Of course, there were other possibilities. Maybe Clarisse once gave up a child for adoption, or Martin Chamberlain fathered a child, who grew up and decided to extort money from Clarisse, or . . . Following a curve in the road, Olivia swerved over the center line into the ongoing lane. She corrected at once, and no traffic was coming toward her, but it shook her. She realized that the more her thoughts raced, the harder her foot pressed the accelerator. She eased up, placed both hands on the wheel, and gave herself a lecture.
“Stick with the evidence, Livie, stick with the evidence.” There were times that called for talking to oneself, and this was one of them. “The evidence I have is a cryptic note, from someone named Faith, claiming the existence of a grandchild. Clarisse initiated an investigation, probably through a detective agency. Clarisse sounded hopeful in her letter to me, written shortly before her death. Yet even Bertha reported that she was distracted and upset on the last evening of her life.”
Olivia came to a straight stretch in the road, but instead of speeding up, she decelerated to well below the speed limit. Maddie could handle the store for a while. She needed more time to think. She was certain that Clarisse had been murdered, despite the lack of clear forensic evidence. She also felt sure that whoever killed Clarisse also, somehow, caused Sam’s diabetic coma. Maybe that bag of cookies had been laced with something that threw his insulin off. The Chamberlain brothers would know all about what drugs might do the trick.
Tammy stayed home from school on Monday, so she had no alibi for the period preceding Sam’s collapse. Olivia remembered that on Mondays, Clarisse made the rounds of her businesses, to keep tabs on operations. She’d mentioned more than once that the boys did the same. So Hugh or Edward also had opportunities to leave those cookies for Sam.
Olivia couldn’t shake the conviction that Clarisse had learned something about Jasmine’s fate. Something that disturbed her deeply. And she was killed to keep her quiet. Olivia stretched her hand toward the passenger’s seat and touched the small bag that held Clarisse’s cookie cutters. It was made of soft cloth to buffer the cutters against an ungentle world.
A glance in her rearview mirror revealed a car gaining on her fast. Her first instinct was to speed up, but she hesitated. The next patch of road had several curves, one of which had sent many a drunk driver into the ditch. The driver behind was clearly in a hurry. He’d try to pass her. If she sped up, he might do so, too. She decided to slow down, let him pass.
Olivia took her foot off the accelerator and slowed to twenty-five miles per hour. Then to fifteen. The car seemed to be flying closer, as if the driver hadn’t noticed her. Olivia wasn’t skilled at identifying a car’s make and model, but the one behind her looked like a beater. Probably a teenager, maybe talking on a cell phone—or worse, texting.
She edged to the side of the road. There was no shoulder, only a culvert. As she headed up a hill, the drop-off deepened. She was going so slowly, she had to accelerate to get up the hill. Maybe it was for the best. If the kid didn’t come to his senses in time, he’d rear-end her.
On her descent down the hill, Olivia picked up more speed. She was heading for the final hill, the bane of drunk drivers. Beyond that she would hit a straight stretch, a good place for passing. She increased her speed, hoping to put more distance between the two cars. She’d have to slow down a bit to take the treacherous double curve that began just over the crest, but she’d done it many times before.
The car continued to gain on her. Olivia nudged her accelerator as she began to ascend. For the first time, she could see the driver in her rearview mirror. The quickest of glances showed curly hair on a bobbing head. The driver’s shoulders seemed to be dancing. It was a kid all right, lost in an iPod world, swaying to the music. And she was a girl, not a boy.
Olivia had no time to ponder her misdirected sexism. She was about to crest the infamous hill. She tapped her brakes to slow down, so she could accelerate into the curve. Her speed didn’t change. She pumped the brakes. Nothing happened. Finally, she jammed down, and the pedal hit the floor without resistance. That’s when she knew. She had no brakes.
Olivia gripped the steering wheel with all her strength. She hovered her foot above the accelerator, letting the engine drag slow the Valiant. Only when she’d entered the curve did she press lightly on the accelerator, figuring she’d have more control. She focused so intensely on the road that her mind noted the cracks in the pavement, each telling dent in the low guardrail. She didn’t dare blink.
Despite a deep swerve into the oncoming lane, Olivia managed to navigate the first curve. However, she was now going downhill, picking up too much speed. She couldn’t afford to keep her foot on the accelerator. All she had left was her steering wheel. She was clutching it so hard her fingers began to cramp as she headed into the second curve.
At the sound of screeching tires, Olivia’s eyes flashed to her rearview mirror. She noted with relief that the car behind her had cleared the first curve and slowed enough to make a rear-end crash unlikely. A split second later, she saw the front end of her car rush toward a badly damaged section of guardrail. Her last thought was how unfair it was. She wasn’t even drunk.
Chapter Twenty-two
The voice sounded close. Was someone in the house? In her bedroom? Not a threatening voice, though . . . Concerned, maybe . . . And young, very young.
“Wake up, please wake up,” the voice said. “Please don’t be dead. I can’t handle that.”
Olivia recognized the words but couldn’t figure out how they went together. Where was she? She opened her eyes. Through a window she saw tree tops and trunks, with sky behind them.
“What happened?” Olivia’s voice sounded weak, but at least it worked.
“You’re alive! Oh, thank God! Does anything hurt? Well, of course, everything must hurt. No wait, don’t move, the paramedic said not to move you unless the car was on fire, which it isn’t.”
“Para . . . ?”
“I called 911. They said to stay with you, so I did. Don’t you remember anything at all?”
The voice, Olivia realized, belonged to a woman, but it wasn’t familiar. “Nothing.” She leaned her head back as exhaustion flooded through her. The feel of the headrest triggered a thought. “I’m in a car,” she said.
“Right, you were driving. I’m Julie, by the way. You don’t have to remember that, just relax.” Sirens whined in the distance. “Oh good, here they come. Sit still, okay? It won’t be long. I’ll be right here.”
Olivia began to drift, but the siren screamed until it filled her head. Then it stopped. She groaned, closed her eyes, and gave up trying to understand. A light touch on her shoulder brought her back.
“Livie, don’t try to move yet. The paramedics are arriving. They’ll take care of you.” It was a male voice, familiar, gentle. A nice voice.
“I’m fine, really,” Olivia insisted. She dragged herself to a sitting position in her hospital bed.” A few bruises, that’s all. Something knocked the breath out of me.”
“Crashing into a guardrail will do that,” Del said.
“Is my car salvageable?”
“It’s a mess, but not as bad as it could have been. Those old Valiants are solid . . . Jason towed your car back to the garage. He’ll look it over and see what he can figure out.”
“Figure out?”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
Olivia closed her eyes and tried to think back. She remembered leaving the Chamberlain house, driving toward Chatterley Heights. Something about a car behind her had caught her attention, worried her. Then it went blank. “Nothing specific.”