The Cemetery Club (Darcy & Flora Cozy Mystery Book 1) (15 page)

The heavy car edged ever
closer to the center line. Its passenger door was perilously close to my
driver’s side door.

Scooting farther toward the
ditch, I glanced at my mother. She was praying as she clutched the dashboard.

A bolt of lightning slivered
the sky, hovering long enough to make trees beside the highway stand out for a
split second like some eerie black and white photograph. In that instant, I saw
inside the metal hulk beside us. The car contained not one man, but two.

Struggling to stay on the
pavement, we careened around the first curve down Deertrack Hill. Tires
screamed. The guardrail was only a few inches away and below that was the
Ventris River.

The other driver closed the
gap between his passenger door and my door. The first bump was a dull thud as
he struck and we skidded. Then, he whammed us again. Sparks flew as metal
struck metal and my Passport slid. We hit the guardrail with a rending sound.

My forehead connected with
the rearview mirror and Mom gripped her door handle as if it were a lifeline.

Terror settled into a cold,
hard knot of fury in the pit of my stomach. I would not continue in this crazy
race that we could not win, but I would not be at the mercy of this evil being
who was playing with us as if he were a cat and we were the cornered mice. We
had one chance, a slim one. Praying that we would join the ranks of those who
survived a tumble down Deertrack Hill, I determined that we would indeed go
over; not sideways, but nose first.

“Hang on!” I yelled.
Stomping the accelerator, I wrenched the steering wheel to the right. The
Passport lurched up and over the guardrail. The last thing I heard was the
sound of that reinforced rail snapping like a popsicle stick.

Chapter 22

Something wet dripped onto
my face. Very annoying. Did Mom know her roof leaked? Dad would never have
allowed such a thing. My bed must be under a hole in the roof. Strangely,
someone, somewhere, was groaning. Pain twisted my mid-section. Slowly, I raised
my heavy hands and felt the seat belt stretched tightly around my waist. Horror
gripped me as memory returned. I was the person groaning and my head, as well
as my stomach hurt. This nightmare was real and I was not waking up safe and
secure in my childhood bedroom.

With a huge effort, I opened
my eyes. As my blurry sight cleared, I saw that a large, leafy limb encircled
the front of my Passport. Odd! Were we in a tree? And why was my seat belt
biting into my stomach? Fumbling for the catch on the belt, my fingers felt
cold and stiff. Where was that buckle?

I remembered the sound of
the guardrail snapping and then darkness closed in. We must be at the foot of
Deertrack Hill. We had survived! My heart turned over. At least, I survived,
but where was my mother? Twisting around, I saw that she was not in the front
seat nor the floorboard. Had she been thrown out? Was she dead? My heart beat
so hard in my throat, it nearly choked me.

Moistening my lips, I
croaked, “Mom? Where are you?”

From the back seat, a faint
voice asked, “Darcy? Darcy, are we alive?”

Relief washed over me,
leaving me limp. I would have laughed but my face hurt. Mom’s hands touched the
back of my head. “I landed back here,” she said. “I’m sort of wedged in but I
don’t think any bones are broken.”

“Thank God,” I breathed.
Tears slid down my face. “I’m going to try to unfasten my seat belt. This good
little car protected us. It didn’t roll. It stayed upright.”

Mom’s
voice shook. “It wasn’t the car that protected us; it was an
angel.”

Pushing and tugging at the
belt, I finally had enough slack to unbuckle and shrug out of it. Why hadn’t my
air bag deployed? Did the drag from the thickets on the side of the hill slow
us down enough to cushion our abrupt stop against a tree? My driver’s side
window was completely broken out, but that was a blessing because my door
wouldn’t open. This window would have to be our escape hatch.

Feeling for my mother’s hand
behind me, I asked, “Can you crawl to the front?”

“I think so,” she said.

“Good. I’m going out of this
window, then I’ll reach back in and pull you through if you can push with your
feet.”

Three minutes later we stood
on the ground beside my wrecked Passport. Rain dripped off the leaves of the
giant oak which had stopped our downward slide. Wet, bleeding, and shaking, Mom
and I hugged each other and tried to breathe normally.

My mother’s face was
scratched but she seemed to be all right. “Are you sure you are okay?” I asked.

