FRIDAY, JULY 29

Hadley was heading back to the station to clock out when she got the squawk. “Fifteen-seventy, this is Dispatch, what’s your forty?”

She unhooked the mic. “Dispatch, this is fifteen-seventy, I’m inbound at the east end of Burgoyne.”

“We’ve got multiple reports of a three-car crash on the Sacandaga Road near the entrance to the new resort.”

Shit. Home late again. “Roger that, Dispatch, I am responding.” She switched on her light bar and sirens, checked her mirrors, and made a U-turn back toward the shortcut to Route 57.

The entire month of July had been crazy with tourists, and things didn’t look like they were going to let up in August. She called home but only got the answering machine. “Granddad, I’m going to be late. I have frozen barbecue chicken breasts and those green beans the kids like in the freezer. All you have to do is nuke them. Don’t take the kids to McDonald’s again.” It wasn’t so bad for Hudson and Genny—they would have a couple small cheeseburgers, some onion rings, and milk—but Granddad’s idea of a fast-food meal was two Big Macs and a super-sized order of fries, washed down with a large milkshake. Not what the doctor ordered for a man who had heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes.

She swung onto the Sacandaga Road and saw red-and-whites ahead. She triggered her mic. “All channels, this is MKPD fifteen-seventy responding to an accident on Sacandaga Road, over.”

“Fifteen-seventy, this is fifteen-sixty-three.” Kevin Flynn’s unit. “Responding same. I am westbound on Sacandaga Road. Over.”

Right on his heels came Eric McCrea’s voice. “Fifteen-seventy, this is fifteen-twenty-five. I am southbound from Old Route 100.”

Hadley’s stomach churned. As overworked as they were during the summer months, it had to be one hell of a mess for Harlene to send three officers.

She slowed as she approached the final rise before the entrance to the Algonquin Waters. At the top of the hill, her gaze swept the horizon, the scene laid out before her like toys thrown about by a sulky child. Two cars parked on the shoulder. A Ford Taurus skewed across both lanes, an old Saab rammed halfway into its rear quarter. The third car way off in the field. Upside-down, its grill and side crumpled and scored, its make or model unidentifiable. People—good Samaritans or uninjured drivers, she couldn’t tell—on the road and in the field.

Holy shit. She and Kevin and Eric were it, for the next however many minutes it took for the ambulance and the fire trucks to get here. Hadley followed Flynn’s squad car down and parked in the travel lane, leaving her lights whirling. Flynn swung wide, between the accident and the parked cars, stopping on the other side of the tangle, blocking the northern approach as she blocked the west. In the next second, Eric McCrea’s unit came over the hill. He slowed and pulled in behind her.

She and Eric got out of their cars. Eric popped his trunk and removed a crowbar. “Kevin!” His shout carried over the wreckage. “Meet me at the off-road vehicle!”

“I can—” Hadley began.

“If there’s a fire risk, we’re going to have to get the occupants out.” He strode toward the field, gesturing toward the other two cars. “See if anybody there needs help.”

I can do that, she wanted to say, but he and Flynn were already heading downslope—steeply downslope, she could see, as they rapidly disappeared from view. Hadley turned her attention to the cars blocking the road.

A young woman barely out of her teens sat sideways in the front of the Saab, her hands cradling her very pregnant belly, her face red and raw and terrified. A deflated air bag covered the steering wheel. A big, bearded guy crouched in front of her saying something in soothing tones.

“Hey there.” Hadley squatted beside him. “What do we have here?”

The man looked as relieved as a con with an eleventh-hour pardon. “Thank God. She says she’s, uh, leaking. Down there.”

“Are you”—he looked easily old enough to be the girl’s father instead of the baby’s, but you never knew—“related?”

“No, ma’am. I was just driving home to Millers Kill and came across ’em. There’s an older couple in the Ford, but they were just shaken up some, so I thought I’d better stay with her.”

“Please help me.” The girl’s voice was wild. “I don’t want to lose my baby.”

“It’s going to be okay. There are ambulances on the way. They’ll be here any minute. What’s your name?”

“Christy. Christy Stoner.” Her chest rose and fell in quick, shallow bursts. Shock, or panic? Either way, it couldn’t be good.

