Fatal Distraction Page 8

  “Learn what?” Frank’s crackly reply in the helmet headphones jarred her.

  “To listen to my instincts. I should have been here earlier,” she said, voicing another reality she’d have to live with.

  If she’d paid closer attention to her gut, Eric might still be alive. She didn’t dwell on that most days. Most of the time, she kept her guilt and her sense of inadequacy buried behind a mound of work.

  During their sessions, Ben Fleming told her she needed to process her grief, starting by telling Ben everything, openly acknowledging her feelings. But she couldn’t reveal herself that way, even to a professional like Ben. She sensed his annoyance that she wouldn’t share her deepest feelings with him. It couldn’t be helped. That’s just the way she was.

  After Eric’s death, Helen had vowed never to ignore her instincts again. Never.

  But she’d done it tonight, broken her promise to herself. After speaking to Oliver earlier, she’d persuaded herself that he’d be fine. Tired, maybe, but he’d been working around the ranch, getting it ready for her, he said. So his exhaustion was to be expected, didn’t necessarily mean he was falling into a deeper depression. Fatigue didn’t have to mean depression, Ben said. How convenient for her to believe him on that point when she disagreed on so many others.

  Only now could she see, with unmistakable clarity, that something had been different about Oliver on the phone tonight. He sounded almost maudlin with urgency when he told her, “I love you, Helen. I’ve always loved you. Only you. You know that, don’t you?”

  He’d said similar words to her countless times during their marriage. Even during the horrific events following Eric’s accident, Oliver never blamed her. He’d never stopped loving her. Nor she him.

  Tonight, though, the subtext was different: a final goodbye. She’d thought the call was disconnected, but had Oliver hung up intentionally?

  The little hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she absorbed the possibilities. Physical pain twisted her gut as she realized that she’d ignored her feelings. Rather than calling Oliver back, she’d put her work first. Again. When she obviously needed to get home.

  She cleared her throat and gave in to her need to know. “How much farther?”

  “Ten miles out,” Frank replied, then whistled low and long. “Off to port.”

  Helen looked out the left window. The blaze lit up the night sky. The sight ramped up her heartbeat and quickened her breath. They were still too far away to see the chaos of experts putting their lives on the line to stop the fire before it became a raging inferno that threatened their own homes and families.

  Under normal circumstances, they’d have landed in the ranch house’s backyard helipad in less than ten minutes. But she realized the fire was too intense.

  The pilot spoke on the intercom: “We’re going to set down on the asphalt, ma’am, if that’s all right.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Of course.”

  He landed the bird safely on the road, half a mile away from the burning barn.

  Before the blades stopped turning, Helen slipped off her helmet, unbuckled her harness, jumped out and ran toward the ranch house, gown, high heels, and all, Frank Temple jogging alongside her. “Go ahead, Frank. I’ll catch up.”

  He sprinted ahead of her, nearing the house. Had he heard something? Did he know that Oliver was safe inside, then? It was too late to call him back.

  Helen’s logic said the fire was too far along and the horses were dead. Jake was dead. The love of Eric’s life. Gone. Her breath caught in her throat as she acknowledged the truth. She patted her flat right side, seeking the inhaler she normally kept in her pocket, but the evening gown had no pockets, no inhaler. She kept running.

  She had to find Oliver. He had to be okay. Had to. She couldn’t survive if he died and left her here alone. She knew it.

  She reached the porch outside the house, gasping for air, noticing the front door stood open. Frank was inside, going from room to room, yelling “Oliver! Oliver!”

  Oh my god. It hit her: Frank didn’t know where Oliver was.

  Of course Oliver wasn’t inside. He would have tried to get to Jake in the barn. Chest constricted, breaths shallow, she called out, too. “Oliver! Oliver!”

  The noise of the fire added to the cacophony of the rescue workers and law enforcement was deafening. Her cries were lost in the noise.

  She bent over with pain in her side and closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, she saw the drag marks left by Oliver’s cane in the dusty driveway.

  “Oliver!” she shouted as she followed the drag marks toward the fire.

