He hadn’t thought about the coast road in years, hadn’t been out here since moving back to the States. But maybe…
Sean drove west. He didn’t question the terrible feeling that sent him there. He didn’t even trust that he could find the spot once again. It had been years since he and Derek used to bring girls here, hoping they’d get lucky.
He had no idea why Derek would bring Crystal to the overlook. Maybe it was like Maura had said on the phone. Maybe Derek and his ex-wife really were sneaking around together.
That was, after all, his brother’s specialty.
Sean veered away from the thought. He was in no position to judge Derek.
He tried not to think the worst when he turned onto the coast road and noticed tire marks around the sharp hairpin turns. Everybody had trouble navigating this road, he told himself.
Derek drove the latest model with all the latest features. A major sponsor had just given him the SUV and he knew better than to wreck it.
The adulation, gifts and money heaped upon Derek boggled the mind. And Derek, of course, worked hard for those things, which made him such a good prospect for sponsors. Sean often lay awake at night, battling a poisonous envy. He often had to remind himself that Derek had earned everything that had come his way.
He and Derek had both had the same shot at the moon. In fact, there was a time when Sean had been strongly favored over his brother for a stellar career in the PGA. He’d been the one with the early career high, the revved-up sports agent, the sponsors clamoring, the ranking on the PGA money list.
It hadn’t lasted, of course. Sean didn’t know how to make things last.
The truck fishtailed a little around a sharp, steeply downward bend in the road. The headlights streamed over the outside edge of the curve, and the guardrail disappeared. It was just starting to get light outside. Sean looked around. He vaguely remembered some sort of property-and-easement dispute that ended right there, at a sharp curve in the road, where the angry black slash of tire tracks arrowed straight at a pair of broken madrona trees.
Sean killed the truck’s ignition. For a moment, perhaps the space of three heartbeats, he sat in utter silence. Then he switched off everything else—all the feelings of fear and panic—as he entered the numbers of Derek’s cell phone, pushing the buttons one by one with special care.
When it started to ring, he stepped down from the truck, slammed the door and stood in the predawn quiet, hearing nothing but the shush of the waves far below and…the distant ringing of a cell phone.
He was like an automaton, crossing the road to the opposite shoulder. His footsteps sounded like a robot’s, perfectly even, brisk but unhurried as they crunched in the roadside gravel. When Derek’s voice mail kicked on, Sean ended the call, paused and redialed. The ringing started again, louder now, closer.
He was a machine. Nothing could penetrate his iron shell. He had a flashlight in his hands. He knew he’d need it.
He felt nothing. He couldn’t let himself. Because even before he climbed down the steep, sheared-off bank, toward the sound of the ringing phone, he knew what he would find.
He stumbled, fell, held on to thorny vines snaking down the slope, cursed and eventually made his way down through the wild blackberries and red-boned madrona trees growing out of the side of the cliff. He paused again to redial, then followed the sound of the ringing. A thorny branch raked like talons across his face. He felt something trickle down his cheek and swiped at it. His hand came away dark with blood.
He was breathing hard, wheezing as he slipped and slid his way down. Early daylight crept over him. Dawn was breaking, though the deepest of shadows still haunted the primordial folds of the ravine. The flashlight’s beam flickered off something that didn’t belong there—the dull, intestinal undercarriage of the upside-down SUV.
A chink opened in Sean’s self-imposed armor and a white-hot arrow of pain shot in, startling him with its intensity.
No. The roar of denial erupted through him, but he made no sound as he approached the vehicle. The flashlight shook uncontrollably as he shone it toward Derek’s truck.
No. He wrestled the flashlight into submission and forced himself to hold it steady. What kind of chickenshit brother was he, shaking like a girl when he knew damned