Chapter 21
After Grant and his men left, Mom and I continued to sit at the kitchen table, talking about what had happened and wondering where we should go. Knowing that someone hated us enough to kill us felt like a cold knot in my stomach. I had never come up against that kind of deadly thinking.
We knew of no way to combat an unknown enemy who struck, then disappeared. The next attempt against our lives might be successful.
“There’s a killer roaming these hills who is quite inventive about thinking of ways to commit murder,” I said. “I’ve been wanting to visit Georgia since finding out about Dahlonega and the gold. I’m sure Georgia is beautiful this time of year. I vote for going there as soon as we can.”
My mother nodded. “I’ve wanted to go for a long time too. We could drive to Bet’s in Fayetteville tomorrow, stay overnight, then drive on from there.”
“Still not wanting to fly, Mom?” I teased, knowing what her answer would be.
“Not unless absolutely necessary,” she answered.
I should have confessed to Grant everything we knew about Ben and his will and Jasper. If he jailed us for obstruction, that might not be the worst thing in the world. At least, maybe we would be safe in jail. I also should tell him about our plans to leave and our destination, but my wounded pride was still smarting. After being the recipient of his sharp tongue, I had no desire to talk to him again, although common sense told me this would be the smart thing to do.
Gritting my teeth, I dialed the sheriff’s office. He was not in, his receptionist Doris Elroy said. I dialed his home. He was not there either. Feeling vindicated, I decided that I’d try again tomorrow.
Thunder rumbled in some dark clouds approaching from the west. Mom’s toe and those clouds probably meant we were in for a rain. Ordinarily, I welcomed a good spring storm, but not this time. Thunder was noisy and might mask the sounds of an intruder trying to get into the house. On the other hand, what normal person would purposely be out in an Oklahoma thunderstorm? The answer to that came on the heels of the question: we weren’t dealing with a normal person. Murder was not an action that a sane person would take. This thought did nothing to reassure me.
The rain began an hour later. It continued throughout that long day, while we ate supper and packed, and it accompanied my mother and me up the stairs to our bedrooms. Usually, rain on the roof was like a lullaby, but that didn’t hold true tonight. I strained my ears listening for a noise not related to the storm, and heard my mother tossing in her bed across the hall.
“Mom!” I called, “Do you want one of those sleeping pills from Dr. McCauley?”
“No, I don’t,” she answered. “If someone is going to murder me in my sleep, I want to know about it.”
The logic in that statement escaped me.
With rain pounding over my head, wind rattling loose windows, and old boards creaking and popping to accommodate pressure changes, I got very little sleep but, somehow, Mom and I survived the night with no visitor.
At six the next morning, rain still sluiced from the sky. I hoped that Jasper was safe and dry at his mother’s house.
The aroma of frying bacon wafted up the stairway as I pulled on my old blue housecoat. For a second, I didn’t recognize the disheveled woman with flyaway hair and bloodshot eyes that stared back at me from the mirror. If she were to see me now, the New York receptionist would certainly think I needed her beautician.
“It’d be nice if the rain let up at least for our drive to Fayetteville,” I grumbled as I stumbled into the kitchen.
To my surprise, my mother was as bright as a sunbeam. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, smiling. “I like a good rain and I’m looking forward to going to Georgia. Our ancestors came from northern Georgia, Darcy. Have I told you that?”
“Seems I’ve heard you mention it,” I mumbled around a mouth full of toast.
“Maybe we can do some family research while we’re there,” Mom said, pouring coffee. “Wouldn’t it be nice to discover some long-lost cousins?”
“M-m-m,” I answered.
“Hurry, now, Darcy. Shake a leg. I’ll take care of the dishes while you go get ready.”
I gulped down most of the bowl of oatmeal and headed for the stairs. At least one of us felt cheery this morning.
