Sully's wet clothes had gradually dried as he trudged through the unfriendly terrain. He'd been walking for what he estimated had to have been at least four hours when he finally rounded a corner in the trail and saw a black all-wheel-drive Subaru sitting dead in the center of the trail with its crumpled hood pushed up. The driver's side door of the car was open, but Sully didn't see anyone.
“Ha ha, I've got your ass now,” he whispered to himself as he ducked into the actual woods. Just because he couldn't see the car's driver didn't mean the car's driver wasn't somewhere nearby. It wouldn't do to have the bad guy spot him walking up.
Years of hunting and police training kicked in. Sully crouched low to the ground and crept through the scrub brush and small trees along the side of the trail. He did his best to make as little noise as possible. The brush was incredibly dry due to the recent lack of rain.
He flinched as a branch broke under his left knee. He froze, waiting to see if the driver of the Subaru appeared. Nothing moved except a few branches on a nearby tree that were being blown by the wind.
Sully sat and watched the car for another fifteen or twenty minutes before he decided that the driver had likely abandoned it when it had overheated. He carefully exited the bushes, staying low against the ground as he approached the passenger's side. He cautiously peered through the windows, confirming once and for all that he was alone before he opened the passenger's side door and began digging through his suspect's car.
In a perfect world, the man who had run Sully's Jeep off the road would have left his driver's license, social security card, cell phone and a signed confession sitting in the seat. Sadly, most criminals were somewhat smarter than Wiley E. Coyote and the suspect had taken his essential personal belongings with him when he'd abandoned the car. The registration in the glove box said the car belonged to a Christine Lewis who lived on Aardvark Avenue in Silver City. The photocopy of her driver's license that was stapled to the registration and insurance card in the glove box said that she was 87 years old. Sully had a sneaking suspicion that the car was probably stolen. Either that or Mrs. Lewis was about to find out that her grandchild was a thug.
Sully leaned his head back against the headrest for a brief moment. He was utterly exhausted and finding the car might have put him one step closer to figuring out who had murdered Beverly Jones, but it hadn't done him much good in terms of remedying his more immediate problem. He was almost certain that the person who had been driving the car had driven it until it had overheated and blew the motor. Suspects who were trying to escape undetected from crime scenes weren't known for taking excellent care of their vehicles while fleeing.
With a sigh, Sully forced himself back out of the car. His legs ached, but Kerry was depending on him.
Or dead by now.
He didn't want to think too long about that second option. Sully had never accepted failure too gracefully. His leg muscles were burning and his blisters had blisters as he began to walk away from the car. Twenty feet past the vehicle, he noticed a single set of footprints in the dirt that were also heading back out towards the road.
Sully had found his suspect's trail.