“They did,” she said. “Would you like me to e-mail them to you?”
“Please, Patricia,” he said. “And if you could include the exact location of the accident, I’d appreciate it.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a smile.
We all thanked Officer Seabright for her time and assistance, then headed out to talk about what to do next.
“We need to go to the scene,” Dutch said, stating the obvious.
Brice reached for his phone and took a look at the display. “Patricia sent me the location and the photos. You guys follow me and we’ll go over the photos once we get there.”
It took about twenty minutes to wind our way over to the west side of town, and again, neither Dutch nor I spoke during the ride. When we got to Lost Creek, Brice’s car—in front of us—slowed down and I could tell he was trying to find the exact location of the accident by comparing the road with the photos Officer Seabright had sent him. At last he seemed to find the spot and he put on his turn signal to cross the road and park on the shoulder. Dutch had to move up the road a bit to maneuver in ahead of him, but by the time we got out of our vehicles, I knew we were in exactly the right spot.
The section of road where the truck had gone off the street was absent of houses or pedestrian traffic, and there was very little vehicle traffic to speak of. The shoulder was narrow, and on the other side of it, the ground sloped downward dramatically, ending in a rocky gully just in front of a series of huge bluffs.
If Dave’s truck truly had been the vehicle that’d gone off the side of the road here, he probably would’ve hit either the bluff or some of the rock, and the jolt from the shoulder down into the gully would’ve been jarring to say the least.
“Skid marks,” Dutch said, pointing to a distinctive series of black tread marks that formed a large S, which began on the south side of the road, crossed the double yellow line, and ended at the very edge of the road.
Brice pulled up his phone and showed us the display. “The responding officer took a photo,” he said.
I shielded the screen to see the photo better in the daylight, and little had changed about the skid marks in the past twenty-four hours.
When I looked up from the screen, it was to see my husband stepping out onto the road, and looking right and left as he moved to where the skid marks began. He ended up moving down the road quite a ways, before he waved at us and shouted, “They start here.”
Brice frowned. “That’s got to be two hundred yards,” he said.
Dutch moved forward along the tread marks while I watched the road anxiously for oncoming cars. “Car!” I yelled as one approached.
My hubby got out of the way, then resumed his careful assessment of the skid marks. At one point he went back a few feet and knelt down, and it looked like he picked something up off the ground.
“Car!” I yelled at him again.
He shuffled out of the way, allowing the car to pass before trotting over to us. “What’d you find?” I asked.
“A piece of black plastic,” he said.
“What’s it go to?”
Dutch looked back toward the road. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a piece from a bumper.”
“Dave’s?” I asked.
Dutch shook his head. “Not sure. The other curious thing is that right at the spot where I picked it up, the skid marks pivot a little.”
“What do you mean they pivot?” Brice asked.
“There’s a wiggle in the middle of them, almost like the driver was trying to adjust for an overcorrection.”
“So he lost control of the car and skidded off the road,” I said.
Both Brice and Dutch nodded, turning their attention as one toward the north side of the road. Without a word the pair started to navigate the steep decline off the shoulder, and I followed them.
It wasn’t until I was making my way down the grassy embankment that I realized just how steep it was. If Dave had gone off road here, it would’ve been terrifying, and it was a wonder his truck didn’t flip in the process.
We reached the bottom of the embankment and Dutch and Brice began to survey the ground. “There,” I said, pointing to a patch of smashed and torn-up grass, which was obvious only once you were down the embankment and could see it up close.
“Did the responding officer take any photos from down here?” Dutch asked as he picked his way over the rocks to the patch of ruined grass.
Brice paused to flip through the images on his phone. “Doesn’t look like it,” he said. “He took the shots of the road and two from the shoulder pointed in this direction, but it doesn’t look like he came down here to have a look.”
“Lazy bastard,” Dutch groused.
But Brice merely shrugged. “The truck wasn’t here when he arrived on scene. It’s no wonder he wasn’t as thorough as he should’ve been.”
I stared back up the embankment and shook my head. “If Dave really did go off road here, how the hell did he make it back up there?”
“Easy,” Dutch said. “His truck has a hemi engine and four big wheels. He could’ve gotten himself out of here without a lot of effort.”
On that note I walked back over to the embankment and moved along it until I found a patch of grass that appeared to be flatter than the surrounding scrub, and which was also torn in places. “Here,” I said.
The men came over to have a look and Dutch nodded. “Yep,” he said. “This is where the driver went back up to the road.” He then turned to look back at the patch of grass that appeared to be where the driver had landed after heading off the embankment. “If he came to a stop there, then it doesn’t look like he hit anything.”
“Probably safe to assume that his air bag didn’t deploy,” Brice said.
“Yep,” Dutch agreed. “Maybe he got his cage a little rattled, but it doesn’t look like he would’ve been injured, and if he drove himself out of here, then he didn’t suffer anything too traumatic.”
