She’d pulled the sedan over as far as she could against the bank of snow and there was room to get by if the driver was not too drunk, and she stood between the pines watching the single light snake its way through the woods until it came around the bend and shone briefly in her eyes like her father’s spot and she closed her eyes until the light passed on. When she opened them again she saw the SUV, the sheriff’s cruiser, pulling up behind the sedan. It was not local. It was the same Iowa sheriff’s cruiser she’d seen in her driveway when he came to show her the pictures, and seeing it again here in the park she knew one thing absolutely: he’d followed her. Had waited for her somewhere near the house and followed her here.
But why would he do that?
And how had she not seen it—a one-eyed car tailing her across town?
He parked the cruiser behind the sedan but did not get out and she could see his profile in the lights of his dash. She held her breath so he would not see the clouds. Her heart was pounding.
He sat looking at the sedan in his headlight. Then the headlight blanked out and the engine went silent and the last of the exhaust slipped away and he turned and looked right at her where she stood in the pines.
He stepped out of the cruiser and put his hat on and shut the door behind him and stood looking at her.
She let out her breath.
He put his hands in his jacket pockets and walked across the road, the packed snow grinding under his bootsoles like glass. He reached the banked-up snow and stopped.
“Now what in the heck are you doing out here?” he said.
“I could ask you the same thing,” she said.
He cocked his head. “I’m here because you’re here and this park is closed after dark, which I know you know full well.”
“And you’re out of your jurisdiction, Deputy.”
“Sheriff, young lady. And don’t get smart with me.”
She looked to her left and to her right, as if some other car might be coming along. She looked toward the far road that ran alongside the park, but there were only trees and darkness, the weird blue light of the moon, and she wondered how you could see flashlights this deep in the park from the road yet not see the lights of the road from here. Like you had traveled deeper than you thought. Or that the physics of time and distance changed once you entered the woods, as it did in fables and certain ghost stories.
She thought of her father’s phone. Saw it sitting on the passenger seat of the sedan, charging. Stupid.
She looked at Moran again. From where he stood on the road it was four, maybe five big steps through the snow to where she stood. Even if she could get by him and get to the car—even if you got in it what would be the point? Who would you call? A cop is chasing me…
Her nose was running and she drew her good hand under it and returned her hand to the jacket pocket. The keys were there. She arranged them between her knuckles, sharp ends out. She wondered for the first time what had become of Caroline’s pepper spray—if the little canister had been carried away or if it had ended up in the hands of her parents down in Georgia.
Behind her was the riverbank and the short drop down to the ice.
“What do you want?” she said.
“What do you mean what do I want?”
“What do you want to let me go?”
He stared at her. He removed one hand from its pocket to tip his hatbrim up on his forehead and returned the hand to the pocket.
“Do I look like I’m keeping you from going anywhere? What in the heck has gotten into everybody around here lately? Did you know your old buddy shot out my headlight earlier tonight? Shot it out with a deer rifle.” He turned to look at the front of the cruiser.
“What old buddy,” she said, although she knew.
He turned back to her. “Who do you think? Your old buddy Gordon Burke.”
“What did you do to him?” Her jaw was trying to chatter but she would not let it.
“What did I do to him? Honey, he was the one holding the rifle. What do you think I did? I talked him down and sent him home. Told him to get some sleep and just give all this nonsense a rest.” He watched her. “I’m thinking you need to do the same. I’m thinking you are somewhat out of your depth here.”
“I talked to Katie Goss,” she said. “I know what you made her do.”
“Now, see there—that’s exactly what I’m talking about.” He shook his head. “I didn’t put it together right away, when I had that deer rifle pointed at my head. But afterwards I thought to myself, now who would go talking to Katie Goss all these years later, and who would tell Gordon Burke about it? And then I remembered a phone call I got from a man, day or two ago, telling me about a certain someone coming into his place of business, asking questions about Danny Young.” He raised his hand again to tap a finger on his temple. Returned the hand to its pocket.
“And so I decided to drive on up here and just have this out, just straighten this all out before someone gets hurt for real. But then I see you driving off and I think, Now where’s she going? And turns out you were going here.” He looked around at the pines, the snow, the ice beyond her. “What did you think you’d find, hey? Something your daddy and us never saw?”
He watched her. She said nothing. Did nothing.
“What ever happened to you, anyway?” he said. “You used to be this quiet, shy girl.” He gave her a kind of smile. “I think you even liked me, once upon a time.”
“I think you’re mistaken.”
“No, I’m pretty sure you had yourself a little crush, back in the day.”
She shuddered. It was all so familiar. She’d been here before, at just this moment. There was a foulness and a bitterness in the air. The stink of a greasy hand.
“You’re pathetic,” she said, and he stopped smiling.
“I’m pathetic. Is that what you said? Are you forgetting who you’re talking to?”
“I know exactly who I’m talking to. I know all about you.”
He looked down and shook his head. Then he looked up again. Staring at her with those bug eyes. “I think you’d best come on outta that snow now, before you get yourself into some real trouble. Come on now.”
“I won’t do it,” she said. “I won’t do what Katie did. You’ll have to kill me.”
“Kill you?” He stared at her. “I knew you when you were in pigtails. I watched you grow up. Your dad was my boss. And now you stand there talking to me like that?”
“My dad knew what you were. He knew. He just didn’t have the proof.”
Moran grinned crookedly and huffed a smoky laugh and looked back toward the road. No lights. No one coming or going. Nothing but the trees and the moon.
And then he stepped up over the bank of snow and he was coming for her. “We’re done talking. Let’s go.”
She backstepped, keeping the distance between them, the river at her back—the bank how many steps away? She would not turn to look. Would not take her eyes off him.
He stopped and stared at her. “Where do you think you’re going?” He reached behind him and there was a flash of moonlight on chrome and a rattle like dog tags. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way, honey.” He swung the cuffs as if to dazzle her with them, their shininess, as you would a child. If he got them on her that was it, it was all over.
“Is that what you told Holly Burke?” she said, and the cuffs stopped swinging. Moran watching her, dark-eyed under the hatbrim. The breaths pulsing from his nostrils.
“You have no idea how crazy you sound,” he said, and stepped forward again, and again she backstepped. The bank was there… so close. He took another step and she backstepped, and her boot fell through space and she followed it down—stumbling backwards, arms rowing in the air and both legs going out from under her. She landed on her back and went sliding down the short ramp of the riverbank and she knew what was next and raised her head so that she struck the ice with her shoulders, then watched as her legs, following some instinct of their own, carried on overhead, her boots swinging through the stars and landing toe-first in two heavy chops behind her, ice chips flying, so that when she looked up again she was on her hands and knees on the ice and facing the bank she’d come down backwards.