“We’ll take your car,” Skelly announced when they were in the parking lot. “I’ll get somebody at the store to ride me out here in the morning to pick up my truck.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
She smiled. “I don’t care what Danielle thinks. You’re a good guy, Sean Kelly.”
He started the car, they turned onto the county road, and she leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes.
“What about you?” he said suddenly. “Still unattached?”
Conley sighed heavily. “I was actually living with a guy. Another reporter at the paper. Dumb move on my part, getting involved with a colleague.”
“And?”
“And nothing. I was supposed to be moving to D.C. this week. He thought I cared more about my career than I did about our relationship.”
“Did you?”
“He felt threatened by my success,” Conley said. “Like it was some kind of a crime that I wanted to pursue success instead of staying in Atlanta with him.”
Skelly shook his head but said nothing.
“What? You think I should have turned down a fabulous career opportunity because of a guy? Typical.”
He shot her a look. “I didn’t say that.”
“He could have found a job in D.C. if he was really committed to the relationship. But he wouldn’t even try,” Conley insisted.
“But you ended up not moving to Washington after all,” Skelly pointed out. “So the whole thing is a moot point, right?”
“No.”
She couldn’t explain to him how it was with Kevin, because she couldn’t really explain it to herself.
Instead, she pressed her forehead against the window and looked out at the passing scenery. There were no streetlights in this part of the county, just a nearly full moon overhead, lending a ghostly silver iridescence to the green cotton and soybean fields interspersed with acres of scrub pine and palmetto.
“What’s done is done,” she said softly. She saw a doe standing in the middle of a cornfield, calmly munching on the tender green stalks, and nearby, she spotted two fawns half-hidden in a clump of trees.
She glanced over at him. “Ever kill a deer?”
“Who, me? No. I’m a lousy shot.”
“I did.”
“For real?”
“One of my boy cousins bagged an eight-point buck one year right before Thanksgiving. My granddad put his picture on the front page of the Beacon. You would’ve thought he’d won a Nobel Prize. So I started practicing in secret—”
“Holy shit!” Skelly yelped.
She turned in time to glimpse something in the road just as Skelly slammed on the brakes, veering sharply to the right to avoid a collision.
It was an overturned vehicle, a gleaming black SUV.
The Subaru jounced onto the shoulder of the road, coming to rest against a barbed wire fence.
“Call 911,” Skelly said, fumbling around for his cell phone.
But Conley was already out of the Subaru and running. Oily black smoke poured from beneath the hood of the wrecked vehicle. She squatted on the pavement beside the driver’s window and peered inside.
“There’s somebody in here!” she called to Skelly as he sprinted to her side.
He flattened himself against the pavement, trying to get a look, then began tugging at the handle of the door, grunting with exertion. “It’s locked.”
Conley ran around to the other side of the SUV and yanked at the door handle to no avail. She could see the shape of a person inside, slumped forward against the shattered windshield, see the back of a balding head and a trickle of blood on a white collar. His arm was flung sideways, and she saw the gleam of a heavy gold wristwatch. She tugged again, harder this time.
“Hey!” she called loudly, rapping on the window. “Sir? Are you okay?”
No answer. She banged again on the window. “Wake up! You gotta get out of the vehicle!”
“Get away!” Skelly yelled, running around the end of the SUV.
“We gotta do something.” Conley protested.
“I already called 911.”
“That’ll take forever. The fire station’s at least fifteen minutes away,” Conley called.
“Have you got a tire iron in your trunk?” Skelly asked.
“Yeah. Under the carpet in the cargo area.”
A moment later, he was back with a tire iron. “Get back,” he cautioned.
He aimed the tool squarely at the driver’s-side window and swung. The glass stayed intact. “Damn it,” he muttered. He took a step backward, poised to swing again, then stopped. Flames were licking from beneath the hood of the vehicle. “It’s on fire!” he yelled.
Conley stood rooted to the spot.
“Get away!” Skelly grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the shoulder of the road.
She stumbled, corrected, then slowly backed away from the SUV, watching helplessly as the flames rose higher, sending sparks shooting into the thick night air. The intense heat drove them backward, and they were both coughing and choking from the oily fumes.
She gave Skelly a pleading look. He shrugged and started back toward the SUV, but within seconds, it was engulfed in rolling waves of black smoke.
“Come on,” he urged, tugging her toward the Subaru. “These SUVs have huge gas tanks. This thing could explode.”
Choking and coughing from the noxious fumes, they backed farther away. Finally, in the distance, they heard the wail of a siren. Probably too late for the injured driver.
“Do you recognize the car?” Conley asked. “Anybody from around here?”
“It’s got a Griffin County license tag,” he said, pointing.
“There was some kind of parking decal on the front windshield, but upside down like that, I couldn’t make out what it said,” Conley added. “It was like a green sort of crest.”
“SBCC,” he said. “Silver Bay Country Club. I’ve got the same one on my truck.”
“Right. G’mama and Grayson have the same decal.”
Without thinking, she grabbed her cell phone and, standing beside the Subaru, began clicking the camera’s shutter. She was scrolling through the contacts on her phone, getting ready to call the AJC’s city desk to let them know she’d just witnessed a wreck with a possible fatality.
