EIGHTEEN

Pete pressed the Explorer as fast as he dared on Route 15. Wind-driven snow encroached on the plowed pavement, clinging to patches of black ice, and threatened to spin the SUV out of control.

Something about the missed call continued to nag him. He pulled the number up again and attempted to return it, but only got an impersonal voicemail recording. He hung up in disgust as he sped down the last straight stretch. The Krolls’ new modular home perched on the uphill side of the road. He braked as he passed it and swung into a left turn he’d become well acquainted with when Zoe lived at the farm.

The lane was more snow-packed than plowed, glazed with ice from vehicles driving over it. Pete jammed the gas pedal toward the floorboards. The Explorer’s heavy winter treads dug in at places, spun and whined at others as the SUV slipped and shuddered. The lane climbed the hillside, dog-legging around to bring him up behind the house. The first thing he spotted was Zoe’s pickup parked in its usual spot. If she was there, why wasn’t she answering her phone?

He took in the rest of the scene. Fresh tire tracks through the snow leading off the lane, into the yard. Someone in a dark coat was kneeling at the rear of the house. That someone saw him and waved frantically.

Pete veered into the snow, churning a new path. He maneuvered around the line of pines bordering the farmyard. Closer now, he realized there wasn’t one person down in the white stuff, but two. The second one wasn’t moving.

He jammed on the brake. The SUV ground to a stop, and he leapt from his vehicle.

“Chief Adams,” Lauren Sanders cried out, her voice strained and damp.

She said something more, but he didn’t catch it. A familiar mop of short blonde hair…a flash of crimson…sent his heart plummeting. All he could hear was the echo of stillness inside his head and his chest.

Zoe.

As quickly as the world imploded on him, reality and duty slammed him back. Sights and sounds detonated around him. Distant sirens. Brutal cold. Zoe motionless and bleeding in Lauren Sanders’ arms.

He tore off his gloves, dropped to his knees beside them, and elbowed Sanders out the way, too roughly perhaps. “What the hell happened?” He gathered a limp Zoe and tugged off her hat, searching for the source of the blood.

The reporter started babbling, talking too fast to make sense. Pete caught the words “white van” and “clubbed” among the gibberish.

He found a deep gash on the left side of Zoe’s head, buried in her hair. Digging a handkerchief from his pocket, he fixed Sanders with a hard glare. “Slow down. Tell me what happened. You’re a reporter. Get ahold of yourself and report.”

She swallowed hard. Gave a quick nod. And inhaled. As the sirens grew closer, she told him about finding the white van. About Zoe trying to sneak down the hill to get the license number. About how Sanders had stayed concealed by the pines in order to place a call to 911. “I was talking to the operator when I saw a man dressed all in black slip out the door back there.” Sanders gestured toward the corner of the house. “He had something in his hand. A club or something. Zoe didn’t see him. He sneaked up behind her and when she turned around, he swung.”

Pete pressed the handkerchief against the gash and held pressure. “You saw him sneaking up on her?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you yell?”

The reporter’s wide eyes glistened. Her lips parted. The lower one trembled. “I don’t know. I should have.”

“But you didn’t.”

She closed her mouth and lowered her face. “No. I didn’t.”

He bit back his anger, a large part of which was aimed inward. He’d feared this. Foreseen this. Why hadn’t he put his foot down and stopped Zoe from getting involved? “At what point did you place that call to me?”

She stuttered a moment. “I-I didn’t. Zoe left her phone in the house, so I loaned her mine.”

Why hadn’t he answered the damned phone? He fought to gain control of his panic and his guilt. “Then what happened?”

“I must have screamed. He heard me, I think, because he looked my way.” She tipped her head toward the pines.

Footprints—Zoe’s, Pete presumed—led from the area Sanders indicated.

“I thought he was coming after me next, so I ran up the hill to where my car’s parked. I didn’t stop or look back until I got there. That’s when I realized he wasn’t chasing me at all. In fact, the van took off.”

She pointed in the direction of the tire marks Pete had noticed coming in. As he looked up, an ambulance turned off Route 15, heading up the lane and around toward them.

Beneath the layers of winter outerwear, Zoe moved. Her lips parted in a groan.

He called her name, soft and pleading. “Zoe. It’s me. Pete. Wake up, sweetheart. Let me see those baby blues.” She had to be all right.

She had to.

She stirred. Her eyelids fluttered open. Those baby blues had never looked so beautiful.

And dazed.

She looked at him. Or through him. She blinked and shifted her eyes toward Sanders. “Rose? Don’t forget to feed the cats.”

