the right. Though she didn’t share Felicia’s auto expertise, she knew enough to realize that the sudden and dramatic tug to one side was a telltale indication that a tire had gone flat. Really flat.
“Whoa!” Cooper looked in her rearview mirror. “What the heck did I hit back there?”
Slowing down, she eased the truck onto the farthest side of the shoulder. Though reluctant to leave the warmth of her cab, Cooper knew she had no choice. Grabbing a flashlight from her toolbox, she jumped out of the truck, and immediately saw that one of her rear tires had deflated like a spent birthday balloon.
“Great.” Cooper’s buoyant mood dissipated in the frigid air. Pulling her wool hat down over her ears, she retrieved her emergency road kit from the rear of the cab and unzipped it. After igniting two flares she unfastened the jack and spare tire from the inside of the truck bed. Just as she began the laborious process of jacking up the truck, the growl of a small but loud motor drawing nearer and nearer caused her to pause and look up at the dark highway.
Her truck had gone lame on a stretch of highway that only saw intermittent traffic at night. Truckers heading west toward Charlottesville were the most common sight, but the approaching engine did not belong to an eighteen-wheeler. It had the distinct, thunderous rumble of a motorcycle engine.
As she watched, a dark red and chrome Indian Chief motorcycle edged onto the shoulder. At first, Cooper had the absurd hope that a policeman had come to her aid, but it only took a brief glance at the fringed leather of the vintage motorcycle’s seat and the rider’s attire to transform her feelings of optimism into heart-racing alarm.
The Indian’s rider was a man, dressed in black jeans and a black leather jacket, whose features were completely obscured by his black helmet. Even when he tipped back the tinted visor covering his face and asked if she needed a hand, the moonless night cloaked him in shadow.
As he dismounted and began to walk toward her, Cooper’s cell phone rang to the tune of the Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night.” The man in black chuckled. “I recollect you mentioning the Fab Four, but I didn’t know you liked them all that much.”
He stepped forward into the red glow of the flare and Cooper’s jaw dropped as she recognized his face. “Get the phone, girl.” He pointed at the device. “I’ll jack the truck.”
Answering the call, Cooper was at first too stunned to make sense of Ashley’s frantic and garbled words. There was nothing coherent about the hysterical cries and pleas of “Please! The car! There’s a man! He’s . . . he’s dead! DEAD IN MY HOUSE! COME GET ME!” echoing down the line.
“Slow down, Ashley!” Cooper shouted in an effort to make sense of her sister’s shrieks. “I can’t understand you! Take a deep breath and try not to yell. I’m right here, okay?” She waited silently while Ashley struggled to control her rapid breathing. As Cooper listened, her eyes were fixed on Edward Crosby, aka the Colonel, as he began to remove the lug nuts from the flat tire.
Cooper had met him a few months ago when he was still an inmate at Jail West, serving out the remainder of his sentence for the sale and distribution of narcotics. Her only communication with him had been through a telephone handset attached to a plate-glass divider, so she hadn’t been able to appreciate his formidable physical presence at the time.
He wasn’t tall, like Nathan, but Edward Crosby’s figure reverberated strength. There was a sense of danger about him—something predatory. He stared up at her with his gunmetal gray eyes and waited, his wide hands gripping the wrench. She could see the shadow of the flag of Dixie tattoo that lay beneath the cropped hair of his scalp.
“There’s a dead man in the trunk of my car! In my house!” Ashley wailed and Cooper was finally able to rip her gaze from Edward’s intense stare.
Cooper made her sister repeat what she’d just said. After establishing that Ashley was unharmed and that a corpse had somehow materialized inside the locked garage, Cooper promised she’d be right over and told Ashley to call the police.
“I can’t do that!” Ashley’s voice cracked as it rose an octave. “What if Lincoln gets in trouble? I got this car—it’s a rental—from his dealership to drive while mine’s in the shop! What if there’s