Deadfall (8 page)

To avoid a head-on collision, she was forced back into the right-hand lane and for an instant turning away from the curve lessened the tendency of the truck to roll. Having to steer to the left again to avoid hitting the shoulder worsened the problem. Once again both wheels left the pavement, thumping down hard as she wrestled with the wheel. They were going over the edge of the roadbed, one way or another. She knew it and tried to make a split-second decision. Would it be better to roll or to try to drive the truck off the road and down into the broad, uneven space that had been half cleared between the pavement and the thick stand of trees approximately a hundred feet away?

She heard Linda yell something as she made her choice and allowed the truck to drift onto the shoulder and, slowly, over the edge, attempting to retain some influence on its direction.

Any control she had was lost in an instant as the hood dipped alarmingly—dirt and rocks flying as the wheels dug into the steep graveled slope of the shoulder—and the truck began an uncontrollable sliding roll to the right.

The horrible, screeching sound of metal crushing and tearing and glass breaking went on and on as the truck revolved, throwing its three passengers violently back and forth against their seat belts. The bridge of Jessie’s nose hit the top of the steering wheel, then her head struck the side window, a stunning blow. She felt Linda slam against her and heard a sharp
cry of pain that was cut off as they turned over and seemed to hang upside down before continuing to roll. Then the truck stopped, rocked, and settled, driver’s side down. Aside from the delicate tinkle of glass still falling, there was sudden complete silence.

Everything—everyone—was still for a long minute. Linda groaned and moved a little, and Jessie was groggily aware that both Linda and Billy were lying on her, mashing her against the door. She vaguely tried to think what had happened, why they were on top of her. Slowly, she brought her free right hand to her face, which burned; she felt something slick and warm, and when she moved her hand away, there was blood dripping from her fingers. Then everything began to look gray and fuzzy and she couldn’t breathe.

A
fter fading in and out of consciousness and finally falling into a deep sleep, Jessie opened her eyes early Wednesday morning to find herself in an Anchorage hospital and Alex sitting close beside her bed, holding her hand. She said nothing, but silent tears started to run down her face, neck, and into her hair. A dark, angry-colored swelling marred her left cheek and temple where she had hit the truck window and a butterfly bandage held together the edges of a cut on the bridge of her nose. Both eyes were beginning to turn purplish black, but aside from two broken fingers, pinkie and ring, on her right hand, a few minor abrasions, and some painful bruises, she had no major injuries.

“Linda?” she whispered. “Billy?”

They had been no luckier, though neither had approached critical condition. Linda had gone home from the hospital the night before in a cervical collar, with a cast on her fractured left arm. Three of Billy’s ribs were broken and because
one had punctured a lung, he was, like Jessie, still in the hospital.

Cautiously, with her right index finger, Jessie explored the damage to her face, winced when she found the bruise on her cheek, and frowned at the bandage on her nose.

“What’s under this? Did they have to sew it up?”

Alex grinned, minimizing his response.

“They thought about it. But I figured you’d rather not have to go cross-eyed at needlework on your nose. The doc said you could have stitches or character. It’ll only be a tiny scar, so I told them character would be fine. Okay with you? If not, they can still stitch it.”

“Character’s fine.” She tried to nod and grimaced at the resulting discomfort.

“You’re going to have a real headache for a few days; you have a bit of a concussion.”

“When can I get out of here?”

“Well…tomorrow, probably. We’ll talk about that.”

“What happened? Why couldn’t I stop? There weren’t any brakes.”

He was surprised that she remembered. Many people who have been involved in accidents, especially victims with head injuries, didn’t recall the incidents at all.

“Do you remember all of the crash?”

“I think so. Until I blacked out, I think. I remember going over the shoulder and a lot of noise that seemed to go on for a long time. Then I couldn’t breath, Linda and Billy were lying on top of me, and there was blood on my face.”

She sighed and yawned, her eyes closing.

“It’s okay, now. We’ll talk later, love.”

She was instantly asleep again as he stroked the back of her hand, laid it on the blanket, and stretched to relieve the ache in his back. Friends and family had come and gone through the hours, but he had taken only a quick break or two to gulp something to quiet his growling stomach, though he had no idea what he had eaten. His eyes felt full of sand. He
had rubbed at them with his knuckles and discovered that the unshed tears weren’t all exhaustion.