  As she approached the barn, the fire’s heat felt like an inferno in the chill. Smoke pierced her eyes as if it had sharp edges. She was blinded. She wiped her eyes on the slinky sleeves of the evening gown just as an explosion showered her with splintered glass. She felt the small cuts on her face, her forearms, her chest. Her arm blocked the glass from slicing her eyeballs.

  She breathed hard, gulping air, when she saw Oliver’s cane on the ground. She bent over to retrieve it.

  Saline streamed down her face, stinging while cooling her over-heated eyes. She could see where he’d fallen and lain in the dirt. But where was he now?

  Helen put her head down and kept moving, wiping her eyes with the scratchy material that smeared the tears, blood, and soot on her face. She followed the trail as the marks Oliver’s body made in the dirt slid off the driveway and into the underbrush where the blackness enveloped her.

  “Oliver! Oliver!” Helen couldn’t hear her own screaming.

  She tripped and fell flat, scraping her hands and knees on the gravel. Her body lay over a large object in her path. She struggled to rise and realized she’d fallen over Oliver’s body lying prone on the ground.

  Helen was already crying, gasping, and furiously trying to clear her vision. Her tears came faster, and she was astonished to hear herself sobbing.

  Thank god. She thought she could feel a faint pulse. She barely had the breath to call out. “Frank! Over here. Oliver’s hurt!”

  She bent down to Oliver’s face, invisible under the shadows of the trees, and kissed him full on the mouth. His lips were already cooling.

  “You can’t die, Oliver. You can’t. Hang on. Please, hang on.”

  He didn’t respond.

  Chapter Nine

  Thornberry, Florida

  Thursday 9:15 p.m.

  THE THROBBING IN HIS whole left side was so intense that he almost cried out with the pain. He still had more than a mile to traverse to reach the rented truck.

  But he needed to see Helen when she found Oliver, to witness her anguish.

  Anxiety mounting, he waited.

  In less than a minute, his patience was rewarded. Helen found Oliver’s trail in the driveway and tracked him like an animal.

  He read her lips and imagined he could hear her calling over the clamor of the rescue workers. “Oliver! Oliver!” Her face was hidden from his view, but he watched her lean over Oliver, kiss him, feel the sticky blood and dent in the skull where his kicks had connected with Oliver’s temple.

  He watched a bit longer, knowing it had been worth it, believing deep in his bones that Helen had finally been destroyed. He had chosen well, and he’d won.

  He experienced relief almost as intense as his anxiety had been. He smiled. Now he could go.

  He turned and began his struggle to cover the distance to his truck, barely noticing the pain in his left ankle.

  He hadn’t expected Oliver to wake up or to see him. But it didn’t matter. Oliver would never survive.

  His work tonight had met his every expectation and more. He felt every inch the conqueror as he moved toward the next phase.

  Chapter Ten

  Dentonville, Florida

  Thursday 10:15 p.m.

  VIVIAN’S WINK SENT AN IMMEDIATE, visceral charge across the table that struck Jess like a taser shot. At once she felt prickly hot and nauseated, as if elec
tricity pulsed through her nervous system.

  Attempting to regain control, she swallowed the bile that rose in her throat. But Vivian simply continued with her card game, as if nothing had happened. A sudden hand on her shoulder nearly made Jess jump from the hard chair.

  “Can I talk to you?” It was Mike who had entered the diner and come up behind her. “Privately?”

  She glanced at Vivian, then back to Mike, unsure whether to press Vivian further first, and ultimately deciding against it. She rose on trembling legs and stepped aside with Mike, who kept his back to Vivian and his voice low.

  “There’s been a fire at the governor’s ranch. They took Helen and her husband to Tampa Southern in the death chopper.”

  “A fire?” Jess repeated dumbly. “In the what?”

  “The Medevac helicopter,” Mike said. “They don’t send the death chopper out unless the patient’s near dead already. That’s what my girlfriend said. She just called. She works at the hospital, in ICU. Thought you’d wanna know.”

