Too Rich and Too Dead (24 page)

And now this.

As far as Mallory was concerned, the police were right to consider Harriet a person of interest. In fact, from what she had seen, she appeared to be a person of
great
interest.

While Mallory was becoming increasingly convinced that Harriet was guilty, she knew perfectly well that she had yet to prove anything. Which meant she couldn't yet discount any of the other suspects on her list.

Including Gordon.

As she drove along the mountain road that took her away from Tavaci Springs, she wrestled with her ambivalence about seeing him again. After all, even though Harriet was a strong suspect herself, she had certainly made a good case for Gordon having reason to be furious with Carly.

True, Harriet could have played up Gordon's anger as a means of deflecting suspicion. Yet the fact that he had told her himself that he'd wanted to make a film about Carly's life story was troubling.

Mallory knew that even if she wanted to change her plans, she couldn't. Not only was she scheduled to meet Gordon at the Cooking School of Aspen in just half an hour, she didn't have his cell phone number
with her. She couldn't simply skip the class, either, since she intended to write about it in her article.

Besides, she didn't want to believe that he could possibly be a killer. She liked him. He was fun to be with, he made her feel good, and she'd been looking forward to taking this class with him.

She drove on, mentally running down her list of other suspects.

She started with Brett. The fact that Carly was having an affair with Dusty made her husband look more guilty, not less. After all, if he'd found out about it, he could easily have flown into a jealous rage and killed her. Of course, if he really was living off Carly, the way Harriet and Gordon had said he was, he would have in essence been killing the goose that laid the golden eggs.

That led her to Astrid. Since she was having an affair with Brett, it made perfect sense that she, too, would have wanted Carly out of the picture. Since Astrid and Brett were the only ones who knew if they'd really spent the entire night together, she could have easily been the one who had gone to Tavaci Springs that night, intending to get rid of her rival once and for all.

Or maybe the lovers had both killed her, conspiring to find a way to eliminate the one obstacle to their love. Especially since Brett stood to become a very wealthy widower.

Dusty couldn't be discounted, either. No matter how Autumn tried to make his relationship with Carly sound like the best thing that had happened to
him since the invention of the snowboard, the simple fact that he was having an illicit relationship with the victim made him a suspect. Being so much younger—and so much poorer—made his situation look even worse. He was someone who was forced to live simply, sharing an apartment with a bunch of other ski dudes, but who clearly had an appreciation for life's luxuries, such as Rolex watches. Which meant that even though he acted like someone without a care in the world, there were definitely other sides to him—along with reasons other than love or even simply sexual attraction fueling his interest in Carly.

And she certainly couldn't discount Sylvie, especially when even the police thought she was worth looking at. She had been counting on Carly to sell her business to HoliHealth, which would have gained Sylvie the status at her company that she so desperately yearned for. But if it turned out Carly was just stringing her along, she would have been furious that she had both wasted her time and gambled her reputation—all for nothing. In fact, it was even possible that Sylvie had been charged with Carly's murder while Mallory was busily running around town, interviewing suspects…

She suddenly snapped out of her ruminations and realized she was already a third of the way down the mountain road. She glanced around, surprised that she'd been driving for at least five minutes without paying attention to her surroundings.

It was at that point that she glanced in the rear-view
mirror and saw that another vehicle was close behind.

In fact, the mud-splattered pickup truck was a little
too
close, especially since she'd just reached the part of the road that was particularly twisty. It was also narrow, with dramatic, heart-stopping drops down the side on which she drove.

“Idiot,” she muttered. “Just because locals like this jerk probably know every inch of these roads doesn't make racing along them any safer.”

Besides, she wondered, doesn't the fact that I'm driving so slowly clue him in to the fact that I'm not very comfortable driving on this particularly treacherous stretch?

Or maybe it wasn't a him. She peered into her rearview mirror, trying to see the face of the individual who was exercising such bad judgment—so bad, in fact, that it could get them both killed. But the windshield was spattered with so much mud that she couldn't make out who was sitting in the front seat. From the looks of things, the driver had cleared away a space no bigger than an index card in order to see out.

She tried to speed up a bit, just to show that she was trying.

The truck sped up, too. It was still close.
Too
close.

This guy is a serious road bully, she thought, her anxiety level escalating quickly. Should I turn on my flashers? Maybe that would let him know I have no intention of going any faster and he'd back off.

But his front bumper was so close to her back
bumper—mere inches away, from what she could tell—that he probably wouldn't even be able to
see
that she'd turned on her flashers.

By this point she was fighting serious feelings of panic. She glanced from side to side, looking for a turnout or at least a stretch of road wide enough for her to move over and let the truck pass. But the road was so narrow that there was barely room for one vehicle, much less two. She contemplated moving into the other lane, but the road curved so dramatically that it was impossible to see if anyone was coming up the mountain. If being tailgated was dangerous, it was nothing compared to a head-on collision.

Realizing she was gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her hands hurt, Mallory forced herself to relax them, just a little. She glanced into the rearview mirror every few seconds, wishing she could will the imbecile who was tailgating her to stop acting like such a fool.

And then,
bump!
Mallory let out a yelp as she felt her car jerk and heard the loud thump of the truck's front bumper hitting hers.

“What the—?” she cried.

