Page 83 of Open Season

“Then it has to be serious.” His voice sounded hoarse, and he made a show of clearing his throat. “Got a tickle in my throat.”

Nadine fished a cough drop out of her desk and gave it to him. “I’d say it’s serious, him going to church with her.”

Temple nodded and escaped back into his office, trying to grasp all the ramifications of what he’d just learned. Damn it! When Russo had run that tag number for him, he’d pretended not to know whose it was. Why would he do that? What had made him hide the fact that he knew Daisy? There was no reason to unless . . . unless he knew damn well Daisy hadn’t been parked in a fire lane at Dr. Bennett’s office, and the only way he could know that was if he’d been with her during the time in question.

The “intimate articles” bought at Clud’s Pharmacy had to be condoms, which meant they were sleeping together. Russo obviously wouldn’t have spent the night with Daisy at her mother’s house, but he had his own house to which he could take her. Temple had never thought Daisy Minor would spend the night with a man, but then he’d never thought she’d bleach her hair and go to the Buffalo Club, either. Daisy had evidently run wild.

So Russo knew he’d been lying about seeing the car. Russo wasn’t a fool; he’d figure out real quick that someone else had asked Temple to find out who the car belonged to. That wasn’t so bad, except for the lie. That was suspicious; Russo would wonder what was going on, and Temple didn’t want a man like Russo wondering about anything he did.

Right now he had to do damage control. He had to find Sykes and call him off, he had to do something about Jennifer, and he had to make certain the shipment of Russians was handled smoothly, because the least hint of trouble at this point would be more than Mr. Phillips would tolerate.

***

Jennifer drove aimlessly, afraid to go home because surely Temple would have heard by now what she’d done. You couldn’t keep things like that quiet in a small town. She couldn’t stop crying, though she didn’t know why she was crying at all, unless she was having a nervous breakdown and just didn’t realize it. She couldn’t do that, she thought; that would give Temple the chance to put her in a mental ward somewhere.

She had removed the little tape from the answering machine and dropped it in her purse. She would get someone to listen to it; she just didn’t know who. Part of her wanted to just drive to the police department, walk in making as much noise and fuss as she could, and get someone to play the tape right there in front of everyone. That way it couldn’t be disregarded, and no one would think she was drunk and imagining things. That would be the smart thing to do, but she couldn’t seem to get her act together enough to do it.

She felt as if she were shaking apart on the inside; she needed a drink, needed one worse than she had ever needed one before in her life, and for the first time in her life, she was afraid to take one. Once she did, she wouldn’t stop, and then she would be helpless. Her life depended on staying sober. She couldn’t seem to think straight now, but she wouldn’t be able to think at all if she drank.

Finally, almost automatically, she found herself on the road to Huntsville. It was the road she took to go shopping, to have her hair done. Whenever she left the house, it was to go to Huntsville. The road was nice and familiar. Twice she stopped and threw up, though she hadn’t eaten anything and it was mostly dry heaves. Withdrawal symptoms, she thought; her body was rebelling against not having its accustomed alcohol. She had been dried out before, but always in a clinic, where she’d been given drugs to ease the way.

Maybe that’s what she should do. Maybe she should check herself into a clinic, if she could manage to get herself all the way to Huntsville. She had done what she could, tried to warn Daisy, if she checked into a clinic, when she got out in a month, everything would be all over and she wouldn’t have to deal with it.

Except she would have to deal with her conscience if anything happened to Daisy and she hadn’t done everything she could to stop it.

She drove with both hands locked on the steering wheel, but still she couldn’t seem to keep the car in the right lane. The dotted line seemed to wiggle back and forth, and she kept swerving, trying to stay on the right side of it. A big white car blew past, horn blaring, and she said, “I’m sorry; I’m sorry.” She was doing the best she could. That had never been good enough, though, not for Temple, not for Jason or Paige, not even for herself.

A horn kept blowing. She checked to make certain she wasn’t accidentally leaning on her own horn, but her hands were nowhere near it. The white car had gone past, she hadn’t hit it, so where was that horn coming from? Her vision swam and she wanted to lie down, but if she did, she might not be able to get up.

Where was that damn horn?

Then she saw a flash of blue, the strobe effect making her even dizzier, and the big white car was on her left, coming closer and closer, crowding her off the road. Desperately she stomped the brakes to keep from colliding with the white car, and the steering wheel jerked in her hands, tearing free of her grip. She screamed as her car began a sickening spin and her seat belt tightened with an almost brutal jerk, holding her as she left the road; the front axle plowed into a shallow ditch, and something hit her in the face, hard.

Haze filled the car, and in panic she began fighting to get free of the seat belt. The car was on fire, and she was going to die.

Then the car door was wrenched open and a big, olive-skinned man leaned in. “It’s okay,” he said in a calm tone. “That isn’t smoke; it’s just the dust from the air bag.”

Jennifer stared at him, weeping, torn between despair and relief that it was all over. Now she wouldn’t have to decide anything. If Chief Russo was working in cahoots with Temple, there was nothing she could do about it.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked, squatting in the open door and examining her for any obvious injuries. “Other than your bloody nose.”

Her nose was bleeding? She looked down and saw red drops splattering all over her clothing. “What caused that?” she asked, bewildered, as if there was nothing more important than finding out why she had a bloody nose.

“Air bags pack a strong wallop.” He had a yellow first-aid kit in his hand and he opened it, took out a thick pad of gauze. “Here, hold it to your nose. It’ll stop in a minute.”

Obediently she held the pad to her nose, pinching her nostrils.

“You called the library this morning and reported a threat you overheard your husband making,” Chief Russo continued, his voice still as calm as if they were discussing the weather. “I’d like you to make a statement about what you heard, if you feel like it.”

Jennifer tiredly let her head fall back against the headrest. “Are you working with him?” she asked, all nasally. What did it matter? There was nothing she could do even if he said yes.

“No, ma’am, I’m not,” he replied. “Maybe you haven’t heard, but Daisy Minor is a special friend of mine. I take threats against her very seriously.”

He could be lying. She knew that, but she didn’t think so. She’d suffered too much pain at a man’s hands not to notice the complete absence of threat from Chief Russo. Her purse had spilled all its contents on the floorboard when she hit the ditch; she unfastened her seat belt and slowly leaned forward, scrabbling through the mess until she found the tiny cassette tape. “I didn’t just hear it,” she said. “I taped it.”

---