“Christy, how far along are you?”

“Seven months.”

“Are you having any contractions?”

She shook her head. Gulped a breath. Let out a bleating, gasping cry.

“Okay, Christy, listen to me. Are you listening? You need to calm down. Your baby needs all the air it can get right now.”

Christy nodded, panting.

“Is this your first pregnancy?”

The girl jerked her head up and down. Hadley spotted the rings on her third finger, a skinny little diamond and a big fat band. “Why don’t we call your husband? You can talk to him while we’re checking you out.” That might help the girl relax.

“He’s in Afghanistan. He’s a marine.”

Oh, great. Hadley gestured the bearded man to come closer. “Okay, Christy. I want you to hold—what’s your name?”

“Dennis Walker.”

“I want you to hold Dennis’s hands and squeeze them tight.” She did so, her knuckles whitening. Walker let out a grunt. “Now I want you to close your eyes and take slow … even … breaths.”

Christy shut her eyes and opened her mouth.

“Dennis, I want you to pull her upright. We’re going to move her to the backseat so she can lie down.”

Christy groaned, then gasped, as they helped her out, but between the two of them, they got her relocated. Hadley had her lie on her left side, a vague memory from her own pregnancies that the left was better for circulation or something.

“You said she was leaking.” Hadley addressed Walker over the roof of the car. “Any idea what?”

“Are you kidding?”

She ducked back down into the Saab. The girl was wearing a maternity sundress, rucked up around her knees in the move. “Christy, did it feel like your amniotic fluid bursting? Or maybe letting go some pee?”

Walker made a strangled sound.

“I couldn’t tell! I don’t know what it feels like when your water breaks.”

“Okay. I’d like your permission to check your panties to see if I can tell what’s happened.”

“Oh, jeez!” Walker twisted this way and that, finally turning his back to the car.

“Okay.” Christy brought her knee up. Hadley bunched the girl’s skirt in her hands and took a look. Oh, shit. She was worried she was going to have to get more personal, but that wouldn’t be necessary. Christy’s white maternity undies were soaked right through with clear amniotic fluid—and streaked with blood.

“What’s going on?”

Hadley snapped the girl’s dress back into place and whirled around. She had thought Flynn’s face seemed more mature since his TDY. His bones a little more defined, maybe, or his expression a little more tempered. Standing in front of her now, he looked years older.

“The other car?”

He shook his head. “Dead.” His mouth compressed. “No seat belt.” He looked over her shoulder. “Her?”

“Seven months pregnant.” Hadley dropped her voice. “I think it might be a partial placental abruption.”

“What’s that?”

“The placenta peels away some from the uterus. It’s all kinds of bad.” She glared at the road. “Where the hell is that ambulance?”

“Hey! Officer!”

They both turned. Walker had squeezed himself between the front and rear seats so Christy could hold his hand again. “She says she’s getting her pains!”

*   *   *

Hadley opened her mouth to either pray or swear, but she was cut short by the whoop whoop whoop of the ambulance cresting the hill, followed by the fire department’s chemical response truck, two volunteer fire police pickups, and, praise God, a second ambulance.

Duane Adams, one of their own part-time officers, led the EMTs. He prided himself on being fast. With good cause. Within two minutes, he had Christy Stoner on a stretcher, an IV in her arm and a fetal monitor strapped across her belly. They were pulling out, hospital bound, before Walker managed to extricate himself from the floor of the Saab. The last Hadley saw of the pregnant girl was a flip of her sundress over her tan legs as they slid her into the ambulance. God, look out for her and the baby.

Flynn went over to see what he could get from the elderly couple while they were being examined by the remaining EMTs. Hadley pulled out her own notebook. “Dennis, can I get your statement?”

The big man tore his gaze away from the now vanished ambulance. “Sure.”

Hadley checked her watch to note the time. She blinked. It had been exactly ten minutes since she had gotten the call from Harlene. She shook her head to clear it. “Can you tell me what you saw?”