The door opened to admit a nurse, who, noticing his emotional condition, crossed the room and laid a hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be all right, you know?”

“I know. I just hate hospitals and having people I care about in them.”

“It can be scary, but she’s going to be just fine.”

Leaving Jessie in her care, he went to find Becker, who was waiting to give him an automotive report.

The truck, a crushed and crumpled total loss, had been claimed by the troopers for an immediate and thorough examination, the result of which Becker now related to Jensen.

“The brake line wasn’t cut. It was punctured with something sharp and pointed, like an icepick, maybe a little bigger. If it had been cut, she would have known she couldn’t stop before she left the lot, the first time she stepped on the brakes, because all the fluid would have drained out. You might even have noticed it under the truck. This way it was a ticking time bomb until the truck was on the road. She had to step on the brakes several times to pump out all the fluid, then it must have been just suddenly gone. It wasn’t just chance that it happened on that particular curve, or another one like it, because that’s where she would normally use the brakes. They were all damned lucky it wasn’t worse. Whoever punched a hole in that brake line didn’t care who was hurt—or killed.”

“And any one of them could have been. We’ve got to get this asshole, Phil.”

“You’re right about that. It’s gone way past harassment now.”

“First I want to get Jessie out of here—out of the area, I mean. I want her safe—somewhere out of danger, where this crazy can’t get at her.”

“Where?”

“Idaho? I can send her to my folks in Salmon.”

“If she’s in a safe place, we can focus on what has to be
done. You won’t have to worry about whether she’s okay or not. I think that’s a good idea, but will she go?”

“She promised she would, if the time came that I decided it was necessary. Well, I’ve decided. It’s now.”

J
essie agreed, as Alex knew she would, but not to Idaho.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” she told him, sitting up to spoon lime Jell-O into her mouth from a bowl on her lunch tray. “First I want you to know how much I hate the idea of going away and leaving someone else to take care of something that’s my problem.”

“Jess, it’s not just…”

“I know, but…” She paused, then it came bursting out. “Not much scares me, Alex. You know that. But this does—because there’s no way to see it coming. It’s like trying to see in the dark, when it’s all shadows and no substance. I hate it—detest being afraid.”

“Jess,” he told her seriously, “sometimes the better part of valor is to
run like hell
.

“You know that as long as you’re here, you put both of us in danger, not just yourself. Think about it. You’re in jeopardy because he can get at you—one way or another—and there’s no way we can intercept his attempts because he keeps changing his angle of attack. I’m in danger because I’m focused on you—when I should be focused entirely on him. It’s not letting him win to put yourself beyond his reach. It’s smart, and defeats the game he’s playing. You stay—nobody wins, and you may lose. You go—he has no chance of winning.”

“You’re right,” she said. “I know you are. Okay, I’ll go. I said I’d respect your professional judgment, and I will. Disliking it—feeling guilty—is beside the point really. I can see that.”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

“However, somebody’s going to have to take care of my dogs…and you’re going to be too busy, I think.”

“Already got that fixed. Don Morgan’s moving them to his kennel in Willow this afternoon.”

“All of them? What a friend. He’s got his hands full with his own—has more than I do.”

“You’ve got more friends than you know. All your junior mushers have volunteered to help him out—except Billy, of course.”

“How’s Billy? Did you see him?”

“Yeah, he’s doing fine, considering. Going home in a day or two. Said to tell you you’re not off the hook about him helping—when you’re both well and up for it.”

She smiled weakly. “He’s a good kid. I’m just sorry I got him and Linda hurt. What about Linda’s fruitcakes?”

“This wasn’t your fault, Jess. You didn’t put a hole in the brake line—”

“And the fruitcakes will get done—when they get done,” Ben Caswell told her, coming into the room. “Linda says to tell you this is a hell of a way to get out of helping.”

“Sounds like she’s gonna be okay. How’s her neck?”

“Just strained a muscle or two, thankfully. They did an MRI and there’s nothing torn or broken. But she aches all over—says she feels like someone put her in a wooden box with you and Billy and rolled you all down a long, steep, extremely bumpy hill.”

“Tell her she’s not alone. Even my toes ache.”

“Glad her neck’s okay,” Alex said. “Now help me out here, Cas. I’m trying to get Jess to go down to my folks’s place in Idaho, but she’s got some other idea.”