  For the first time since she’d entered the diner, she glanced up at the clock. Almost eleven o’clock. Jess absorbed the information and struggled with her choices. Questions swarmed through her mind. How had it gotten to be so late already? Tommy Taylor was due to die in nineteen hours. But what if he really hadn’t killed Matthew Crawford? Could another killer be walking free tonight?

  No, she thought. Arnold Ward had seen Taylor put Crawford’s body in the trunk.

  Or had he? If Ward lied about what he’d seen that night, what exactly did he lie about? Did he really see Taylor put Mattie in the trunk of that car but lie about his certainty? Could Arnold Ward have framed Taylor for the murder?

  And was there new DNA evidence to prove Taylor not guilty? Or was Vivian hinting at something else entirely?

  Jess shook her head to clear her mind. What should she do? Whatever it was, she had to do it now. Attempt to pry more out of Vivian? Or leave for Tampa Southern?

  She considered a fire at the governor’s ranch, a victim hovering near death. What were the chances that the fire tonight was an accident? On the same day as the truck bombing? On the night before Taylor’s execution? Something was happening. This couldn’t be coincidence.

  Jess glanced again at Vivian and shook her head. What if this woman, who lingered on the fringes of health and sanity, held the answer? Even so, would she tell Jess anything definitive before Taylor was executed? Given that her husband had died rather than reveal anything that might help Taylor, it seemed unlikely that Vivian would spill everything to Jess.

  Too many questions, too little information, few answers, no time to think things through. And a grimmer thought occurred to her: If Governor Sullivan was hurt, maybe incapacitated, how would Jess get the sketchy hints she’d gleaned from Vivian Ward into the right hands?

  Jess realized she was wasting precious time continuing to analyze. She had to act. Now. Go with her gut and deal with the consequences as they arose. What should she do? What?

  Before she could choose, a noise drew her gaze to the diner window. Outside, another SUV pulled into the parking lot. This one was painted royal blue and was covered in advertising for a local news station. It had a satellite feed on the roof.

  The SUV parked; a reporter and a photographer opened the two front doors and stepped out, rushing to gather their equipment. In a few seconds, they’d be inside the diner, filming for the late night news, she guessed. Footage she didn’t want documenting her presence here, or Vivian’s wild ramblings.

  Jess’s choice was made by providence; her chance to press Vivian further had passed. At this point, all she could attempt was damage control.

  She lowered her head and whispered to Mike, “I’ll be right there. Don’t even look at those two. Don’t say a word to them. I don’t even want them to know who you are.”

  She nodded in the general direction of the news van outside, put the flat of her palm onto Mike’s back and pushed him toward the SUV.

  To his credit, the kid caught on fast. He moved toward the door.

  Jess returned to the table where Vivian still played solitaire, still smoked, coughed and spit. Jess leaned in closer and lowered her voice as she stuffed her notebook, recorder, and pen into her bag. She scanned the table to be sure she’d left nothing behind.

  “Vivian?”

  “What, sugar?” She never looked up from her cards.

  “I’ll be back to talk to you in a few hours. As early as I can get here. And when I do, I want to know everything. We can’t let them execute the wrong man. We can’t leave Mattie Crawford’s real killer out there. You know that.”

  Vivian shrugged. “Taylor ain’t the wrong man to die, far as I can tell.” She flipped over another three cards, played the red queen on the black king.

  Jess looked outside, saw a perfectly-coiffed reporter and his cameraman striding toward the diner. “Are you going to tell them that?”

  “It ain’t no secret, sugar,” Vivian said.

  That cinched it. She’d gotten as much as she could out of Vivian, at least for the moment.

  “Tomorrow,” Jess promised Vivian one last time. “Early.” And she hurried out the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  Thornberry, Florida

  Thursday 10:30 p.m.

  HELEN LEANED OVER OLIVER’S MOUTH and felt his breath touch her lips. Smoke had blackened his cheeks and forehead and tracked down from his closed eyelids.

  “Don’t leave me, Oliver,” she whispered. “You’re all I have left in the world. Please don’t leave me.”