By the time I showered, tugged on blue jeans, a yellow t-shirt and matching long-sleeved top, I felt better. Lugging our suitcases downstairs, I found Mom waiting by the front door. She wore what she called her “city clothes”—a blue denim pantsuit with flowers embroidered on the lapel and hem of the jacket. Blinking, I looked twice. She was actually wearing makeup!
“I’ll pull the car out of the garage and get as close to the porch as I can,” I told my mother while fishing in my purse for keys to the Passport.
“I won’t melt,” Mom assured me.
She sang “Amazing Grace” as we drove east toward Fayetteville.
Laughing, I said, “If I had known a trip would do you this much good, I would have insisted we go a month earlier. As a matter of fact, I believe I did suggest it.”
“I know,” she said. “I don’t understand why I’m so happy, unless it’s because this nightmare may soon be over. We just need to get out of the way now so Grant won’t have to worry about us, and let him find and arrest the perps.”
Grinning, I said, “The ‘perps,’ Mom?”
“Didn’t I say that right?” she asked. “I think it’s short for perpetrators. Isn’t that what they say on TV?”
A conversation with my mother is never dull.
As we crossed the Ventris River Bridge, rain came down harder. Switching my wiper speed to “fast,” I made sure the headlights were on. Driving in rain was never fun and the oily surface of the highway could become slick when wet. I didn’t want to hydroplane. However, to me, a dangerous road was much more preferable to the man-made threat that surrounded us in Levi.
We both lapsed into thoughtfulness. The regular slap-slap of the wipers had a lulling effect and the rain seemed to be a curtain, shutting us off from the rest of the world. The shower, however, was increasing to a downpour and I slowed even more.
Mom must have been concerned about road conditions too. “You know Deertrack Hill is coming up,” she cautioned. “That hill is treacherous enough in good weather.”
“My thoughts exactly,” I answered.
“The highway department installed a heavy-duty guardrail a while back, but I don’t want us to be the ones to test it. This is not the time to mention it, but you do remember that a few people have rolled off that hill, don’t you?”
Evidently, her euphoria of the early morning was evaporating. Driving in rain did nothing to help my nerves either.
“Yes, Mom,” I said. “In fact, according to newspaper files, five cars have rolled off that hill. Two people survived. Three did not.”
She sighed. “Well, just drive carefully.”
“The only way to be truly safe is to pull off the road and wait for this rain to let up,” I said, “but I keep feeling that we need to hurry. Do you sense that too?”
My mother was twisting her hands together nervously. “As a matter of fact, I do,” she said. “I wasn’t going to say anything about it.”
Once again, the only sounds were the rain and the wipers and the hum of tires on the pavement. Not even one motorist had passed or met us since leaving the city limits.
Lightning cut a jagged path across the sky in front of us. I strained to see through the torrent pelting the Passport. Even with the wipers turned to high, the rain obscured my vision.
When I noticed fuzzy headlights in my rearview mirror, I felt a sense of relief.
“I guess we aren’t the only goofy people out for a drive today,” I said.
Mom craned her neck to look behind us. “Misery loves company,” she said. “That car must have pulled in from one of the side roads because I didn’t notice anyone following us out of Levi. Maybe they are going to Fayetteville too.”
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nbsp; “The driver must be surer of the road than I am,” I said, noting the speed the car was traveling. “Seems to me he’s driving too fast. He’s coming up behind us pretty quickly.”
A mile before reaching Deertrack Hill, those headlights moved up even closer. In the mirror, the car reminded me of a dark monster with glowing eyes. Lightning flashed and I got a better look. I gasped and Mom turned to look at me.
“What is it, Darcy?”
My throat felt dry. “That car following us, Mom; I can’t see it well, but it is a big car like the Buick Ray Drake drove.”
My mother shook her head. “Surely it isn’t, Darcy. Maybe it just happens to resemble Drake’s car. There are lots of Buicks on the road.”
I decided to check him out. “I’m going to slow down and give him a chance to go around me.”
When I let up on the accelerator, the other driver did the same. A cold finger of fear traced its way down my spine.
