Page 79 of Rebels and Roses

Fiona pressed the button on the car remote, the lights flashing and then a chirp on the sedan.

“I’ll bring you back here when we’re done. It doesn’t make sense to take two cars and burn twice the gas. You’ll ride with us.”

Jane wanted to argue that the same amount of gas would be used either way, but for some reason, her thinking was getting fuzzy, and she was having a hard time expressing her thoughts. A wave of fatigue had come over her unexpectedly and she, frankly, just wanted to sit down for a few minutes until it passed.

Maybe I had too much caffeine today. I should probably lay off a bit.

“Just ride with us,” Erica pressed. “It will be fine. We can chat on the way.”

The last thing Jane wanted to do was chat, but she didn’t seem to have the energy to argue either. The drive was only a fewminutes anyway. It wouldn’t be a big deal to come back and get Cooper’s vehicle.

Erica sat in the passenger seat, and Jane sat in the back. Fiona fired up the vehicle and turned left out of the parking lot.

“Do you mind if I turn on the radio?” Fiona asked.

“Sure, go ahead,” Erica replied, shaking her head a few times. “Damn, I’m so tired these days. I’m exhausted. I could lay down and take a nap.”

“Close your eyes,” Fiona urged. “It won’t hurt to take a quick catnap on the way.”

For some reason, Jane was feeling the same way. Her lids felt like they weighed about a hundred pounds apiece, and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Her limbs were growing heavier with each passing moment, and the scenery out of the window zipped by so quickly that she couldn’t quite make heads or tails of it.

They should have been passing houses, but there were only trees. That wasn’t right.

“I think,” Jane began, her tongue thick and unwieldy. Her voice didn’t sound right, the words echoing inside of her head. Was she really speaking or just imagining it? She couldn’t tell. “We’re going the wrong way. We need to turn around.”

She tried to focus her eyes on Erica, but the young woman had clearly fallen asleep, her mouth slightly parted as she softly snored. Jane couldn’t express what she was thinking or feeling, but something was wrong. Very, very wrong. She tried to catch Fiona’s gaze in the rearview mirror, but she wasn’t able to focus that long.

“This isn’t right,” Jane said, her voice still echoing in her brain and her tongue thick. “I think we’re going the wrong way.”

She tried to sit up and lean forward so she was closer to Fiona’s ear, but somehow, she’d slumped down into the seat - her body was almost dead weight. She found herself staring ather hands as they went in and out of focus. She couldn’t move them. They simply sat there as if not connected to arms. Were they even hers? She couldn’t be sure of that either.

The car began to spin, and her head fell back as she closed her eyes to try and keep control, but it was a fruitless effort. This was a battle she wasn’t going to win. Her brain was screaming that she needed to move, that something wasn’t right. It was all wrong. Her body, on the other hand, was seductively urging her to give in - close her eyes and let sleep take over.

She tried to get her fingers and arms to work together to get her phone out of her purse to call Cooper, but they wouldn’t cooperate. She grunted with the monumental effort, but nothing happened. She might as well have wanted to lift a building with one hand. She didn’t have the strength to even curl her toes.

Cooper, I need you. Something is going on here. This isn’t right. None of this is right.

Exhausted, she could feel the line of sweat that had popped out onto her forehead, yet she couldn’t even wipe it away. She was shutting down, and there was no way to stop it. She tried to call to Fiona again, but her now desert-dry mouth had long given up the fight to continue functioning. Fiona was still driving, but the scenery was simply one big blur now.

Her brain lost the battle and the war, her lids dropping for the final time. She gave in, not strong enough to fight the siren call of sweet sleep. Her last thought before the darkness was that she desperately needed to talk to Cooper.

21

Cooper was sitting at the bar after Jane left to talk to Erica when Finn walked in. The sheriff walked right up to them, barely glancing at anyone else in the tavern.

“I got a call about Tom’s phone records. Or should I say, your ex-wife’s phone records since it was her phone he was using?”

No preamble. Right to it. Cooper had always liked Finn’s style.

“I thought Tom’s death was a closed case,” Cooper said. “Or did you re-open it?”

“All I did was get some phone records,” Finn replied with a shrug. “It’s no big deal. Let’s just say that your curiosity is infectious. Just because the coroner has ruled the death an accidental overdose doesn’t mean that I can’t nose around a bit. Strictly on my own time, of course.”

“You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t found out something interesting.”

Maybe, just maybe, there might be something that Cooper could follow up on. Right now, he only had Erica’s secret arrival in town.

“The last call into the phone came in around midnight. It was from Fiona Kemp.”

---