“I was headed up to town on the Sacandaga Road”—he pointed to a spot south of the accident site—“and the Ford and the young lady’s car were coming down the hill toward me. All of a sudden, that Mini Cooper comes bombing outta the resort road. Musta been going seventy, at least. Those folks”—he thumbed toward the Ford—“kinda spun. I figured he slammed on the brakes and tried to skid himself. Probably woulda gotten by without more’n a scare if, uh, Christy hadn’t been behind him.” Walker gestured to the front of the Saab, accordioned into the rear corner of the Ford. “Wasn’t her fault, I don’t think. She mighta left more room between ’em, but, you know, unless she was a NASCAR racer in her spare time, there’s no way she coulda swerved.” He rubbed his big hands together. “Damn, I hope her and her baby come out okay.”

“Me, too. Then what happened?”

“Then? I called nine-one-one and got out to see if I could help. There was a lady come down the resort road after the Mini Cooper. She said she was a friend of the woman in the car. She took off down the field to check on her, I guess.” He glanced toward the pasture spreading out beneath the road. The car that had caused the accident, its driver, and her friend were invisible from where Walker and Hadley stood. As they watched, one of the paramedics toiled up the grassy slope into view. “What happened to her?” Walker asked. “The other driver, I mean.”

“She was killed.”

“Damn.” He shook his head, his beard swaying along in somber disapproval. “I hate to say it, but I figured something like this was gonna happen sooner or later. There’s a blind spot at the end of that resort road with all them trees and bushes there. Folks build up a good head of steam coming off the mountain and don’t have the sense to stop and look both ways.” He sighed. “It ain’t like it used to be.”

Hadley was quite sure of that. There were a number of increasingly dangerous intersections in the area, roads meant for farm vehicles and pokey local traffic overwhelmed by tourists and trucks and commuters rushing to get to Saratoga or Albany. Chief Van Alstyne’s wife had died in a collision less than ten miles from this spot.

She took Walker’s contact information and thanked him again for stopping to help.

“Anybody woulda done the same.” He rubbed his hands again. “I just hope that girl and her baby do all right.”

The fields around them were gold and green and bright with the summer sun, still high at six o’clock, but the accident site slid into the cool blue shadow of the mountain as she and Eric and Flynn processed the scene. The elderly couple elected to go to the hospital for a more thorough checkup, and the wrecker arrived. The fire police set up detours, and Hadley called for another tow truck.

The chemical response truck inched down the steep grade to the pasture and sprayed the remains of the Mini Cooper with fire retardant. The Ford, a total loss, was chain-winched to the side of the road, and the Saab, also a goner, got loaded on the flatbed and started for town.

The mortuary transport rumbled up, never in any hurry, and the body was removed. The driver, a middle-aged woman named Ellen Bain, had been coming from her job at the Algonquin Waters Resort after having “just one drink at the bar,” according to her sobbing co-worker. Ellen was also “a very safe driver!”—although the friend admitted she never used her seat belt.

“She used to tell us about a driver who got burned right up because he couldn’t get out of the car.” The woman could hardly speak. “She always said she wanted to be thrown clear in case of an accident.”

Hadley, who had hiked down to the crumpled Mini Cooper to take pictures, had to turn her head away.

Eric and Kevin took photos and measurements of the skid marks, and the second wrecker came to impound Bain’s car until the final report had been written, and the chemical response guys sprayed the torn and flattened grass once more for good measure.

They gave the all clear to the fire police volunteers, and the road was reopened. Hadley watched as the volunteers’ pickups jounced past. Nothing now but three cop cars and some broken glass on the roadbed to tell what had happened here. Everything else had faded into twilight.

“I never understood why people made those roadside shrines until I became a cop.” Flynn stood beside her, his hands tucked up under his arms.

“It doesn’t seem right all cleaned up,” she agreed. “It shouldn’t be so easy to ignore. Or forget.” A harsh growl, a sound of anger and pain, jerked her around. “What the hell?”

Thud. Thud. Thud. A dull hammering, punctuated by McCrea’s voice, low and vicious. Coming from the slope below the road. “Eric?” Kevin’s hand went to his gun. “Are you okay?”

No reply. She and Flynn headed toward the noise, both their guns out now. McCrea was halfway down the slope, straddling a deep gash where the Mini Cooper’s bumper had dug into the earth and wrenched off. He was flailing at the dirt with the crowbar, beating—Hadley peered into the gloom, looking for the snake. There was nothing there.