“After surviving that, I
don’t think I’ll ever be afraid of anything again,” she said. “I must be a
pretty tough cookie.”

“And a pretty brave one,” I
said.

Mom touched my face. “Oh,
Darcy, your poor head is bleeding.”

Gingerly, I felt of my
forehead. My hand came away red and sticky. “It’s okay,” I said. “It probably
looks worse than it feels. Believe it or not, it doesn’t hurt much.”

Shaking her head, she drew a
deep breath and said, “At least we got away from that rat in the other car. Why
on earth would anybody want to run us off the road?”

“Why indeed, Mom? Why do you
think?”

She
sat down on a wet, gray rock. “It’s the same person who killed Ben and Skye,
isn’t it? The same one who sent that poison gas trap
yesterday?”

“It has to be. And it isn’t
one. It’s two. I saw inside their car.”

An
alien sound broke the stillness. “Shhh,” I whispered. “I hear
something.”

At first, all we heard was
the drip-drip of rain, then through the woods came the unmistakable murmur of
voices.

“Maybe somebody saw us go
over the guardrail,” Mom whispered. “Maybe they are coming to help.”

“Or maybe they are the guys
in that thug car. Quick, we’ve got to get out of here.”

Any attempt to run would be
futile. Neither of us was fit for a fifty-yard dash. Tugging at Mom’s hand, I
urged, “Let’s see if we can find a hiding place, something to cover us.”

We limped downhill as fast
as we could, until a dense sumac thicket blocked our way. I held my finger to
my lips and pointed to the bushy clump. Sinking down to my knees, I crawled in
as far as I could among the stalks. Mom followed. I motioned for her to lie
down and spread some dead leaves over her, trying not to think of the ticks,
chiggers, and possibly snakes who might call this thicket their home. At the
moment, natural dangers dimmed in the light of deadly humanity.

A man’s voice came clearly
to my ears. “I tell you, there’s no use in tramping through these miserable
woods looking for their bodies. Nobody could survive going down this hill at
the speed they went over. Come on, let’s go.”

The crashing in the
underbrush grew louder. From my hiding place, all I could see between sumac
stalks were the feet of the approaching men. One wore scuffed brown boots; the
other, black lace-ups. Afraid to move so I could see better, I tried to breathe
silently.

A rough laugh and then a
second voice asked, “What’s the matter? No stomach for a little blood? Help me
open this car door. We’ve got to make sure they’re dead.”

The door of the Passport
creaked as the men wrenched it open. I heard a muffled exclamation. “Not here!
Then, where —”

“They must have been thrown
out somewhere. Like I said, they’re dead. Come on, we’re wasting time. We’ve
got to get out of here before
somebody
stops to examine the broken guard rail and alerts the
police.”

My stomach clenched. That
guttural voice sounded familiar. It sounded like Ray Drake! So, he hadn’t been
working alone but who was his partner? Jim Clendon? The second voice wasn’t
Jasper’s—I was sure of that much.

“Stop whining! You’re a big
city boy and you’re soft. Me? I was born in these hills, know them like I know
my own face. I’m going to look around. Go on back if you want, but I’m going to
make sure those two didn’t survive.” He laughed, not a pleasant sound. “I don’t
know how you’re going to go far, though. I’ve got the car keys.”

Holding my breath, I heard
footsteps nearing our hiding place. Mom’s hand on my arm shook. Trying not to blink,
I saw through the thicket, rain-stained boots step ever closer. The owner of
those boots must have bent over to shove aside some low-hanging branches. His
hands were inches from my face. In his right hand, he held a big, black gun. On
the third finger of his left hand, he wore a gold ring, a ring whose replica
now resided in my mother’s recipe box.

Feeling more than hearing my
mother gasp, I knew that she saw the ring too. I prayed that she would not give
away our hiding place.

At last, these two moved
away. Standing, I helped my mother to her feet, half expecting her to collapse
from fright.

However, another emotion
gripped her.

“That rat!” she hissed.
“He’s wearing Ben’s ring. He cut it off Ben’s finger and now he’s wearing it!
That low-down, dirty . . . .”

Never had I seen my mother
so furious. Through these past weeks, she had been sad, worried, frightened,
and very stubborn, but now, I feared she was going to race after the killer and
attack him with her bare hands.

