put the gun back in the glove compartment without him seeing, so I bent over, laid the pistol gently on the floor, terrified it might go off, and grabbed Beanie so he didn’t slip out the car and rush into the woods. I locked the Toyota again and piled myself and my dog into the patrol car. I was soaked, my hair drenched; globules of water and beads of sweat ran down my face. My pulse was galloping. I was a nervous wreck.
“Go ahead,” I said, panting. “Search me all you like.” I looked back to check if Lee was following us, but it was too rainy to see anything. His radio hissed and crackled incomprehensibly.
He eyed me up. God knows what a mess I looked. “Nah,” he said. “You’re clean. After this flat I need to make a stop near the River Inn. Folks reported a fallen tree. Then I’ll take you to the sheriff’s office.”
I nodded, my arms clasped around Beanie. This dog was all I had in the world right now. “Let’s get out of here,” I said.
As we sped up the driveway, I looked back at Cliffside. I never thought I’d be glad to get away from that house, but it was sullied now. Just like my ring. Spoiled forever. Lee and her smirking, self-satisfied sneer filling up my beloved house with her bad aura, and knowing she’d been pulling the triplets’ puppet strings all along was the last nail in the coffin for me.
At the top of the driveway, just as we swung a sharp right on Highway One, a fresh onslaught of rain lashing at the windshield, I saw Dan and Kate in the front seats of Dan’s pickup. Their heads whipped round in our direction as Dan’s car swerved into the driveway, his foot flat down on the pedal. I pictured Jen still banging on the laundry room door.
“Can you go any faster?” I pressed the officer. “I need to get away from here, now.” I wondered about Pippa, where she had got to, and where my Land Rover was, and why Dan and Kate were in one car. Had Pippa gone to her meeting with the engineer, after all?
The officer squinted into his rearview mirror. “Somethin’ bad happen back there, ma’am? You ran out of your house like a bat outta hell. And how come you need to speak to the sheriff?”
“Long story, but my life’s in danger, and not because of the storm. My late husband’s ex-wife is a psycho, and she and her kids are trying to take over my house. They tried to kill me.”
He shook his head. “I see a lot of domestic violence,” he said. “Sad but true. Glad to help in any way I can. Though I always took the lady to be very nice, very friendly.”
“She’s dangerous. Thanks for helping. You may have saved my life. As soon as you can get me to the police station, the better.”
The officer opened his mouth to reply but something stopped him. His eyes grew large and round, his lip curled in disgust. The answer to my question about Pippa loomed into view.
“Jesus,” the officer said. “D’you see what I see?”
Pippa’s black SUV was up ahead, broken down on the side of the highway. At first it looked like a road-kill accident; blood was everywhere. A deer? But as we drew closer, I spotted her body, squished in two by her big tank of a car, her head out of sight, lodged under the vehicle, her legs ungainly splayed in a pool of fresh, vermillion blood. The back tire was deflated like an empty balloon. My stomach turned.
“Holy moly, close your eyes, ma’am. This is an accident you do not want to see. That poor lady was trying to change her freakin’ tire. Oh, man, what a mess!”
I turned my head away from the gruesome scene. Dan, I thought. It had to be. Not only had they lured me into their trap, but Pippa too. A “liability” they needed to get rid of? They’d used her to help hatch their plan. But after she rescued me and screwed things up for them, they wanted her dead. She knew too much. Or was it revenge? It could have been me that time Dan showed me how to change a tire.
“This is no accident,” I told the officer. “It’s murder. I bet you anything you’ll find a nail or something wedged into that tire.” Pippa under her car’s wheel made