She checked the rearview mirror again, expecting the driver to slow down. That was standard procedure whenever there was a car accident, wasn't it?

Still, there was no place to stop on this narrow mountain road. Not without running the risk of being hit by any other vehicles that came along.

I can't even see the license plate, she thought.

That was when she felt another bump, this one even harder.

Oh, my God, she thought, feelings of panic instantly sending her heart racing and coating her dry mouth with a metallic taste. That nut is doing this on purpose!

I don't know who's driving, but whoever's behind the wheel is trying to run me off the road!

M
allory clutched the steering wheel even more tightly, resisting the urge to whimper as she fixed her gaze on the narrow road twisting in front of her. It appeared to be descending at an even more dramatic angle than she remembered.

I have to stay focused, she thought, swallowing hard. I have to keep going. And I can't speed up, or that crazy driver will hit me even harder.

So instead of accelerating, she nudged the brake and slowed down. When she dared to take her eyes off the road long enough to check the rearview mirror, she saw that the pickup truck persisted in maintaining the same minuscule distance between his vehicle and hers.

“You can do this,” she whispered to herself, vaguely aware that her entire body was coated in
sweat. “You're doing fine, and you don't have that much farther to go…”

She yelped as she felt another bump, this one so hard it rammed her car right up to the edge of the road. She could feel the pavement giving way to dirt, which meant her front tire had been pushed onto the three-foot-wide strip of rock-covered terrain edging the road. Beyond, she could see nothing but air.

Acting on instinct, Mallory wrenched the steering wheel to the left. She could feel the pebbles and dirt sputtering beneath her tire, and for a few terrifying moments she couldn't tell whether the car was going to move in the direction she wanted. But it finally lurched forward, the front nearly smashing into the mountain on her left. In the last fraction of a second, she jerked the steering wheel to the right, managing to maneuver the car back into the center of her lane.

Even though she had regained control, the ordeal left her shaking.

I
can't
do this! she thought, her chest heaving and her eyes burning. All I want is for this to be over!

But she knew she had no choice but to force herself to keep on going. So she gritted her teeth and drove as slowly as she dared.

A wave of relief washed over her when she began spotting side roads jutting off, which told her she was finally nearing the bottom of the mountain. Most were little more than wide dirt paths, but at least they provided a way of getting off the main road. Still, while she derived some comfort from knowing she had other options, she was afraid that
if she turned off onto one of them, the pickup truck would simply follow.

And the last thing she wanted was to find herself cornered by the driver who had already made three attempts at sending her barreling off the side of a serious mountain.

“
Yes.
” Mallory breathed when she saw a car that was traveling in the opposite direction pass by. Trundling a few hundred yards behind it was a truck. She was filled with gratitude that she was no longer alone, since having other people around made it less likely that the nutcase who'd been trying to run her off the road would try again.

Sure enough, after she passed one more unpaved road, she glanced into the rearview mirror and watched the pickup turn onto it abruptly. It sped up once it hit the dirt, its dust-covered tires sending mud splattering up into the air like a geyser.

As she watched the vehicle disappear into the woods, for a fleeting moment Mallory considered following him. But the idea of driving straight into a second dangerous situation when she'd barely escaped from the first held no appeal. All she wanted was to get off the mountain.

Once she reached flat land, she felt totally depleted. The sweat that covered her body had turned her skin clammy, and she couldn't keep her hands from shaking.

She was also struck by the harsh realization that while she'd managed to get off the mountain safely, her ordeal wasn't over.

She knew precisely what the harrowing car chase
down the mountain had been: a warning. And that meant there was undoubtedly more to come.

Even though Mallory had managed to get off the mountain safely, her knees still felt wobbly and her mind was clouded. After she parked in downtown Aspen, she sat in her car for a few minutes, getting her bearings.

The fact that someone had just tried to send her plummeting down the side of a mountain intensified her lingering uncertainties about seeing Gordon again.

It
couldn't
have been him, she thought when she finally dragged herself out of her car. No matter how she tried to picture him as a killer, she couldn't.

Then again, she'd been wrong before.

But when she spotted him waiting for her in the spot they'd agreed upon along the Hyman Avenue Mall, the melting feeling in her heart reinforced her belief that there was no way Gordon could possibly be capable of killing anybody.

“Gordon!” she cried, breaking into a jog as she grew near.

She expected him to turn and smile. Instead, he stood frozen. It wasn't until she got closer that she realized why: He was imitating the gigantic wooden bear he stood next to, duplicating its posture and even its stern expression.

Despite her confused feelings about the man, she couldn't help laughing. “I
knew
I should have brought some salmon with me!” she joked.

He continued to stare straight ahead, ignoring her.

“Gordon, this is really getting un-bear-able,” she quipped, wincing at her own bad pun.

It was so bad, in fact, that even he couldn't resist groaning. Finally turning to look at her, he demanded, “How am I supposed to trick people into thinking I'm a bear if you're going to make me laugh?”

Squinting in mock confusion, she replied, “Tell me again why you want people to think you're a bear?”

“To fit in, of course! I'm in Colorado, aren't I?”

“I think you'd better try another route,” Mallory suggested with mock seriousness. “Maybe you can impress the residents of Aspen with your fine cooking ability. Which means we'd better hightail it over to our class—if you get my meaning.”