I increased my speed. Our follower increased his speed. Trying to keep my voice steady, I said. “My cell phone, Mom. Get it out of my purse and punch in 911.”
Mom fumbled through my purse and flicked open the phone. She groaned. “Darcy, the battery is dead.”
Gritting my teeth, I realized I had forgotten to plug it into the charger last night.
“It’s all right,” I assured her. “I’ll look for a driveway and pull in.”
My mother shook her head. “I don’t think we’ll find a driveway until we get down the hill.”
With the next flash of lightning, I knew the car following us was not Drake’s. The silhouette was different. It was more square-topped with darkened windows. It appeared black in the eerie light. Something else seemed odd about the car. The windows looked recessed. But why would a car have recessed windows unless it was an armored vehicle? It looked like pictures of limousines used to protect dignitaries and government officials. Were we being followed by an armor-plated, bulletproof sedan? If so, for goodness sake, why?
If the other car was not carrying an important personage, why was it so equipped? Who else would need such a vehicle? With a quiet certainty, a word popped into my mind: mobsters. The sophisticated explosive device yesterday, the three murders committed while leaving no clues to the murderer, this bulletproof car behind us, all pointed to one suspect—a member of the underworld. The only organized crime figure who had visited Levi lately, to my knowledge, was Ray Drake, alias Cub Mathers.
But why drive a car so heavily protected if the driver’s enemies were two widows? My mother and I were not known to be dangerous, but that car would have been worthy of the likes of Al Capone. Whoever our pursuer was, he must be paranoid.
The headlights following us which at first had seemed friendly now seemed ominous and threatening.
Mom twisted around to look behind us again. “Oh, no, Darcy! It is coming too fast. It’s going to hit us!”
The big car nudged my back bumper. Mom cried, “Oh, my Lord, help us!”
The Passport fishtailed across the highway and I wrestled with the steering wheel until I finally got back into the right lane. My face felt stiff and I tasted blood where I had bitten my lip. Gritting my teeth, I muttered, “I can’t let him pass.” Newspaper articles of people being forced off the road raced through my mind.
The pursuer’s headlights grew larger in my rearview mirror. The car was coming at us again.
“Hang on!” I hissed and hit the accelerator. The Passport responded and we surged forward. A road sign cautioning that the speed limit was twenty-five miles per hour passed in a blur.
Behind us, our tormentor came so quickly that we seemed not to be moving at all. The car was going around me, despite my best efforts. But then, I saw that the driver had no intention of passing. He pulled into the lane beside me. Now even with us, nose to nose, the sedan was pacing me.
The heavy car edged ever closer to the center line. Its passenger door was perilously close to my driver’s side door.
Scooting farther toward the ditch, I glanced at my mother. She was praying as she clutched the dashboard.
A bolt of lightning slivered the sky, hovering long enough to make trees beside the highway stand out for a split second like some eerie black and white photograph. In that instant, I saw inside the metal hulk beside us. The car contained not one man, but two.
Struggling to stay on the pavement, we careened around the first curve down Deertrack Hill. Tires screamed. The guardrail was only a few inches away and below that was the Ventris River.
The other driver closed the gap between his passenger door and my door. The first bump was a dull thud as he struck and we skidded. Then, he whammed us again. Sparks flew as metal struck metal and my Passport slid. We hit the guardrail with a rending sound.
My forehead connected with the rearview mirror and Mom gripped her door handle as if it were a lifeline.
Terror settled into a cold, hard knot of fury in the pit of my stomach. I would not continue in this crazy race that we could not win, but I would not be at the mercy of this evil being who was playing with us as if he were a cat and we were the cornered mice. We had one chance, a slim one. Praying that we would join the ranks of those who survived a tumble down Deertrack Hill, I determined that we would indeed go over; not sideways, but nose first.
“Hang on!” I yelled. Stomping the accelerator, I wrenched the steering wheel to the right. The Passport lurched up and over the guardrail. The last thing I heard was the sound of that reinforced rail snapping like a popsicle stick.