Then Zoe took a deep breath. Exhaled. And relaxed, her eyes drifting shut.

“Zoe?” For one long horrible moment, he thought she was gone. He pressed his numb-with-cold fingers into the groove on her neck. Nothing. Fighting down the panic, he realized he was pressing too hard. Plus he’d lost most of the feeling in his hands. He softened his touch. And found it. Her carotid pulse. Strong. Steady.

Thank God.

“Who the hell is Rose?” Sanders asked, her voice shrill.

“Her best friend.”

Behind him, the Monongahela County EMS ambulance rolled up, tires crunching in the snow. A county police car made the turn off Route 15. A pair of the day-crew paramedics approached. One of them inhaled sharply. “Oh my God. It’s Zoe.”

Reluctantly, Pete turned her care over to her colleagues. He stepped out of their way, but hovered close enough to jump to her side if she stirred again.

The reporter covered her mouth with one trembling fist as she watched the medics.

Pete hated feeling helpless. Since he couldn’t do a damned thing for Zoe, he shifted his focus to catching the son of a bitch who had done this to her.

“Ms. Sanders,” he said.

The reporter didn’t respond.

He repeated her name, louder.

Her wide-eyed gaze swung to him. Not the pit bull with a bone anymore.

“I need you to think hard. Tell me anything you can remember about the man who did this.”

She shook her head. “He was dressed all in black. And when he turned toward me, he had his face covered. All but his eyes. And I was too far away to see those.”

“Was there just the one man?”

“That’s all I saw.”

“What about the van?” He was pretty sure it was the one George Winston had just reported stolen, but an eyewitness confirmation wouldn’t hurt.

Sanders kept shaking her head. “It was white. No markings. No windows along the side. Tinted windows in the back. It was too far away to read a license number. That’s why she was trying to get closer.”

Pete glanced over at Zoe, whom they’d transferred onto a backboard. Most likely, she’d been hurt for no reason. If it was indeed the same van stolen from Winston’s lot, Pete already had the license number. He thought again of the missed call. “I tried to call you back. Why didn’t you pick up?”

Sanders patted her coat pockets. “Oh.” She looked around. “I must have dropped my phone after I called 911.”

The paramedics lifted Zoe and the backboard onto a stretcher.

The Monongahela County uniform trudged up to them, and Pete spotted a Pennsylvania State Police unit making its way up the lane.

The county officer introduced himself, and Pete shook his hand. “This is Lauren Sanders. She witnessed the whole thing. Get her statement.” He shifted his gaze to the reporter. “Did you see which way the van went?”

“South.”

Away from Dillard. Toward Brunswick. “Thanks. Tell the officer here everything you told me and anything else you might remember.” Swinging back to the county uniform, he added, “Try to find her cell phone. She says she lost it after calling for help.”

“On it, Chief.”

He waded toward the rear of the ambulance where they were loading Zoe. “How is she?”

“Still unresponsive, but her vitals are good.” The paramedic, whose face was familiar, but whose name escaped Pete, gave him an encouraging smile that they probably taught in EMS school.

“I’ll follow you to the ER.”

“I’ll tell her when she comes to.”

When. Not if. Pete wanted to believe this guy more than he’d ever wanted to believe anyone.

The paramedic climbed in. His partner slammed the doors and headed around to the cab. Pete dug out his own cell phone as he plowed through the snow back to his SUV. Once inside, he fired up the engine, cranked the heat, and punched in Seth’s number.

“I need you on duty now,” Pete said when his officer answered. “Can you make it?”

There was a moment’s hesitation. Or maybe Pete imagined it. “Sure thing, Chief. What’s going on?”

He dropped the shifter into drive. “Zoe’s been hurt. I’m following the ambulance to the hospital. I need you to put a BOLO out on a white Ford panel van stolen from Abbott Electric and Heating.” He dug his notebook out of his pocket and flipped it open to relay the license number. “Last seen heading south on Route 15 from the Krolls’ farm.”

After another pause, Seth’s voice took on a tone Pete was well acquainted with—the this-is-now-personal tone. “Same guys?”

“Same guys.”

“Got it. Hey, Chief?”

“Yeah?”

“Take care of Zoe, okay?”

Pete waved at the State Trooper as their vehicles passed, one coming, one going, but didn’t stop to chat. “Roger that.”

  

Sounds registered first. A low roar punctuated by piercing beeps and whistles. The roar rose an octave. More like a gaggle of geese along a lake. But the beeps and whistles remained. Black softened to gray. And then the light and pain slammed into Zoe’s awareness.

“Hey.” Pete hovered over her, his image blurred as if she’d gotten moisturizer in her eyes.