And yet, my gut said different. Standing on that rough patch of torn-up ground, I could feel the violence of it in the ether, and sensing that made me very worried for Dave’s well-being. “So where is he?” I asked.
Brice and Dutch shook their heads. None of us had any clue.
“Maybe Gwen had it wrong,” Brice offered. “Maybe Dave did make it home last night and left again early this morning before she woke up.”
“But what about the meeting with you?” I countered. “No way would he miss that. And the poker game with his buddies? He didn’t show up for that either. I’ve never known Dave to miss a poker game.”
“Did he show up for his appointments?” Dutch asked, and Brice and I looked at him in surprise.
“No clue,” Brice said.
“Did anybody call you to complain that he didn’t show up?” I asked.
Brice shrugged. “I haven’t heard from anybody. You?” he asked Dutch.
“No,” Dutch said, scrolling through his phone, probably looking for e-mails or texts from disgruntled clients.
“So he made the rest of his appointments,” I said. “Probably.”
“Only one way to check,” Dutch said. “Abs, you worked on the list for yesterday, right?”
“I did, but I gave it to Candice and I think she’s still got it locked up in her filing cabinet at the office.”
Brice grunted and glanced at his watch. “She’s out on a twenty-miler, and I don’t think she’ll be home for another hour or two. And I have no idea which trail she took.”
“I do,” I said, my shoulders sagging. It looked like I was going running after all.
“You can find her?” Dutch said.
“Yep,” I told him, pointing to my feet. “Wouldn’t you know I’d grab the first set of shoes I reached for this morning and they just happened to be my running shoes?”
“Edgar, you’re
seriously going to run twenty miles to find Candice?” he pressed.
“No, honey,” I said, already moving back up the embankment. “I’m going to run five. Candice runs a five-mile loop on her long-run days so that she has access to water and her glucose supply. All I have to do is run the loop in the opposite direction to find her.”
“Or you could just wait by her car,” Brice pointed out.
“She parks in different lots all the time,” I said, knowing that from experience. “While we’re searching for her car, she could have come and gone on the loop. Plus, sometimes she skips the stop if she’s feeling good,” I told him. “She has to step off the trail to get to her car.”
“Man,” he said. “I feel bad for not volunteering to run with you, but I wouldn’t make it past mile two.”
“It must be nice to feel no shame that your wife is in such better shape than you,” I said with a smirk. Of course, Candice was in better shape than just about everyone—including me.
“She’s been after me to sign up for a ten K,” Brice admitted.
“You should do it,” I told him.
“No way, Cooper,” he said.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s a slippery slope. The second I sign up, she’ll be after me to run with her, and have you seen how fast my wife runs?”
“She is crazy fast,” I said.
“Yeah. If it’s all the same to you, I’ll continue to make work an excuse for not being able to train, and hold on to what’s left of my manhood.”
“Good plan,” I told him, and knew that that way of thinking was probably why Candice and Brice were still happily married.
• • •
About thirty minutes later I found Candice. She was indeed running her five-mile loop and it took only three miles for me to find her. “Abby?” she said when she spotted me. “Why are you out here without water?”
I came to a stop and pinched my side. I’d gotten a small cramp ten minutes in and it was killing me. “Dave’s . . . missing,” I said as I panted for breath.
She pulled her earbuds out of her ears and said, “What?”
“Dave. He’s missing.”
“What do you mean he’s missing?”
“I mean that yesterday morning he appears to have had a small accident, then later on he skipped his poker game, checking in with his wife, and a meeting he had with your husband this morning.”
Candice offered me her water bottle. “Drink,” she ordered. “Then tell me everything.”
We ran back to the car at a blistering pace. I’d taken a moment to text Dutch and Brice the location of Candice’s car and they met us there. “I have a copy of the spreadsheet in my office,” she told them, not even pausing to greet them formally. “Follow me there and we’ll see if we can get a better handle on when Dave might’ve gone missing.”
I rode with Candice back to the office, which was a serious mistake, because when she’s on a mission, she drives like she runs—crazy fast and somewhat recklessly.
Still, we managed to arrive in one piece and after parking, we didn’t wait for our husbands, but headed straight inside.
Candice took the stairs up to our floor, and I regretted my decision to ride with her yet again. That girl can move when she’s feeling inclined, and I lost sight of her on the second-floor landing.
I found her again in our office suite, hovering over her computer and looking very concerned. “Here,” she said when she’d printed off several copies of the previous day’s schedule.
I took it and noted that I’d lined Dave up with eight appointments. “He would’ve kept very busy with this many in one day, but I think we only need to worry about the appointments after the accident, so that’d be these five clients,” I said, pointing to the block of names, addresses, and phone numbers.
“Yes,” she agreed. “The houses in that group are all fairly close together, though, so his drive to them wouldn’t have been long. His fifth and six appointments are even right next door to each other.”
“It’s so crazy that all these people want panic rooms. I mean, there’d have to be a serious spree to think that thieves would hit up everyone in one neighborhood.”
