The Next Accident - Lisa Gardner [47]
Her last view, as she opened the door of her rent-a-wreck, was Mary Olsen standing in the grand entrance of her enormous mansion, screaming, “You have no idea what you’re talking about, lady. You have no fucking idea!”
Two miles from the Olsen residence, Rainie pulled over her car and killed the ignition. Despite her earlier composure, her hands had started trembling. The adrenaline was ebbing from her bloodstream, leaving her light-headed in its wake.
“Well,” she murmured, all alone in her tiny car, “that wasn’t what I expected.”
She thought of Mary Olsen’s furious features and final taunting remark. She thought of Quincy, and the host of phone calls he’d received last night. She heard an all-too-familiar ringing in her ears.
Rainie leaned forward and rested her forehead against the steering wheel. She was suddenly very tired. Last time she’d heard ringing in her ears, small children had died. And things had gotten even worse from there.
She took a moment. Then two and three. Okay, she had a plan. She pulled back onto the windy country road and since she hadn’t had the funds to buy a cell phone yet, she drove until she found a gas station with a pay phone. From there, she called her new partner in crime, Virginia PI Phil de Beers. She was lucky that he was in. She was even luckier that he was currently in between cases, and if she was willing to pay his rate to tail Mary Olsen, he was more than willing to do the work. That took care of merry Mary for a bit.
Hoping her luck would hold out, Rainie tried Officer Amity next. The officer on duty informed her that Big Boy was on patrol. Rainie asked to be switched to dispatch, whom she sweet-talked into transferring her to Amity’s car. Dispatch did her the honor of introducing her, and Officer Amity picked up the radio receiver already sounding unhappy.
“What d’you want?”
“Officer Amity! How’s my favorite state trooper?”
“What d’you want?”
“Oh, just thought I’d see if you’d had any luck locating that vehicle we spoke of.”
“You mean in the twelve hours since we talked?”
“That would be what I’m going for.”
“I have a job, ma’am.”
“So the answer is no? Officer, you’re breaking my heart.”
“I sincerely doubt that,” Amity said dryly.
“What are the chances of getting that information sometime today?”
“I don’t know. Ask the broader civilian and criminal community. If enough drivers promise not to rear-end each other and enough reprobates cease breaking and entering, I may have a shot.”
“So if I douse the entire state in Valium . . .”
“I like the way you think.”
Rainie sighed heavily. Apparently that was the right tactic; Officer Amity sighed heavily as well.
“Thursdays are my day off,” he told her. “If it doesn’t happen today, I’ll make sure I get to it tomorrow.”
“Officer Amity, you’re super!”
“Wonderful,” he grumbled. “I finally impress a woman and she lives three thousand miles away. Talk to you later, ma’am.”
He clicked off before Rainie had a chance to reply, which also saved her from dealing with that last statement.
She returned to her car. She got out the police reports of Mandy’s crash. Then she got out her newly purchased Virginia state map.
Forty minutes later, she found the bend in the road where the accident had happened. Quincy had been right. This wasn’t on any direct route from Mary Olsen’s mansion and it wasn’t on any direct route from Mandy’s apartment. In fact, this place wasn’t any direct route to anywhere. It was a narrow country road leading from nowhere and going to nowhere with lots of twists and turns in between.
The bend in question was deep and arching, forming a sixty-degree curve complete with dense brush, thick trees, and a single telephone pole. Off to one side there was a small unpainted cross. Recently decorated with plastic flowers, probably by Oliver Jenkins’s widow.
Rainie parked her car. She got out and for a long time, she simply stood there, feeling the wind on her face. The road was quiet, no other cars in sight. The trees rustled