over the sand, Drew punches the gas, and we hit the narrows at thirty miles an hour.
It’s like plowing into a guardrail. The rear end of the Honda flies over my shoulders, and the next thing I know, I’m sucking water and clawing mud. Knowing that the sinking four-wheeler could pin me to the creek bottom, I scrabble over the slime and burst up into the air.
I see no sign of Drew or the four-wheeler, only a cloud of steam rising from the water behind me. Diving back beneath the surface, I feel my way to the overturned vehicle and burn my forearm on the exhaust pipe. Then my hand closes on a bulging calf. Drew is pinned beneath the ATV.
Struggling around to the upstream side of the Honda, I plant both feet firmly on the creek bottom, then squat and grab the handlebars. Hoping the current will function like a second person, I heave upward and lunge downstream with all my strength.
The ATV rises about a foot, then stops.
I redouble my efforts, but the weight of the engine is just too much. As my back starts to give way, the main current of the creek suddenly lifts the ATV out of my hands and carries it several yards downstream. I fall and float behind it for a couple of seconds. Then I get my feet under me and turn, expecting Drew to break the surface.
He doesn’t.
“Drew!”
Nothing but the sound of water.
I know a guy who snapped both femurs in a four-wheeler accident exactly like this one. And Drew took the brunt of the impact when we hit the creek. The water’s not much more than four feet deep here, but the current is strong. If Drew was knocked unconscious, he could be thirty yards downstream already.
I take a deep breath and go to the bottom, then let the current carry me along. In less than ten seconds I collide with the ATV again. It’s being dragged sluggishly down the creek. I’m feeling my way around it when a strong hand grabs my shirt and pulls me to the surface.
Drew looks wildly at me, his eyes white with fear. “Jesus, I thought you were hurt bad!”
“I was looking for you!”
His face is half covered with blood, most of it flowing from a cut above his eye. There’s blood on his chest, too.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He nods, then looks off into the woods. “That bastard got away, though.”
Just as with Annie when she does something dangerous, my fear turns to fury as soon as I know Drew is all right. “What kind of juvenile bullshit was that? Goddamn it! You act like you’re still in high school. Junior high!”
His head is cocked as though he’s still listening for the motorcycle.
“He’s gone!” I rail. “Your money’s gone, too. And you damn near killed us to pay the bastard!”
Drew looks back at me, his eyes glinting with dark light. “I don’t care.”
“Why not?”
“Because that motherfucker killed Kate.”
I start to argue, but something stops me. Maybe it’s the strange light in his eyes. Or maybe it’s the realization that he truly risked our lives to catch the guy on the motorcycle, something the Drew Elliott I know would not normally do. He’s never been a hothead; he’s a logical and intelligent man.
“How do you know the blackmailer is the killer, Drew?”
“Because he was there when Kate died. That’s how he knows about us.”
At the sound of certainty in Drew’s voice, a new stillness settles over me. “How do you know he was there?”
Drew finally turns full on to me. His eyes are slits in the dark, his lips compressed. He looks like a man deciding whether or not to tell a priest the darkest secret of his life.
“Because I was the one who found Kate’s body.”
Drew makes me wait until we have wrestled his four-wheeler out of the creek and stripped half the thing down before he’ll tell me anything about finding Kate. He’s one of those rare white-collar guys who actually knows how to fix things. He approaches machines with the same familiarity that he does the human body. Now he stands beside the steaming ATV, waiting for the air intake box to drain and the carburetor to dry. I’m sitting on a rotten log nearby, trying to catch my breath.
“All right, start talking,” I snap.
He walks away from me and stares up the hill that the motorcycle disappeared over. With his rifle slung over his shoulder, he looks like a marine standing guard in some lost jungle. My Springfield is gone; it must have fallen out of my pocket at some point during our charge through the woods. Drew has promised to find or replace it, but at this moment a lost pistol is not my highest priority. I want to know what he held back from me earlier tonight.
“It was this afternoon,” he says, still looking off into the dark. “Whatever led to Kate’s death started this afternoon.”
I remain silent, leaving him to fill the vacuum. I hope he doesn’t take long. It’s about fifty degrees, but with the wind hitting my wet clothes, it feels like deep winter.
“Kate was late getting her period,” Drew says softly. “Only five days, but she was usually as regular as clockwork. She was worried.”
So Drew has been sleeping with Kate for several months at least.
“I told her to buy a home pregnancy test, but she didn’t want to. The truth is, I think she sort of hoped she was pregnant.”
“Why?”
He turns to me, but his expression is indistinct in the moonlight. “Because that would have forced everything to a head. If she was pregnant, all would have been decided. She wouldn’t have got an abortion. I would have asked Ellen for a divorce, and—”
“Would Ellen have given you a divorce?”
“I think so. It would have cost me dearly, but it would have been worth it.”
“Go on.”
“I was supposed to meet Kate tonight, after Ellen went to sleep. That’s usually when we’d meet, during the week. She’d slip across the creek and come over to my workshop.”
“Jesus.”
“It was pretty safe, actually. Ellen never goes out there. She just calls on the intercom. Anyway, for some reason Kate couldn’t wait until tonight.”
“Maybe she took that pregnancy test after all.”
He nods thoughtfully. “Maybe so.”
“What did she do this afternoon?”
“She sent me a text message on my cell phone.
