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RICK BERGERON TURNED his car onto a small track just the other side of the bridge. He couldn’t believe his luck. He’d been seeing Felicity Rowe for weeks. They were good together, but not close enough for his liking. Felicity was wary of him to begin with. She resisted his attempts at their first kiss for their first three dates, then resisted being alone with him for heavier kissing for the next two or three dates. When he suggested they go to a clearing on the other side of the Gattarn River as they left the movie theatre, he expected she’d say no. As it turned out the movie was a romance. Rick hated it but Felicity was touched by it. Touched enough to say yes to Rick’s suggestion that they go someplace for privacy.
Twenty minutes down the track was a small clearing beside the river. He turned the headlights off and they sat for a while, admiring the glow from Pinecone Grove on the other side of the river. There was another glow further upstream.
“What’s that?” Felicity asked, pointing to the other glow.
“Must be that circus we went past.”
“Oh,” she nodded. “That’s right.”
“I understand,” Rick said. “If I didn’t have to watch where I was driving I wouldn’t have noticed anything other than you.”
She smiled and looked across the river.
He moved across the seat beside her and put his arm around her. The moon gave her face an angelic look. She continued to smile at the river until he drew his finger down her cheek. She turned her head toward him and licked her lips.
They kissed. The kiss lingered and Rick’s hand wandered to Felicity’s chest. She pushed it away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought...”
“I’m not ready for that just yet,” Felicity said.
“It’s alright,” he whispered and kissed her again. The kiss lingered again, this time a little more passionate. He was tempted to move his hand again, but resisted.
Felicity took his hand and moved it for him.
He was about to start unbuttoning her blouse when she took his hand again.
“Not ready?” he asked.
“No.” She pointed upriver. “Look.”
Rick looked where she was pointing. It was a car floating toward the river bank.
“What in Hades.” He got out of the car and went to the river. The car was stopped at a sand bank a few metres from the edge. “How the fuck did it get here.” He took his shoes off.
Felicity got out of the car. “What’re you doing?” she asked.
“I’m going to have a look,” he said and took his shirt and trousers off.
“It’s too cold,” Felicity protested.
“There’s a blanket in the boot,” he called to her. “Get it out for me for when I come back.”
He waded into the water as she went to his car.
“Why in Hades didn’t this thing just float downstream?” he muttered as he stepped into the water. It was cold alright, and was chest high before the sand bank made the water shallow again.
“Are you alright?” There was a touch of panic in Felicity’s voice.
“I’m fine,” he said as he reached the semi-submerged car. “By the gods!” he snapped and opened the car’s back door. There was somebody in there, asleep.
Once he opened the door and smelled the inside of the car he knew she wasn’t just asleep.
“What’s wrong?” Felicity called.
“There’s somebody here! I think she’s unconscious. I’m getting her out. Lay out the blanket on the ground so we can wrap her in it when I get her back.”
“Alright.”
Rick reached in to the unconscious figure. It was a woman. She was naked and she wasn’t unconscious, she was cold and dead. He looked to the shore, to Felicity, not knowing what to do. He looked at the woman again.
“What’s wrong!”
“She’s dead!”
“Oh my gosh!”
The back of the car started to move. It was clear that Rick couldn’t leave her there. For whatever reason, the car washed onto the sand bank, it wasn’t going to stay there. It was going to take an hour to get to the police, and in that time the car might wash away.
“I’m going to bring her to shore!” Rick called to Felicity. “The current’s starting to pull at the car again, and I don’t want her to wash away.”
“Why not?”
“Because something killed her, and I don’t think a river bed is a good resting place for anybody.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Have you got the blanket?”
“It’s ready.”
“When I get her to shore we’ll wrap her up, then go to the police.”
“Do you know who she is?”
“Hang on.” Rick opened the front door and opened the glove compartment. There were some papers there. He took them, then dragged the corpse from the back seat and started back to the shore with them.
Felicity looked almost as pale as the dead girl when Rick emerged from the river.
“It’s Deborah,” she said softly.
“Who?”
“I went to school with her.”
Rick swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I hardly knew her, but...”
“Let’s get her covered and—”
“You need the blanket more than her,” she said. “You look freezing.”
It was then Rick noticed how cold he was. “I’ll use it to dry myself,” he said. “I want her covered so nothing comes and starts eating.”
“Alright.” Felicity turned away.
***
SARGENT EDWIN GRIMES didn’t sound happy about being woken near midnight by a young couple making a fuss over what they claimed was a dead body. He threatened to take Rick’s driver’s licence and lay some other charges if this was some kind of joke. As soon as he arrived and saw the look on Felicity’s face his tone changed.
Once Rick had given Grimes the details, and Grimes had disturbed the other two coppers, they all set off to the clearing in two police cars. Deborah’s body was still there, wrapped in the blanket, and the car was also there, although nearly completely submerged and barely visible.
After answering a couple of questions on the scene, Rick and Felicity were sent back to Pinecone with Constable Joseph Ringer. Grimes and the other policeman stayed to see what they could find.
There were more questions, some forms to be filled out and some cups of tea before they were allowed to leave.
Felicity was still shaking when they left the police station. The sun had nearly risen.
Rick didn’t know what to do, so he put his arm around Felicity. She took his arm and pulled herself close.
“I’ll get you home,” he whispered. “Your parents are going to be—”
“Hold me,” Felicity said.
Rick wrapped his other arm about her and drew her into him. She put her face against his chest and sobbed. Rick stroked her hair.
“I can’t believe that anybody in this town would do something like that,” she said.
“I don’t reckon anybody from Pinecone would.” He sniffed her hair.
“Well who?”
“That circus that just arrived...”
“I don’t feel safe anymore.”
He held her tighter. “I’ll kill anybody who tries to touch you,” he said.
She held his arms against her and relaxed into him. At that moment, in Rick Bergeron’s arms, Felicity Rowe decided she would become Felicity Bergeron.