“Hey,” Jessie corrected him. “I said I’d go—somewhere. I just don’t want to go out of state. There’re places here where I could drop out of sight just as well as if I went back to the
old country
.”

“Where? Name one where no one would recognize you and let something slip.”

“I told you I’d been thinking about it. How about Niqa Island in Kachemak Bay?”

Alex stared at her, shaking his head.

“Bad idea. There’s no one out there this time of year, Jess.”

“That’s just it. No one out there would be no one to mention that
I
was. It’s isolated, private, and, best of all, not a place I often go or am associated with. How could this awful person possibly find out I was there? I know Millie would let me use her beach house and wouldn’t breathe a word—to anyone.”

“She’s right, Alex,” Caswell said. “It’s not really a bad solution.”

Alex frowned, exhibiting a stubborn streak. “I like Idaho better. It’s farther away, and my folks would be around to help.”

“Alex, the idea isn’t how far, but how well hidden—safe—right?”

She finished the Jell-O, curled a lip at the broth-pretending-to-be-soup, and waved a cracker at him.

“I’ll take Tank, the shotgun, and my .44, food for a couple of weeks—catch up on the reading I’ve been meaning to do. No one will know where I am. Additional benefit? I won’t have to see everyone I know while I’m looking like a raccoon, or keep explaining that you didn’t beat me.”

Caswell grinned and nodded, noticing she had, unconsciously or not, slipped from
would
to
will
.

“I don’t really think your looks are at the heart of the issue, Jessie, but…We could fly her down in my plane, Alex. Set it down in the cove and taxi right up to the beach, like we did last July. It works. I like it.”

Alex chewed his lip, still unconvinced.

“What I don’t like is that you’d be down there alone. There would be no help if you needed it.”

“There’s the radio and half the bay to hear me if I used it. I can take my cellular.”

“It’s not secure, either. Anyone could listen.”

“So? They wouldn’t know where it was coming from unless we mentioned it, would they? We could check in at specific
times so you’d know I was okay. Niqa’s not that far from Homer—about half an hour by boat. And it’s only two hundred and twenty-five miles from Anchorage…”

“Less by plane,” Caswell noted.

“…so you could be there fast, if I needed you.”

Alex only partially capitulated, but they both knew he was weakening—running out of objections.

“Well…call Millie and ask her. I’ll think about it. Now get some rest. If you’re not going to eat the rest of that, I’ll move it.”

“I’m not. Oh,
ple-ease
, bring me some real food, okay? Pizza—tacos—even a Big Mac. I don’t care, but I’m going to starve on this.” She rejected the bland contents of the tray with a dismissive flick of her fingers. “There’s nothing wrong with my appetite.”

“She’s better,” Alex told Cas, with a straight face. “Getting pushy and demanding.”

“Yeah. Linda’s like that, too.” Cas grinned. “You’d think she broke an arm or something. I think Jessie’d be pretty capable of taking care of herself on an island.”

“Yeah, I guess you might be right.”

“I’d be okay, Alex. Really, I would.”

“And if you weren’t?”

“Then you two will be my knights in shining airplane.”

“I
don’t like it,” Jensen told Caswell as they walked out of the hospital a few minutes later. “I’d rather have her a long ways away from here—or where I could keep track of her every single minute, and that’s not possible. Even if I could, it wouldn’t make her completely safe and might just get us both killed. This guy seems to be a real loony tune, but an extremely cautious and clever one.”

“We could send someone with her—one of ours—or…Listen, I’ve got a friend with the Air National Guard Para
rescue. Those guys are awesome, better than guerrillas anywhere—really know their stuff. This guy I’m thinking of can turn completely invisible on a patch of scorched earth—and also be deadly, if necessary. I’d rather one of them guarded Linda in a bad situation than me, if I had the choice.”

“Naw, it won’t work. You know Jess. She’s already refused a ‘baby-sitter,’ as she called it. She said she wouldn’t go if we insisted on sending somebody along—even you or Phil. She’s so damned used to doing things alone, by and for herself.”

Caswell picked up a paper cup someone had dropped in the parking lot and tossed it into a trash can.

“Let me kick it around a little,” he said contemplatively. “I might be able to come up with something. Now let’s get you something to eat before you seize up on me. You need something to take back to Jessie, too. Then we can figure out how to get her out of town as quickly and inconspicuously as possible.”