No Time for Goodbye - Linwood Barclay [141]
But that wasn’t the case at all. Clayton was trying to see how fast he could go from zero to sixty in the thirty feet he had between himself and the quarry’s edge.
The car threw Jeremy up onto the hood, and that’s where he was when the Impala, with Clayton at the wheel and Enid screaming in the seat next to him, shot out over the edge.
It was about two seconds before we heard the splash.
49
I had to move Clayton’s windshield-shattered Honda out of the way to make room to get out of there in Cynthia’s Toyota. She got in the back so she could sit with her arms around Grace for the long drive back south to Milford.
I knew we should probably have called the police, waited there at the top of the quarry for them to arrive, but we thought the most important thing was to get Grace home, where she would feel the most safe, as quickly as possible. Clayton and Enid and Jeremy weren’t going anywhere. They’d still be at the bottom of that lake when we gave Rona Wedmore a call.
Cynthia wanted me to get to a hospital, and there was no doubt in my mind that I needed one. Both my sides were in intense pain, but it was mitigated by an overwhelming sense of relief. Once I had Cynthia and Grace home, I’d head over to Milford Hospital.
We didn’t talk a lot on the drive back. I think Cynthia and I were on the same page—that we didn’t want to go over what had happened, not just today but twenty-five years ago—in front of Grace. Grace had been through enough. She just needed to get home.
But I did manage to get the rough details of what had happened. Cynthia and Grace had driven to Winsted, met Jeremy at the McDonald’s lot. He had a surprise, he told them. He had brought along his mother. The inference being, of course, that he had brought along Patricia Bigge.
Cynthia, dumbstruck, was taken over to the Impala, and once she and Grace were in the car, Enid held her gun on Grace. Told Cynthia to drive the car to the quarry or she’d kill Grace. Jeremy followed in Cynthia’s car.
Once on the precipice, Cynthia and Grace were tied into the front seats in preparation for their trip over the side.
Then Clayton and I arrived.
Almost as briefly, I told Cynthia what I’d learned. About my trip to Youngstown. Finding her father in the hospital. The story of what happened the night her family disappeared.
Vince Fleming getting shot.
I would call, the moment I got home, to see how he was doing. I didn’t want to have to go into school and face Jane Scavullo, tell her that the only man in years who’d been decent to her was dead.
As far as the police were concerned, I hoped to Christ Wedmore believed everything I was going to tell her. I don’t know that I would have, if it hadn’t actually happened to me.
Something still wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t shake the memory of Jeremy standing over me, gun in hand, unable to pull the trigger. He certainly hadn’t shown that kind of hesitation where Tess Berman was concerned. Or Denton Abagnall.
They’d both been murdered in, well, “cold blood” I guess the phrase is.
What was it that Jeremy had said to his mother? While he stood over me? “I’ve never killed anyone before.”
Yeah, that was it.
When we passed through Winsted again, we asked Grace whether she wanted something to eat, but she shook her head no. She wanted to go home. Cynthia and I exchanged worried glances. We would take Grace to see a doctor. She’d been through a traumatic incident. She might be suffering from mild shock. But before long, she was asleep, and gave no indication that she was having nightmares.
A couple of hours later, we were home. As we made the turn into our street, I saw Rona Wedmore’s car in front of our house, parked at the curb, with her behind the wheel. When she spotted our car, she got out, eyeing us sternly with arms folded as we turned in to the driveway.