“Goddamn fucking stupid bitch!” Eric smashed the bar down. “Goddamn fucking drinks—” Thud. “And speeds—” Thud. “And doesn’t wear a goddamn fucking seat belt!” Thud.

“Eric!” Flynn sounded appalled. “What are you doing, man?”

McCrea looked up at them, his eyes gleaming in the darkness. “We live in the safest fucking place in the world.” Eric’s voice was grating. “We have air bags and seat belts and traffic signals. We have highway inspectors and road crews and goddamn designated drivers. And that stupid bitch just throws—” Thud. “It all—” Thud. “Away!” Thud.

“I know. It sucks.” Flynn stepped toward Eric. “It really does. Why don’t you give me the crowbar, and we’ll go get a beer. Blow off some steam.”

“I don’t want to blow off some steam!”

Hadley shook herself. Eric McCrea was acting like a three-year-old lashing out at feelings he couldn’t name or express, and one thing she knew how to deal with was a cranky three-year-old. “Okay, Eric.” She kept her voice calm. “We’re not in any hurry. We’ll wait for you.” Flynn shifted his weight—going for McCrea or going for his car, she couldn’t tell—and she wrapped her hand around his forearm. “We’ll keep an eye on you to make sure you don’t accidentally get hurt. Go on. Go right ahead.”

Eric’s arm twitched. He kicked at the gouged and torn soil beneath his boots. “Just—leave.”

“No, man, that wouldn’t be right.” Kevin’s tone told her he had caught on to what she was doing and was running with it. “We came on the call together, we’ll leave together.”

“Jesus.” McCrea stepped toward them. Stepped back. Shook his head. “I can’t do it with you watching me.”

“Take your time,” Hadley said. “Just ignore us.”

McCrea barked a laugh. Harsh, but genuine. He tossed the crowbar at Kevin’s feet. “You two are assholes, you know that?”

Flynn picked up the crowbar. “Takes one to know one, big guy. C’mon.”

She drove back to the station with her heater on, despite the lingering warmth from the day. It took that long to get the chill inside her under control. In the squad room, they checked in and went straight to their reports. No joking or chatter tonight. Eric was the first to finish.

“The offer’s still open if you want a beer,” Kevin said.

Eric paused at the door. “Thanks, Kev. I think I’d better just go home. G’night, Hadley.”

“Goodnight,” she called. He left, his footsteps echoing down the hall. She glanced over at Flynn. It was just them now. Harlene had gone off duty after the last emergency vehicles had been dispatched; calls to the station would be routed through the Glens Falls board until morning. Ed and Paul were patrolling; if the need arose, one of them might stop by the station. A lot of times over the past year, she would have found the chief working late, but since Reverend Clare had gotten home, Van Alstyne bolted out the door as soon as possible and didn’t show up again until the morning briefing, blissed-out and yawning.

Nope. It was just her and Kevin Flynn. The situation she had been dreading since he came back from his TDY. It wasn’t that they had slept together. Yeah, he was a lot younger than she was, and yeah, it was against departmental regs, but, hey, things happen. In fact, if he hadn’t gotten all emotional about it, she would have been tempted to keep on as friends-with-benefits, because it had been pretty good. Okay, really good, if she was being honest. Flynn had acted as if she were the final exam in sex ed and he was determined to make honor roll. How could she have known it was all book-learning with no hands-on experience?

She had been very hands-on—and because of that, he thought he was in love. With her. Right.

Flynn shut his computer down and scraped his chair back. “You done?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll walk out with you.”

They went down the granite steps into the sweet warm night. Hadley fished her keys out of her pocket. “See you tomorrow.”

“Hadley?”

Here it comes. “Yeah?”

“You were great with that pregnant girl. I’m glad you were there for her. I’m pretty sure she was glad, too.”

“Uh … thanks.”

“Good night.” Flynn clicked open his Aztek. He hopped in and was pulling out of the department’s parking lot before Hadley managed to fit her key into her car door.

She sat in the driver’s seat and looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Well. Evidently, she was no longer irresistible to Kevin Flynn. The small sting of that made her laugh, and laughing, she backed out and headed home to her kids.