Carry Me Home (18 page)

His words brought it all back to her. Spinning. Hurtling out of control. And the panic afterward, knowing he was out there, that he was coming, that running wouldn’t work, that her only hope was staying in the car, blowing the horn, praying for help. Scrabbling for something, anything, to defend herself. A pen. Anything. Remembering the samples she had on the floor of the passenger seat, and grabbing for one. Knowing she had to move fast, that she had to strike first, and fast, if he broke her window. Hoping she could do it. That it would be enough.

Raylene saw her distress. “Hey, now,” she said, coming down to sit beside her, reaching for her hand and squeezing it. “It’s okay. Scary, but all over now.”

“That’s it, though,” Zoe said. “I’m not sure it is. It’s . . . it’s pretty similar to something that happened to a student of mine. A young woman.”

After that, of course, she and Cal had to explain, with his mother looking increasingly shocked, his father increasingly grim.

“So Zoe got involved in all that,” Cal finished, “and then there was that follow-up piece in the
Idahonian
, too. They just did a story a couple weeks ago about campus sexual assault.”

“I saw it,” his mother said. “We were just talking about it at our last League of Women Voters meeting, in fact. It’s become quite the civil-rights issue, hasn’t it? There’s been such a sea change, almost overnight, it feels like, in how it’s being looked at, in how cases are being investigated, how aggressively they’re being pursued, although there’s still a long way to go. High time, too.”

“Yes,” Cal said. “We’re aware of the political angle, but thanks for the . . . update.” He stopped, mindful of his father’s warning glance. “Anyway, that maybe turned the heat up some. I don’t think Zoe’s made a lot of friends on campus these past weeks, and I’ve got to wonder if it could have gotten back to the guy. Sounds crazy, but on the other hand . . .”

“Somebody who’d do that,” his mother said, “he
is
crazy.”

“Or evil,” his father said.

“That’s all I can think,” Zoe said. “I know it sounds so paranoid,” she hurried on. “But I swear that I thought he was going to hit me. It felt like he was . . . playing with me. And then when I crashed . . .”

“He pulled in behind her,” Cal finished. “And I thought, well, good, somebody else is there. I pulled over, too, and he took off like a rabbit. Now, who would do that?”

“Could have been somebody who saw it happen, saw it wasn’t too bad, and took off again,” his father said. “Not that most folks around here would do that, not without even checking on the driver. But who knows? Some people.”

“I don’t think so,” Zoe said. “I think he was chasing me, and that Cal scared him off.”

His father was looking at Cal again, his gaze serious. “You’d better call the sheriff’s office,” he said. “Get them out here to talk to her. Just in case.”

“Yeah,” Cal said. “That’s what I’m thinking, too.”

“Here’s what I think we should do right now,” Raylene said. “Cal, you call Jim Lawson, tell him what happened, see if he can come on by later on, if he’s on duty. He’d be best.”

“Right,” Cal said. “You got his number?”

“I should have,” she said. “If not, I’ll call Vicki and get it. My cousin,” she explained to Zoe. “Her son’s a deputy.”

“Ah,” Zoe said. “I think I’ve met him. If it’s him, that’s going to make me
less
likely to be believed, though. Since I met him kind of . . . from the ditch. The last time. I mean, the first time.”

“Nope,” Cal said. “Because I was there, too, this time. He’ll believe you.”

“Must be nice,” Zoe muttered.

“What?” he asked, looking confused.

“To be that confident.” She realized what she’d said, where she was, and flushed a little with embarrassment. “Sorry,” she told Raylene. “That was kind of rude. I mean, to your son and all, in your house.”

Raylene was smiling, though, looking at Stan. “Oh, honey, no. That’s music to a mother’s ears.”

“Hey,” Cal said.

“Never mind,” his mother said. “You go on and call Jim. I’ll get dinner on the table, and Zoe here . . .” She eyed Zoe.

“She’d better stay here tonight,” Stan said. “Until we can talk to Jim, get this figured out.”

