about the swim, when he spotted Tom talking to what appeared to be a high-school girl standing beside a little blue car. She’d probably been caught speeding. As usual, when Tom put on the charm, a scared kid relaxed. Brady knew he wouldn’t give her a ticket, he’d cut her some slack. Back in the day, Brady had actually talked to Tom about his live-and-let-live take on citing minors, questioning whether he was actually doing a kid much good by not holding them accountable for minor offenses. Tom had laughed him off.
And again, that ache of no longer belonging. He missed being out on the street, helping people, looking for miscreants, figuring things out. Sure, he was still alive, he still walked and talked and worked and occasionally, even laughed. But it all seemed brittle and hollow. His life, abandoned.
Not wanting to talk to Tom again, he took a side street that led to the industrial side of town. There was a smattering of bars along the street. No doubt his father was holding up a stool at the River Rat or the Crosshairs. Brady avoided even looking in the open doors.
That’s when he caught sight of a guy on a bicycle who looked familiar. Of course. Hair shorter, body a little bigger, but that was Jason Briggs.
For one long second, options flashed through Brady’s mind. Turn around and go the other way, pull over to the curb, find a cold drink and do nothing or…
Brady slowed way down, giving Jason a good lead. He waited until Jason had cleared the edge of town and disappeared around a corner before taking off, hanging back, trailing him but not close.
What was the harm of trailing Jason if Lara never knew?
It looked as though the kid was headed for the river. Maybe he just wanted a swim. Maybe Brady would join him—if Lara wasn’t there. Who knows what Jason might talk about while paddling around the river on a summer evening?
Traffic was light, so following Jason took skill. Brady left lots of room between them, uneasy with the inevitable times Jason disappeared around a curve. But Brady knew this road and there was only one place it really went—to the river. Unless the kid was headed over the bridge and on up to St. George.
Brady came around the latest hairpin curve to find the road ahead empty. This was where it branched, straight across the bridge, or an abrupt right on the south side of the river. The bridge had two cars on it but no bikes. That left the southern road and it appeared empty. Brady concluded Jason had ridden his bike into the turnout on this side of the bridge.
So, he wasn’t going to swim. The bank there was too steep, the river too deep thanks to the proximity of the bridge excavation. There was a far better spot just a quarter of a mile downstream where the river made a wide turn.
As the noisy motorcycle would ruin a stealthy approach, Brady steered the Harley behind a few trees, took off his helmet and started walking.
He found Jason still astride his bike, feet planted on the ground, facing the road. Waiting. He was wearing earphones attached to an iPod in his pocket. He was a lanky, fair-haired kid with shifty eyes, dressed in baggy shorts and flip-flops. Brady remembered the punches he’d thrown the night of the shooting, and his own advice to Jason: stop drinking. Well, they didn’t serve adult beverages in juvenile detention, so hopefully a little time away from temptation had been good for him.
Brady ducked behind some very dense Oregon grape bushes. He scooted along until an abandoned wooden pavilion provided cover from the road and the parking area. The downside of this position was he couldn’t see the road. The upside was twofold—he could, by contorting a bit, see the clearing and no one could see him.
Ten long minutes later, he heard an engine. Jason must have seen a car. He took off the earphones and got off his bike, pushing it near a picnic table where he leaned it against one of the benches. At last, a silver car with Washington plates drove slowly into the clearing.
Brady saw Lara behind the wheel. She parked the car facing the river embankment and rolled down her window. Jason walked toward Lara with his head down.
Brady tensed. He could imagine no reason Jason Briggs would hurt Lara, but his walking up to her like that made him nervous.
They spoke for a few seconds and Jason started around the back of the car. Lara’s window slid back into place. Had she seen the Harley? Was she going to drive Jason to a different spot?
But Jason got inside the car and turned in the seat to face Lara. Brady could tell she hadn’t turned the engine off. Probably wanted to keep the air-conditioning running.
He watched them talk for a couple of minutes, then became aware of an idling engine out on the road. Before he could finish wondering what Lara and Jason would do when another car rolled into the parking lot, a shot blasted the evening stillness.
An instant later, a muffled scream hit Brady like a gust from a tornado. It came from Lara’s car. There was a perfect round hole in her back window. Jason had slumped forward. Lara leaned toward him. Brady started moving. Another shot. Some idiot was out on the road, shooting at Lara’s car.
Before he could scramble from behind the pavilion, Lara put the car into gear and gunned the engine into a broad turn to escape. It appeared Jason fell against her during the turn. Another shot. She grabbed her arm. The car lurched forward. Brady watched helplessly as it hung on the embankment for a second before heading for the river.
As he ran toward the quickly disappearing car, he heard an engine rev and tires squeal out on the road. No doubt thinking his mission accomplished, the gunman had fled. Every cop-related fiber of Brady’s body quaked at the thought of the gunman getting away.
He got to the embankment in time to see Lara’s car fly over a strip of boulders, its tailpipe clanging as the car launched into the river, a geyser of water spraying as it landed like a whale doing a belly flop, and quickly sank from view.
Chapter Three
Jason’s limp body pinned Lara’s foot against the accelerator pedal. Blood from the wound on her right arm dripped on his white T-shirt as she tried to push him away.
Oh, God, he was hurt, she didn’t want to hurt him further, but the car was racing toward the river.
A final push and he slumped the other direction. She moved her foot and the racing engine slowed, but it was too late. The car hit the rocks skirting the river’s edge and launched itself into the water. Her last act before she hit the river was to pound the electric window button. The window slid down six inches before water washed over the hood and the engine died. Within an instant, water covered the windshield and the vehicle sank to the bottom of the river as cold water gushed through the window.
“Jason!” she screamed.
He mumbled something as the water seemed to revive him for a moment. It was too dark to see much. “Jason, we’re sinking. I’m going to try to get us out of this. Hold on.”
A million images flashed through her mind as she searched frantically for something heavy enough to break a window. Her purse, no. Sandals, a small flashlight. Nothing heavy. No big tire iron.
A million images. Brady. Nathan. Her mother. A million regrets, a million sorrows, all racing like electronic bleeps through her brain, like a movie reel moving too fast for images. And all the while she searched for a tool that would break the window and save their lives, and all the time she searched, she knew no such tool existed within the passenger cabin of her new car.
The water was up to their waists now and still gushing. She wished she’d not lowered the window or had thought to do it sooner though twin streams also spurt from the bullet holes in the back window. Her actions had more or less set them up for certain death. No one knew they were there but the person who shot them. He or she wasn’t coming to their rescue.
She should have told Brady! She should have told her mother’s housekeeper. She should have told someone.
How long would it take for anyone to notice she was gone. Nathan would first, of course, and then Myra, but neither of them would tell the one person who could help.
Brady. She should