She blinked, trying to clear her vision. “What happened? Where am I?” She’d been at the Krolls’ place, picking her way through the snow. Why? Oh, yeah. The van. She squeezed her eyes shut, but that sent a stabbing hot pain through her head.

“You’re in the ER.” Pete’s voice sounded odd. Mushy.

She opened her eyes again. Still blurry. “I can see that.” She’d spent enough time bringing patients through the ER to recognize the treatment cubicles of Brunswick Hospital’s Emergency Department. “How’d I get here?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Remember what?”

“The ambulance ride? The guys said you were chatting away with them on the way in here.”

She tried to think, which wasn’t as easy as one might believe. Ambulance? She shook her head. The pain threatened to carve her brain in half. Bad idea. Very bad idea. She raised a hand to touch a gauze bandage instead of her curls. “They shaved my hair?”

Pete laughed, warm and soothing. “No, my love. Just one patch of it. You took a nasty blow to the head. I think the doctor said thirty stitches.”

“Stitches?” That explained the pain, but little else. “Where was I when all this was going on?”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Zoe struggled to get her brain to clear. “The van.” Panic cleared the fog a bit. “Pete, the van’s at the farm. You have to get over there. They’re robbing Mr. and Mrs. Kroll.”

Pete shushed her. Why was he shushing her? He needed to go catch those guys before the Krolls returned home.

“Easy,” Pete told her in that same soft tone. “I know all about the van.”

He did?

“I was there.”

He was? “You caught them?”

“No. They’d gone by the time I arrived. But Seth and the entire county and state police forces are out looking for them.”

“Knock knock,” called a nearby voice.

Pete turned away from her. “Come in.”

The curtain surrounding them swished open, and Dr. Fuller strode in, a comforting smile on his face. “Hello again,” he said brightly.

Again?

“What’s the diagnosis?” Pete asked him.

“X-rays show no signs of a fracture and the CT scans came back clear.” Dr. Fuller crossed his arms. “However, considering all the other indicators, I think it’s safe to say she’s suffered a concussion.”

“Gee.” Pete’s voice dripped with his patented sarcasm. “You think?”

The doctor chuckled and turned to Zoe. “You ready to get out of here?”

“Hell yes.” She pushed up to sitting, but the pain in her head ratcheted up a notch, and her vision blurred even more. She lay back. Gingerly. “Ow.”

“Keep her quiet for a few days,” Dr. Fuller said to Pete. “Make a follow-up appointment with her personal physician next week. And get her back in here if she loses consciousness again.”

“I can’t keep quiet.” Although the idea sounded pretty good at the moment. “I’m on duty tonight.”

Pete squeezed her hand. “They already know you won’t be in.”

After a flurry of activity, which didn’t help Zoe’s headache in the least, she found herself in the passenger seat of Pete’s township SUV, headed home. On her lap, a stack of discharge papers she’d signed without reading.

She’d been surprised to discover it was dark out when they wheeled her to the emergency entrance. The clock on Pete’s dashboard read almost eight thirty. It had been close to two when she’d been at the barn.

“I lost half a day.”

“Yep.”

“Did you say I was talking to the guys in the ambulance?”

“Yep.”

“I don’t remember any of it.”

Pete kept his gaze on the road, but she caught a glimpse of his cock-eyed grin in profile. “They said you were a chatterbox. They also said very little of it made sense.” He glanced at her. “Do you remember calling Lauren Sanders ‘Rose’?”

“What?” Zoe tried to piece together the jigsaw puzzle of her memory. The reporter had been at the barn. Drove her back to the house. Zoe had left her phoning for help.

“When you came to before the ambulance arrived. You called her Rose and asked her to feed the cats.”

That old adage about “it only hurts when I laugh” was only partly true. It hurt all the time, but laughing made it worse. Zoe closed her eyes. Pete had filled in some of the gaps while they waited for the paperwork springing her from the ER. But he might as well have been telling her about someone else.

“What do you remember?” He glanced at her again. “The guy who hit you. Sanders said she was too far away to identify him. Did you get a look at him?”

Had she? Zoe searched the black hole that was her memory of the last few hours. “I have no idea.”

Pete fell silent, leaving her to replay what little she did remember over in her mind. His mention of Lauren Sanders niggled at her. Not because of jealousy this time.

The reporter had been there with her. Had driven her to the top of the hill. Zoe had ordered her to stay behind and call 911. But Sanders had followed.

Zoe fingered the bandage on her head. For a moment, the brain fog lifted, leaving one question clear in her mind even if the answer was not.

Where was the reporter when Zoe had been struck?