Page 30 of Again with Feeling

A few minutes of searching told me that my phone was lost. (Jimmy Buffett had been replaced by Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’,” and I didn’t appreciate the universe’s sense of humor.) So, I couldn’t call for help. I had enough presence of mind now to turn off the engine, and the music cut out. I checked myself in the visor mirror, which felt weirdly vain, but aside from a red patch of skin, which I guessed was the airbag equivalent of rug burn, I was okay. I’d even escaped without the airbag breaking my nose, which seemed like a staple of the car accident genre. My body, on the other hand, was a different story. I felt like a doll that had been pulled apart and put back together again by an overenthusiastic toddler—everything done with unnecessary force, and nothing going back in the way it should have. My neck and head worried me the most; what had started as a low-grade headache in the accident’s immediate aftermath was turning into something much uglier, and if I had the choice, I didn’t want to be here when it arrived.

I wasn’t a Boy Scout, but having dated Hugo for years had its advantages—I found the first aid kit, which had miraculously stayed under the seat where I’d stored it. I found some Tylenol, dry-swallowed it, and made myself as comfortable as I could to wait. The problem was that it might be a while; the Oregon Coast wasn’t densely populated, and while it was our busy season, true, with tourists jammed into every available motel and Airbnb, this wasn’t exactly a highly trafficked stretch of road. Sooner or later, though, someone would see the torn-up shoulder, the damaged trees, and the overturned Jeep, and they’d call emergency services.

But would they see me in the dark?

I didn’t want to risk starting the Jeep—I had no idea what kind of damage it had taken, and for all I knew, I was sitting in the middle of a lake of gasoline. I hit the hazard lights. Maybe later, once full dark had fallen, I could run the headlights off the battery. For a while, anyway.

Caught up in these thoughts, I was surprised by another realization: whoever had hit me had done so on purpose. There wasn’t any other explanation. That truck hadn’t veered into me by accident; it had rammed me, forcing me toward the shoulder and the precipitous drop. It took a little longer for the thought to work its way to completion: someone had tried to kill me.

Who?

Why?

Even after having my head banged around, I thought I had an idea about the second question. Whoever it was, they’d been coming from the same direction as me, which meant Astoria. I’d upset a number of people back there—Arlen and Neil came first to mind, but Jane and Candy hadn’t been too happy either. None of them had liked me poking around, investigating Richard’s death.

Which meant someone had tried to stop me.

Which meant someone didn’t want me to learn what had really happened all those years ago.

It was one thing to know, logically, that the killer was still out there. It wasn’t all that scary when it was nothing more than a logical conclusion—a theory, not a reality. It was quite another to have the, uh, rubber meet the road, so to speak.

But if the killer had run me off the road, why hadn’t they stuck around to make sure the job was finished? Without my phone, and without the clock on the dash, I had no idea how much time had passed since the crash. Fifteen minutes? Half an hour? It didn’t seem like it could have been any longer. Plentyof time for the killer to park and come to investigate, to make sure I was dead. But maybe the killer wasn’t brave enough for a possible face-to-face confrontation. Or maybe they had seen the accident and thought there was no way I could have survived. (I was looking forward to surprising them on that particular point.) Or maybe they were waiting for some reason.

That was when I heard the first rock skitter down the slope. The sound was unmistakable. Another came a moment later—this one pinged off the side of the Jeep. And then a third. Ragged breathing and the unmistakable crunch of footsteps on scree told me this wasn’t an animal. This was a person. And they were hurrying toward me as fast as they could.

I crouched down in the Jeep. Then I straightened again, trying to see out the window. No luck, of course, because the branches were in the way.

The sounds of frantic movement came closer.

Should I call out? If it were a passerby, or someone from emergency services, maybe I needed to let them know someone was still in here. But wouldn’t they identify themselves? And if it was the killer—

I looked around for something to defend myself. The tire iron was in a storage compartment in the back, and it would take too long to retrieve. The first aid kit wasn’t any use unless my attacker wanted a soothing facial with a disinfectant wipe. Maybe if I had a can of tire slime or something, I could blast him in the face, but, of course, I didn’t. And then my eyes landed on the umbrella that had become an essential part of my gear since moving to the Pacific Northwest. It was compact, and it was cheap (because obviously I lost my umbrella almost constantly), but it was the spring-powered kind. So, when I pressed the little button on the side, the umbrella telescoped out and opened in a sudden burst.

It was better than nothing.

I retrieved the umbrella from where it had fallen in the accident, and then I perched on the center console, where I could launch myself up at the right moment. (God, please help me know when the right moment came.) The breathing sounded more labored now, and the rustle of weeds and the clumping, uneven steps sounded just outside. I still couldn’t see anything. And then I could: the branches of pine on the driver’s side window shifted, and the needles whispered. Whoever was coming, they still hadn’t said anything, and that, more than anything else, told me I was in trouble. Any normal person—anyone who wasn’t up to no good—would have called out, said something. Adrenaline boiled up from my gut. My face felt hot and slick. My headache seemed worse, in a way, but also far off, and I wondered again if I was going to be sick.

Above me, a gloved hand appeared. It was clutching a pistol, and it groped awkwardly, trying to get a grip on the window without losing hold of the gun. I didn’t wait for an invitation; I leaped up from my perch, jabbed the umbrella between the branches in what I hoped was the right direction, and pressed the button. The umbrella shot out and connected with something that definitely wasn’t a tree. The person outside the Jeep let go of the frame. The lodgepole shivered and skidded. The Jeep rocked slightly. And then there was a distinct thump as whoever had been trying to climb up to the window hit the ground.

The second surge of adrenaline caught me by surprise. I’d gotten them—whoever they were—good. I’d knocked them flat on their, uh, derrière. I had the upper hand. I needed to get out there, finish this while I still had a chance. I caught hold of the window frame and tried to pull myself up.

A gunshot cracked the air.

I let go of the window and dropped back into the Jeep.

The reality of my situation made its way through the fog of hormones. I wasn’t winning. I didn’t have the upper hand. I’d scored a tiny surprise. And the killer, on the other hand, had a gun—and I was trapped in a steel-and-fiberglass box. This was about as close as it got to literally shooting fish in a barrel.

I scooted toward the back of the Jeep, hoping I might be able to take cover behind the rock I’d hit, when a distant—and blessedly, belovedly familiar—voice rang out: “What’s going on down there?”

Bobby was giving his deputy voice full steam.

From outside the Jeep came hurried movements, and then the snapping, crackling sounds of someone crashing through brush.

“HE’S GETTING AWAY!”

(Millie, of course.)

And then Indira said, “I think I can wing him.”

---