Exit Wounds - J. A. Jance [124]
As the road jogged slightly to the right, Joanna drove into a cloud of dust. When she came out the far side, a pair of glowing headlights slanted up into the air through the dust off to the right of the road.
“Hang on, Tica. I think she rolled it. The pickup is off the road.”
“Any sign of the driver?”
Joanna peered through the dust. It was clearing enough that she could make out the truck sitting upside down on a berm, its wheels still spinning furiously. Joanna manhandled the Civvie’s spotlight into position and aimed it at the wreckage. The front driver’s door had disappeared completely. The draped remains of a deflated air bag and a seat belt spilled out through the opening and dangled, still swaying, in midair. But there was no sign of life inside the battered cab. Stella had either been thrown free or clambered out once the truck came to rest.
Joanna swung the circle of light back and forth across the ground. She searched with such total concentration that it took her a moment to tune back in to Tica Romero’s voice.
“Sheriff Brady!” Tica demanded urgently. “Are you there? Please respond.”
“I’m here, Tica. I’m okay.”
“Any sign of the driver?”
“None. That’s what I’m looking for.”
Behind her a series of vehicles alive with lights and sirens came screeching over the crest of the hill and through the still-drifting haze of dust. Two uniformed City of Bisbee patrol officers trotted off and began putting lighted flares down the middle of the road. Seconds later Ernie Carpenter appeared at Joanna’s window.
“Are you all right?”
Joanna nodded. “I’m fine, but Stella’s gone. She got away.”
Ernie looked back at the debris field. “She can’t be far,” he said. “It’s a helluva wreck. The driver’s door is gone completely. She might have been thrown clear at the same time the door flew off. I’m guessing that when we find the door, we’ll find her, too.”
A second man appeared behind Ernie. Tall and bony, he was in his late twenties and wore an Arizona Diamondbacks baseball cap along with a loose-fitting T-shirt. In the eerie glow of headlights and flashers, his face was deadly pale.
“Did you find her, Detective Carpenter?” he asked.
“Not yet, Dennis,” Ernie said kindly. “We’re looking for her.”
As soon as Joanna knew who the man was, she let go of the handle on the spotlight and stepped out of the Crown Victoria.
“I’m Sheriff Brady, Mr. Adams,” she told him. “I was the first person on the scene. And, as Detective Carpenter told you, so far there’s no sign of your wife.”
Denny nodded mutely. Joanna could see that he was trembling as if from the cold and struggling to hold back tears.
“I can’t believe any of this…It’s all so…so…” His voice faded into a croak that was half sob, half hiccup. Suddenly he blinked and straightened his shoulders. When he spoke again, his voice was surprisingly steady.
“Do you want me to try to talk to her?”
Joanna thought about that and then shook her head. “You’d better go back to the house and be with Nathan.”
“When you find her, will you let me know?” Dennis asked.
“Yes,” Joanna said. “Of course we will.”
Adams nodded. “All right then,” he said. With that, he turned and walked away.
Another emergency vehicle showed up, this one an ambulance dispatched by the Bisbee Fire Department. Across the desert, Joanna heard a shout. “Hey,” someone yelled. “The door is over here.”
Without a word, Ernie Carpenter loped away in that direction. Joanna reached back into the Civvie and collected the mike. “Tica,” she ordered, “call out the K-9 unit. Everyone else thinks Stella Adams is lying around here dead someplace, but I’m thinking she did the same thing the Silver Creek driver did and walked away.”
Fortunately, Terry and Kristin Gregovich’s rented house was on Black Knob, the last street on the southernmost part of town. The K-9 officer and Spike were at the scene in less than ten minutes.
“What’s up, Sheriff Brady?” Terry asked, after leaping out of an idling Blazer he had parked directly