The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [14]
Tristan Shandling’s arms went around her. In the middle of bustling South Street, he patted her shoulders awkwardly, then with more assurance. He let her cry against his chest and he said, “Shhhh, it’s all right. I’m here now, Bethie, and I’ll take care of you. I promise.”
4
Pearl District, Portland
Rainie crawled out of bed at five A.M. Tuesday morning. To satisfy her masochistic streak for the day, she proceeded to run six miles in 90 percent humidity. Interestingly enough, she didn’t die.
Upon returning home forty minutes later, she went straight into an ice cold shower where she wondered idly what Virginia would be like.
She’d never left the state of Oregon. Every now and then, she’d thought of taking a trip to Seattle, but it never quite happened, so now at the age of thirty-two she was a complete neophyte to the broader United States. She wasn’t the only Oregonian like that either. Oregon was a big state. It offered beaches, mountains, deserts, lakes, upscale cities, and small frontier towns. You could gamble, windsurf, rock climb, ski, hike, sunbathe, shop, golf, sail, fish, race, white-water raft, and horseback ride, sometimes almost all at the same resort. So sure you could visit other states, but what would be the point?
She toweled off, chose loose-fitting cotton clothes for the plane, then officially kicked off her new assignment by coughing up two thousand dollars for a last-minute flight across the country. The car rental agency had even more fun with her credit card. Thank God for AmEx.
Her next issue was how to conduct business out of state. As a private investigator, she didn’t technically have jurisdictional boundaries. Most state agencies, however, required a local PI license number on all requests for information. Thus, if she wanted to pull DMV records, conduct a title search, anything in Virginia, she’d be out of luck. On the other hand, this was hardly a new problem in the business, and PIs had worked out a way around it.
Rainie pulled out her Private Investigator Digest, located a PI in Virginia and gave the guy a call. Fifteen minutes later, after providing her Oregon license number for credibility and explaining her mission, Rainie had a pseudo-partner. She’d pass along her information requests to Virginian PI Phil de Beers, who’d pull the records in return for a nominal fee. The sixteen hundred dollars it had cost her to be licensed had now paid off.
Rainie packed three days’ worth of clothes and, given her last case with Quincy, threw in her Glock. She headed out the door.
Three hours later, airborne and finally relaxed enough to let go of the armrests, Rainie read the official report of Amanda Jane Quincy’s death.
The first officer at the scene was a Virginia state trooper, responding to a call made from the cell phone of a passing trucker. The call was logged at 5:52 A.M., and the caller, who was very shaken, reported seeing a body along the side of the road. When he’d stopped, he found an older man whom he thought was dead, a small dog that was definitely dead, and deeper in the underbrush, a Ford Explorer crumpled against a telephone pole. Steam still poured out of the smashed hood. The caller said he’d tried to verbally rouse the driver without success. He didn’t attempt to touch or move her, however, as he thought that was a bad thing to do in a car accident—might cause further injury.
The trucker was still at the scene when the state trooper arrived. He led the officer straight to the pedestrian, whom the state trooper agreed was DOA. They moved on to the Explorer, where the state trooper was able to force open the driver-side door and check the female motorist for a pulse. He found signs of life, which he passed