and disappeared in the center of a mini tornado.

Have you ever been on one of those stomach-churning spinny rides at a country fair? Well, spinning in a car is so much worse.

I screamed. Swinn screamed. And no matter what he might say later, it was not a manly yell.

The car stopped spinning—and flames erupted from under the hood.

Aiden?

I clawed at the door and tumbled out of the car, feeling Swinn’s fingers slide over my butt as he tried to grab me. Since he had a gun and I didn’t have so much as a nail file, I ran, figuring that having things like trees in the way would make it harder for him to shoot me.

“Come back here!” Swinn shouted.

Like that was going to happen.

Was this the trail I’d taken when I’d led Grimshaw to the first body? Didn’t know and couldn’t afford to care. I’d either end up at one set of cabins, or at the main house, or at the road. Hopefully I wouldn’t end up back on the farm track and run into Swinn.

I didn’t run into Swinn. But as I caught a glimpse through the trees of what I thought was the main house, I did run straight into a man wearing a business suit—and thin black gloves. I’d come around a blind curve in the trail and bounced off him, stumbling back a couple of steps. I didn’t recognize him, but I saw the tie clip—one of those weird moments when time slows down and you fixate on one detail. So even though I didn’t know him, I knew he wasn’t a friend. Not to me.

I dodged him when he lunged at me. Don’t ask me how. Adrenaline is an amazing thing. I was already puffing, so he wouldn’t have to work hard to catch me. And I was sure that him catching me would be bad for my health.

Not having any sensible ideas of how to evade the man, I waved a hand over my head as if I was holding a ticket and wheezed, “I have the ‘Elder Helps You’ card!” Which shows you that, while adrenaline is an amazing thing, it can produce wonky thoughts in the brain, showing me a flashback of the Murder game we had all played that one evening.

Except . . .

I saw nothing, but I swear I felt fur brush the bare skin on my arm as something big rushed past me. As it passed, it gave me a negligible swat/shove/toss/take your pick that had me airborne. Reminded me of when I used to do the running long jump when we had the track-and-field segment in gym class. Not that my long jump was long. But this? I was flying. I had plenty of time to remember there was a safe way to fall and roll when I landed. I didn’t remember how, just that there was a safe way and then there was the tumble the rest of us took.

At the moment my feet touched the ground, I heard a hideous scream—a terrified, mind-breaking sound. With my concentration shattered, I landed in a heap. Couldn’t think about what had just happened. Couldn’t, couldn’t, couldn’t.

As I pushed to my feet, I felt a sting in both knees, a sharp pain in my left wrist, and a queer feeling of sticky air along my right side. Couldn’t think about that either.

I needed to be out in the open. The main house was probably stuffed with Yorick’s friends, so I couldn’t shelter there. But the beach? If I got to the beach and yelled for help, the Crowgard would hear me. Maybe even Conan and Cougar if they were hunting nearby. Someone would see me, would know what happened to me.

I ran and made rash promises to exercise more if I lived. Of course, if I died, exercising would be a moot point.

As I ran past the main house, following the path to the lakeside cabins and the beach beyond them, several things happened. A voice that sounded like Julian’s yelled “Vicki!”; tittering female screams, not the I’m-being-eaten kind of screams, came from the screened porch; and Swinn, waving a gun, fought his way between a couple of bushes and came at me.

I was in sight of the lakeside cabins, sure that Swinn was going to shoot me at any moment, when fog suddenly started playing hide-and-seek with the ground, with objects, with people.

“Caw!”

“Caw!” “Caw!” “Caw!”

Aggie and her friends? I hoped so.

The fog thinned, revealing the sand.

“Bitch!” Swinn’s voice, too close.

Sand would slow me down. So would the water unless I could get far enough out to be safe from bullets.

I changed course and ran for the dock. Was that sensible? Who knows? It’s what I did. Behind me, I heard Swinn yell; I heard a big splash. A gun went off. And someone started screaming.

I was almost at the dock when Yorick ran toward me, waving something shiny and yelling, “Come back here, Vicki! It’s all your fault! Come back here and fix this!”

I didn’t know what he was holding. I just knew I couldn’t let him get his hands on me.

Men with guns and other weapons behind me. Ahead of me? Something else.

The fog might have messed with my sense of distance, but it wasn’t the reason I ran to the end of the dock and kept running until I hit the water.