  Until she noticed her tears mingling with the black soot on his face, she hadn’t realized she was crying. It had been a long, long time since she’d allowed herself to cry, and she never cried in front of anyone.

  She wiped his face with her hands and tried to stop crying, but Oliver was alive, and the tears kept flowing.

  She heard Frank Temple calling her name, closer now, and shouting directions to the rescue workers. In moments the paramedics swooped in with oxygen, fluids and a gurney.

  Helen moved aside only to let them work. They seemed competent, but she watched every move they made. One of them tried to examine her; she pulled away.

  “My husband first. He’s hurt badly.” She wondered at the tone of authority her voice managed to project—inside, she felt none of that poise or certainty.

  After Oliver was loaded onto the gurney and they began to move him, one of the paramedics turned and squinted at her. “Ma’am? I need you to look at me,” the paramedic said, shining a light into her eyes.

  Involuntarily, she blinked, and then moved around him to accompany Oliver. The paramedic put his hand on her arm to stop her. She shook him off and followed behind the gurney toward the Medevac helicopter.

  Frank Temple fell into step beside her. She raised her voice to be heard over the roar of the helicopter and the noises of the rescue teams.

  “Stay here,” she told Frank. “Learn as much as you can. You’re my eyes and ears. Meet me at the hospital later.”

  For the second time in their relationship, Frank questioned her wishes. “I can’t let you be anywhere without security, Governor. I have men I trust here. I’m coming with you.”

  Numbly, she gave in. But as she watched Oliver be loaded into the helicopter, rage began to replace shock.

  None of this should have ever happened.

  She’d left little to chance since Eric’s death, exercising her iron will to protect herself, her family and the ranch. The longer she thought about Jake and Oliver and the invasion of her home, the angrier she became. She felt as if she had an oversized bulls-eye printed on everything dear to her, and she’d had enough of it.

  She turned to Frank and allowed her anger to surface. “If you really want to help, you can find out what the hell happened here. Your security team was supposed to be taking care of Oliver. Where were they? Where’s Todd Dale? Find him and bring him with you. Somebody owes me some answers.”

 
To his credit, he didn’t argue this time, even though she had no technical authority to direct his procedures. Instead he began speaking commands into his portable radio as she stepped into the helicopter and found a place to sit for the short flight to Tampa.

  She stared out the front windshield as the chopper lifted off, ignoring the paramedic who continued to pester her with his examination attempts. She felt the sting of the cuts on her face and suspected she’d need more than a few stitches. It’s a good thing I’ve never had to rely on being pretty. The weak humor barely touched her mood.

  The paramedic wouldn’t let up. “Ma’am? Please lay down here. Let me check you over, take your vitals. Make sure you’re okay.”

  She continued to stare at the destruction of her home. She saw Jake’s barn in full flame, a total loss, all the horses gone. She felt small comfort that a much broader disaster had been averted.

  “Ma’am? You’re going to get me in trouble if we land and you’re not on a gurney. Please don’t get me fired. I need this job.”

  The pleading tone of his voice may have been a lie, but Helen saw no harm in doing as he asked for the moment. She lay down and allowed him to treat her while she sorted through the events of the past few hours with cold, hard logic.

  Helen heard the reassuring sound of Oliver’s heart monitor projecting regular beeps. He was alive. But he’d made no sound of any kind. Nor had he moved, even the slightest bit, since she’d first found him. Back in the woods, when she’d cradled him in her lap, she thought she’d felt a slight depression of his temple on the bloodied side of his head. Maybe not. She hoped not. She waited for one of the medical personnel to mention it.

  The paramedic lifted her arm and she winced. “You’ve got a nasty burn here. We’ll get it treated when we reach the hospital.”

  Burn? How had she burned herself? She didn’t remember coming anywhere near the fire. But she must have. Since he’d brought the burn to her attention, she felt it like an open flame. As the paramedic cut what remained of her ball gown’s long, slender sleeve away, she groaned in response to the slight pressure of his fingers.