“You’re right,” his wife said before Zoe could answer. “After dinner, you can have a bath, get changed, get out of that suit. Get yourself relaxed before you have to go through all this again. Because I think you should stay here tonight anyway. Who knows how long it’ll take Jim or whoever to show up, and if there really is somebody out there looking for you, we’re none of us going to feel good about you going home to an empty apartment.”

“I can’t do that,” Zoe protested.

“And why not?” Raylene demanded.

“Because . . .” Zoe cast about for a reason. “Because I don’t have anything to wear,” she realized. “And I can’t put you out like that.”

“Of course you can,” Raylene said. “I wouldn’t get a lick of sleep tonight otherwise, worrying about you. And I’ll get you something to wear, too. You’re not so different size-wise from me, just a little shorter.”

A
lot
shorter, but not that different otherwise, it was true.

“As long as it’s not a turtleneck,” Cal said, eyeing his mother.

“Why not?” Zoe asked. “Your mom looks fine. She looks
nice
. And warm, too. What on earth is wrong with a turtleneck? I just can’t wait to hear.”

“I’ve looked at you in that suit way too often,” he said. “And a turtleneck . . . no. That’s just going from bad to worse.”

“What a shame, then,” his mother said, “that it isn’t all about you.”

“Nope,” Stan said. “It’s about me. And I like you in a turtleneck,” he told his wife. “So you know.”

“You just like me in sweaters,” she said.

“Well, yeah,” he said with a grin that was surely the original of his son’s. “Always have, and I’m happy to admit it. I do love the way you look in a sweater.”

“Annnddd . . . an image I did not need,” Cal said.

“You’re the one who brought it up,” his mother pointed out. “Like what I wear is one bit your concern. Here’s a real hot news flash for you. And not the menopausal kind, either. Your generation didn’t invent sex.”

Cal laid his forehead on the table, banged it against the hard surface. “Make the hurting stop,” he moaned.

His mother laughed and swatted the back of his head so his forehead hit the table again.

“Ow,” he complained, sitting up and rubbing the spot.

“Quit being so silly,” she ordered, “and call Jim. Zoe, you come help me set this table. You’ll be a whole lot calmer, be able to explain yourself a whole lot better, with a good hot dinner in you.”

It was like she’d been taken over by the Decisive People, and resistance was clearly futile. Which was why, when the burly, reassuring figure of Jim Lawson was sitting around the kitchen table with all of them a couple of hours later, she was wearing a pair of too-long pants with the legs rolled up and a red sweater.

“V-neck,” Raylene had said, pulling it out of a dresser drawer. “Although if you don’t want to look pretty for Cal, you just let me know. I’ve got a real ugly beige turtleneck I bought during some sort of lunatic moment in an after-Christmas sale last year. You say the word and I’ll haul that sucker out, because it’ll do my heart good to hear him whine about it.”

“No, thanks.” Zoe hadn’t been able to keep from laughing, because she
had
felt a whole lot better after a hot dinner and, yes, a hot bath, too, after being showed into a tidy guest room, knowing she didn’t have to go home tonight, that for now, at least, she was safe and warm and being looked after. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to, but she’d take it. For tonight.

Now, she sat beside Cal in her borrowed clothes and did her best to explain the circumstances of the night in some kind of lucid fashion.

“So you saw whoever was behind her, too,” Jim asked Cal when she’d finished. “Get any impression?”

“Ford F-150,” Cal said. “Single-cab. Dark, because I’d have noticed if it had been white.”

“How do you know what kind it was?” Zoe asked. “In the dark? In a storm?”

Both men looked at her with surprise. “Headlights,” Cal said, like it was obvious.

“Uh . . . don’t they all have headlights?”

“Not the same shape,” Cal said.

“Well, that’s good,” Zoe said. “Right?” she asked Jim. “If we know the model?”

“Would be,” Jim said, “if that wasn’t the best-selling truck in the country, and the rig that about half the male population of this county’s driving right now. But it’s a start. Occupants?” he asked Cal.

“Couldn’t tell you that, either. Too busy diving for the ditch.”

“He was that close?”

“Oh, yeah. He was hell-bent on getting out of there before I got close enough to see him, seemed to me. That’s the thing that’s got me convinced. That and that Dr. Zoe is actually a pretty levelheaded person, at least when her head’s actually level. When she’s not in a ditch.”