“What the hell are you doing?” Skelly asked.
Conley sighed and stopped scrolling. “I was trying to do my job. But it just occurred to me: I don’t have a job anymore.”
But she raised the phone anyway and began shooting video of the inferno, of the fire truck as it roared up as the first responders clambered down and began what would surely be a doomed rescue attempt.
She decided it didn’t matter that she didn’t actually have a job in Atlanta. Whoever was in that SUV tonight was surely dead. Pretty soon, somebody would get a phone call, and their lives would be changed forever. There was a story to tell here, and that’s what she did. It was who she was. She’d figure out the rest later.
“He’s dead, right?” Conley asked as the firefighters trained their hoses on the blazing Escalade. She stopped shooting and wearily leaned her head on Skelly’s shoulder.
“Oh yeah,” Skelly said, absentmindedly rubbing her arm. “Jesus, what a way to die.”
Conley looked up the road and pointed at the approaching vehicle, blue lights flashing. “Police. Better late than never, I guess.”
The Bronson County sheriff’s vehicle pulled behind the Subaru. Conley watched warily as the deputy approached. He was huge, with a thick neck and shoulders and a blocklike body. His right hand rested on his holstered gun, and he held a flashlight in his left, which he played over Conley.
“Ma’am? Are you the one that called this in?”
“That was me.” Skelly spoke up.
The cop stared at him. “Do I know you?”
“Don’t think so,” Skelly said.
The cop shone his flashlight on Skelly’s face. “I need some ID.”
Skelly brought out his billfold and handed over his driver’s license.
“Son of a bitch!” the cop exclaimed. “I knew it. Sean Kelly! You skinny son of a bitch.” He clamped a thick mitt on Skelly’s shoulder. “It’s me, Walter Poppell!”
The deputy held the flashlight under his own chin, illuminating a fleshy head the approximate size of a garbage can lid.
“Popps?” Skelly did a double take. “Holy shit! You’re a cop?”
Poppell shrugged. “Right? Y’all used to take bets on who’d be the first guy on the team to end up in jail. Guess what? It’s me—only I’m the one locking up all y’all’s sorry asses.” The cop gestured toward Conley. “This your lady?”
“No!” Conley exclaimed.
The deputy flicked the beam of the flashlight up and down her body. “Too bad.”
“Cool it, Popps. We’re old friends. Neighbors, actually,” Skelly said. “We bumped into each other earlier tonight at the Legion, and we were headed home when we ran up on this.” He pointed at the Escalade.
“Y’all been drinking?” The cop’s voice was stern. “Which one of you was driving?”
“I was driving, and I stopped after two beers,” Skelly said. “Way before midnight.”
“Screw it, then,” Poppell said. “Dispatch said there was just the driver, that right? No passengers?”
“Not as far as we could tell,” Skelly said. “It must have happened right before we drove up. Sarah—I mean, Conley—ran up to try to open the door while I called 911.”
“I saw the driver. He was slumped sideways, and I could see some blood on his collar,” Conley said. “I called to him, but he didn’t respond. I guess he was unconscious.”
“Well, if the dude wasn’t dead before, he’s toast now. Literally.” Poppell chuckled.
Conley winced and looked past the cop, letting her eyes focus on anything other than him or the blaze that the firefighters had almost extinguished.
“The door was jammed shut,” Skelly said. “I tried to break the window in with a tire iron, but I only got one swing in before the vehicle caught fire. The blaze was so hot, there was nothing we could do. I was afraid it would explode.”
“Y’all didn’t recognize the driver?” Poppell asked.
“No.”
“All right,” Poppell said. “Guess there’s nothing to do now but wait for the ambulance.”
“Can we go?” Conley asked abruptly. She had no desire to watch the rest of this inevitable scene unfold.
“Don’t see why not,” Poppell said. He unbuttoned a flap on his breast pocket and brought out a small notebook. “Here. Y’all write down your phone numbers and contact info. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”
Conley scribbled her cell phone number and handed the pad to her friend, who did the same.
“What are you up to these days, Skelly?” the deputy asked.
“Same old, same old. Running the drugstore, trying to stay out of trouble.”
Skelly held the passenger door open, and Conley climbed onto the seat.
“See ya around, Popps,” Skelly said, turning to go.
“Hey, we should get the guys together sometime,” Poppell said. “Grab a beer or something.” He reached back into his pocket and brought out a card. “Gimme a call, okay?”
“For sure,” Skelly said. He started the Subaru and steered carefully around the blackened, smoldering wreck. The firefighters were packing up their gear to go too, and in the distance, they heard the wail of an approaching ambulance.
Conley leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “How do you know that creep?”
“Popps? We played jayvee football together. He was six two, weighed two-forty in eighth grade. Started shaving in seventh grade. He played left tackle. And when I tell you he was dumber than a box of rocks, that’s being charitable.”
“I didn’t know you’d played football.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Skelly said.
“So when do you think you’ll be getting together with good ol’ Popps to throw back some brewskis?” she asked.
“Hmmm. I’d say never-ish.”