“Intruders don’t have to hit up every home, Sundance. They just have to hit up your home. It’s that thought that makes all of these people lose sleep at night.”
“Ah,” I said. “Good point.”
“Hey,” we heard from the doorway, and we both turned to see Brice and Dutch coming into the room. “Is that the list?”
“It is,” Candice said.
“You sent him to eight clients?” Dutch asked, peering over my shoulder. “How was he supposed to make all eight?”
“Candice figured it out geographically and we allotted Dave a full half hour to get in, take pictures, assess the property, and get back on his way, which also gave him fifteen minutes to get to the next appointment.”
“He would’ve needed to hustle, but it was mathematically doable,” Candice said.
“Still,” Dutch said. “You know Dave. He likes to gab. If he stopped to chat, he would’ve thrown the whole schedule off.”
“Which is actually great,” Candice said. “If he stopped to talk to any of these clients, then they might have a good insight into what could’ve happened to him. Maybe the drive off the road shook up his brain and he was suffering a concussion and didn’t realize it. If he seemed at all off to these people, then we might be able to tell if he’s gone missing due to some medical issue.”
“Okay,” Dutch said, folding his sheet. “Abby, you take the first two, I’ll take the second two, Brice can have the last one, and, Candice, can I ask you to call the clients on tap for today and tell them that we’ll need to reschedule?”
“Already on it,” she said, waving the sheet with that day’s schedule. “He’d already be late for this first one, so I’ll have to schmooze a little.”
As I sat down in my office to make the first call, I groaned out loud. “Why?” I muttered. Taking a deep breath, I dialed and Mrs. Schultz connected after only one ring. “This is Barbara,” she said.
“Mrs. Schultz?”
“Yes?”
“Hello, ma’am, this is Abigail Cooper calling from Safe Chambers.”
“Who?” she said loudly.
“Abby Cooper,” I repeated. “We spoke a few days ago. I’m calling from Safe Chambers, the company that installed your safe room.”
“Oh, yes!” she said.
I relaxed a little. She’d remembered. “I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday morning, ma’am, but I’m following up with you about the door to your safe room and the gentleman who came out to fix it yester—”
“I’m so glad you called!” she interrupted. “That door won’t close and I need someone to come fix it.”
Tension set in my shoulders. Had Dave not shown up after his accident? “Someone should have been there yesterday, Mrs. Schultz. Did he not stop by?”
“A man came here yesterday,” she said. “He was a scruffy-looking thing,” she added.
I blew out a breath of relief. Dave had been there. “Oh, that’s great!” I said.
Mrs. Schultz continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “He played around with the door for a little while and said he’d need more tools to fix it. Is he coming back out?”
I bit my lower lip. I didn’t know. “Dave is unavailable at this time, but we could get someone else over there very soon. Can you give me a good day and time to have someone come by?”
“Well, I’m going away later today, so it’ll have to be when I get back.”
“When are you due to come back, Mrs. Schultz?”
“Next month. I’m going to Germany to visit my daughter. Her husband works at a big company over there. He’s a very important man. He’s even met the German chancellor!”
I
’d heard about Mrs. Schultz’s son-in-law on my first call (and about her grandson, and her daughter, and her daughter’s two dogs, and all about her glaucoma, which was getting worse, and about a weird rash on her back that her doctor—who didn’t know anything—had said was a bacterial infection, and he’d prescribed antibiotics for her, but she was already on antibiotics for a bad tooth, and since she didn’t like to take too many pills, she was skipping the one and doubling up on the other . . . and on and on). With all that she’d told me on that first call, I was surprised that she hadn’t mentioned that she was headed overseas to visit her family.
“How about we give you a call next month and arrange something?” I said, jotting a note to myself.
“That would be good,” she said. “I really must go now. I have to finish packing. Send someone out to fix my door next month, all right?”
Before I could even answer, she hung up.
After getting off the line with Mrs. Schultz, I tried the next client. “This is Roger,” said the client.
“Hi, Mr. Mulligan, it’s Abby Cooper from Safe Chambers calling. I’m just following up on your appointment with Dave McKenzie from yesterday—”
“I haven’t made up my mind about the installation yet, Abby,” Mulligan interrupted. “I told your guy that yesterday.”
I let go another relieved sigh. Dave had made his next two appointments after the accident just fine. “Yes, sir, I’m sorry, I haven’t had a chance to catch up with Dave yet, but I did want to call and check that he met with you and that everything went well.”
“I met with him,” he said. “He’s kind of a rough character.”
I smiled. “Only on the outside, sir. On the inside he’s actually a very kind and gentle man.”
“If you say so. Like I told your guy, though, I’m on the fence about all this. We already have a safe room upstairs, but my wife’s best friend has one on the ground floor, so now she thinks we should have one off the family room.” At that moment, in the background I heard a child scream and another one start yelling, and then what sounded like two big dogs began barking. Above the fray a woman shouted, “Roger! Get off the phone and come help me!”