Holding to her arm, I
cautioned, “I agree with your description, but we’ve got to get out of here. I
don’t think we are able to climb back up the hill to the highway and if we try,
we will probably run into those two. I don’t know where we are, but going down
will be easier than going up.”

Leading the way, I broke
through briers and pushed aside saplings. Never again would I fear that the
birds and animals were losing their natural habitat. Nature’s greenery was
alive and well and most of it seemed to be growing on the lower slopes of Deertrack
Hill. Tree limbs slapped our faces and thorns grabbed our hands and clothes as
we slid, slipped, and fell through an entangling wilderness on our way down to
the Ventris River.

Finally, the hill ended in a
dry stream bed. Sinking down on a large limestone rock, I tried to stop panting
and breathe normally. My mother lay down on a bed of moss under one of the
cottonwood trees.

She groaned. “I’ve got to
catch my breath.”

I dabbed my bloody forehead
with the hem of my shirt. “Same here. Looks like the rain is getting harder.
The only good thing about that is it’ll wash away our footprints.”

My mother rubbed her
scratched arms. “I don’t think we can leave footprints in flint rock and that’s
what most of this is.”

She sat up and put her
finger to her lips. “Darcy! Listen! Do you hear that?”

I froze. Something moved
through the trees above us. A deer ambled out of a thicket and I started
breathing again.

“Whew! Scared me to death.
Mom, do you have any idea where we are? Should we go right or left here? I’m
guessing this was once a creek on its way to the river. I’m surprised there’s
not water in it after all the rain we’ve had.”

She pushed a wet strand of
hair from her eyes, stood up, and looked around. “Oh, I’m so upset, I can’t
think straight,” she said.

“Hurry, Mom. Where would
Ben’s house be from here?”

She looked down at me, “Well
now, Darcy, if I knew that, I’d know where we are, wouldn’t I?”

With my head on my knees, I
mumbled, “I’m sorry. We don’t have any time to waste. Those two are probably
still after us. If we could get to Ben’s house, we’d be close to the road and
civilization. And help!”

My mother grabbed a
low-hanging limb for support and stretched up on her tiptoes. With her other
hand, she shaded her eyes from the rain and peered into the woods.

“Let me think—I am pretty
sure that our old home place and Ben’s, across this creek, would be in that
direction.” She pointed to her right. “This little stream would be running into
the one that divides our land, I think. It really looks different with no water
in it. It must be dry because of the rancher who was damming the creek farther
upstream. The law made him stop but he hasn’t removed the dam.”

Standing up from my rock, I
gazed in the direction she pointed. In this weather, among identical trees, how
could she be sure? One thing was certain: we couldn’t stay where we were.
Doubtless, those two men who ran us off the hill would not give up until they
found us, and it didn’t sound as if they’d hesitate to shoot us.

Looking down at my ragged
outer shirt, I had an idea. Slipping out of it, I tore off a strip at the hem,
then another.

“Darcy!” Mom’s voice was
sharp. “Have you lost your senses? What are you doing?”

“Creating a false trail,” I
muttered. “I saw Captain Kirk do this once to mislead some aliens.”

With the strips in my hand,
I ran in the opposite direction from which Mom had pointed. Hanging one strip
on a wild rose bush, I trotted a little farther. Wiping that strip across my
bloody forehead, I hung it on the low branch of a tree. Below the tree was a
patch of mud. I pushed my shoe down in it, the toe pointing opposite our
direction.

Mom
actually smiled as I rejoined her. “Good job, Captain,” she
said.

“This ruse might fool them
for a while, but not for long, I’m afraid. We’ve got to get going.”

“Your poor head, Darcy. We
need to put something around it. It’s bleeding quite a bit.”

“No time. Let’s go.”

“Let’s stay in this dry
creek bed,” Mom said. “They won’t find our trail quite so fast if we don’t
leave any more footprints.”

This time, she led the way
and I followed. Running was nearly impossible. Stumbling after my determined
mother, I tried not to think about my throbbing head. When she stopped
abruptly, I bumped into her.

“There!” she said, pointing
to an overhanging bluff. “I know where we are now! That is the old river
channel. It used to run right against that bluff before the dam went in and
changed it. If we can climb that cliff, we can make it to the road. It should
be about a mile farther that way, as the crow flies.”