“Uh-huh,” Jim said. “Not much to go on, somebody following too close.”

Zoe had to bite her lip to keep herself from bursting out that he
hadn’t
just been following too close. Protesting wouldn’t help, though, she knew. Cal put his hand briefly on hers, and she knew he understood, and that helped.

“You said there was something else, though,” Jim said.

“Yeah,” Cal said. “We can do a little better on this one. Zoe’s even got a copy of the police report.”

She pulled it out of her laptop case. One of the two copies they’d badgered Greg Moore into giving them during their visit. “This was my student,” she said, handing it over. “She had the same experience I did tonight. That’s not in there, but she told me about it, and I know she’d be glad to tell you.”

“She hit the ditch, too?”

“No,” Zoe said, refusing to blush. “Being followed. On foot, she thought, somebody watching her. And by a pickup truck. Before”—she gestured at the report—“this happened.”

“She go to the cops about that?”

“No,” Zoe said. “Not enough to go on, she thought. Just like me. Just a feeling. Somebody staying behind her. More than once. More than a coincidence. But not doing anything, so there was nothing to report. Would you have taken that seriously?”

“Well . . .” he said.

“No. Of course you wouldn’t. Just like you wouldn’t be taking me seriously now if it weren’t for the pattern.”
And Cal.

“Suppose you let me read this,” he said, “get the whole picture, before you go deciding what I think.”

Cal’s hand was on hers again, and she waited, shifting a little in her chair as Jim read through the report. Slowly. Deliberately. Until she wanted to scream.

He looked up at last. “Based on this and what you’ve told me, and keeping in mind I’m not a detective, and keeping in mind that this is Greg’s case, and Greg’s a . . .”

“Yeah,” Cal said. “Pretty hard to find the appropriate word in present company.”

“All right,” Jim said. “Keeping all that in mind, this doesn’t sound like burglary to me. Sounds like we could have something more going on here.”

“There’s another thing,” Zoe said. “Not on there, because she didn’t know it then. Amy found a zip tie under the bed when she was moving out. A long one. She swears it didn’t come from her. She’s pretty sure he dropped it.”

“Under the bed?” Jim asked. “How would it have gotten under the bed, if he dropped it?”

“She thinks it fell out of his pocket when she hit him, when he spun around,” Zoe said. “Maybe he kicked it, or she did. She thinks so.”

“Greg know about this?”

“Well, yes,” Zoe said. “That is, Amy told him while Cal and I were there at the station with her. He didn’t seem too convinced. He said the same thing you did. But she was pretty sure. And it seems like a . . . a clue, doesn’t it? I mean, you wouldn’t bring zip ties to a burglary. Would you?”

Jim shrugged. “Who knows. But could be.” He made a note in his book. “Sliding-glass door, ski mask, zip ties.”

“MO,” Cal said.

“Could be,” Jim said again. “Greg do a search online for patterns, do you know?”

“He didn’t share what he did,” Cal said. “Not too happy with our being there. Not about to talk to us.”

“Want me to try to find out?”

“Why do you think I told Cal to call you?” Raylene spoke for the first time. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

Cal looked at Jim, Jim looked back at him, and they both smiled a little. “Yes, ma’am,” Jim said. “I guess it is.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Cal said. “I’d sure like to know what’s happening myself, and I’m not Amy. Or Zoe.”

“Yeah.” Jim shoved the notebook back into his pocket and pushed back from the table, the others rising with him. “I sure hope this Amy has something more than a bat next to her bed now. This mutt sounds like real bad news.”

“She said that she . . .” Wait. Should she say? It was against the rules, Amy had told her.

“Be surprised if she didn’t,” Stan put in. “Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson make a pretty powerful argument. If she were my daughter? You bet she would. No way she’d be back here otherwise.”

“You be careful, too,” Jim told Zoe. “And remember, somebody comes into your bedroom at night in a ski mask, you’ve got a right to defend yourself any way you have to. Just in case we do have a pattern here, the best thing would be if you weren’t in your bedroom alone for a while.”