Page 48 of Puzzle for Two

Zach said bitterly, “I’m just an idiot, that’s all.”

Flint laughed, shook his head, and—to Zach’s surprise—reached over to give Zach’s knee a quick squeeze.

“You’re too hard on yourself, Zachariah.”

“That’s not what you thought last Thursday. And you were right.”

“Nah.” Flint’s eyes met Zach’s. He said casually, “I think you’re okay.”

Not exactly effusive praise, and yet Zach felt instantly better.

He relaxed, accepted that for now his role was, well, not passenger, but co-captain. Okay, in the immediatenow, in this moving vehicle, it was passenger, but that was acceptable. There was nothing to object to. Flint drove well, smoothly navigating the scattered rocks and small landslides caused by the previous night’s rains, and they gained altitude quickly.

The Explorer’s tires hissed on wet pavement as they wound through hills of oak trees and outcroppings of bronze-gold lichen-covered boulders. Occasionally they flashed past large, expensive homes—some in clearings next to the road, others accessible by private dirt roads leading deep into the woods.

They decelerated into another curve, accelerated past wet hillside blanketed in glistening ferns and the shiny red berries of toyon.

“There it is,” Flint said abruptly. “That patch of road up ahead.”

Zach snapped out of his preoccupation, scanning the empty road ahead. “The crash site?”

“Yep.”

Police and emergency personnel had long since cleared the scene, but Zach could see a stretch of blackened hillside several yards ahead.

“That must be where the Porsche went over the ledge.”

Flint grunted, slowed the SUV, and pulled to a bumpy stop on the muddy shoulder of the road. “Let’s have a look.”

Zach opened his door and stepped out. The chilly air carried the smell of rain and charred wood. He glanced over the side of the road, and his stomach gave a little flop as he absorbed how long a drop it was to the bottom. He could see a few boulders jutting out and, much farther down, treetops.

In silence, they walked up the road, boots crunching on gritty asphalt until they came to the scorched section of highway.

“There are the skid marks.” Zach pointed toward the rise of road.

They studied the dark streaks in the pitted asphalt.

“If we’re just going by the tire tracks, it looks like Beacher swerved, grazed the hillside—you can see where the fender took out those laurels—overcompensated, and went right over the side.” Flint sounded thoughtful. “The road’s pretty narrow. It could have happened like that.”

“Maybe he fell asleep at the wheel?”

“Did the butler fall asleep, too?”

“Either way, it doesn’t look like the accident was faked.”

Flint said darkly, “There all kinds of ways to fake an accident.”

“I guess so.” Zach tried to read Flint’s profile.

If the burned body in the Porsche wasn’t Alton’s, did that mean Alton had… What? Already committed murder before trying to knock off his butler as well? But why kill the butler? And who had Alton killed in order to provide himself with a body double? And how had Alton arranged to get the butler into the car with a dead body?

No, the whole scenario was crazy. It couldn’t have happened that way.

They moved to the edge of the road, gazing down the fire-singed slope to a swath of burnt and broken shrubs and wind-shaped trees where the car had come to rest.

Flint said, “According to my pal at the sheriff’s office, Beacher arrived home from a dinner engagement—that would have been the date with you—around ten last night. He went straight into his study, where he remained until about eleven, when he retired for the evening. He and the missus don’t sleep in the same room, so this information came from the household staff.”

“Right.”

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