The Next Accident (12 page)

Quincy sighed. He dragged a hand through his hair. "Today, I amused myself by pulling all my old case files and building a database of anyone I've ever ticked off. The bad news is that there's a lot of them. The good news is that an amazing number of them are either in jail or dead."

"That's what I like about you, Quincy. Your ability to network."

He nodded absently. "I'm eighty percent sure I'm a target, Rainie. I have no idea whose. I can't even be sure why. Revenge is the obvious answer. Why not? But for whatever reason, someone has started weaving a very complex web, and no matter what I do, I think I'm already stuck right smack in the middle of it."

"You have friends, Quincy," she said quietly. "We'll help you.
I'll
help you."

"Will you?" He looked her in the eye. "Rainie," he said softly, "tell me what you learned about Mandy. Tell me what we both already know in our gut."

Rainie looked away. She finished her coffee. She set the empty paper cup on the picnic table, then spun it between her hands. She didn't want to answer his request, and they both knew it. She also understood, however, that she couldn't soft-pedal the news. One more thing she and Quincy had in common – they preferred their bad news direct. Get it out. Get it over. Get it done.

"You're right," she said shortly, "somethings rotten in Denmark."

"It was murder?"

"I don't know that," she countered immediately, her voice firm. "What's the number one rule of investigating – no jumping to conclusions. At the moment, we have no physical evidence that suggests murder."

"On the other hand…" he said for her.

"On the other hand, something's up with Mary Olsen."

"Really?" Quincy seemed genuinely surprised. He frowned, rubbed his temples, and she could tell he'd gone straight to self-doubt about his impression of sweet little Mrs. Doctor Olsen because he already appeared dazed.

"I spoke with her this morning, Quince, and Mary recanted everything. Mandy
looked
like she was drinking Diet Coke all night, but
maybe
she was spiking it with rum. You might have gotten the impression from Mary that Mandy had a boyfriend, but Mary now says that wasn't the case at all. Furthermore, Mandy had been known to drink and drive before, so it probably was as simple as that."

"Mandy spiked her own Coke at a friend's house, then made it all the way to the middle of nowhere before suddenly being so drunk that she crashed?"

"I didn't say Mary had a good story, I just said she had a new story."

"Why? She was my daughter's best friend.
"Why?
"

Rainie could hear the deeper question behind those words. Why was this happening, to Mandy, to him? Why would someone hurt his daughter? Why wouldn't the world stay controlled and rational, the way all behavioral scientists wanted it to be?

"I think Mary's a lonely little princess," Rainie answered softly. "I think for the right kind of attention, she could be manipulated very easily."

"The UNSUB got to her? Made her change her story?"

"Or the UNSUB got to her and had her make up the story in the first place. We don't really know that someone hurt Mandy. We do know that Mary said things at the funeral, however, that made you
think
someone hurt Mandy."

"I'm being played," Quincy filled in slowly. "Harassing phone calls, illegal automobile purchases, rumors about my daughter…" He sat up a little straighten "Shit, I'm being played like a fucking violin!"

Rainie blinked. "Since when did you take up swearing:?"

"Yesterday. I'm finding it highly addictive. Like nicotine.

"You're
smoking,
too?"

"No, but I haven't lost my deep and abiding love for metaphors."

"I'm serious, Quince, you're letting yourself fall apart."

"And apparently, you haven't lost your deep and abiding love for understatement."

"Quincy – "

"What's wrong, Rainie?" he quizzed with that new edge in his voice. "Can't stand for me to be so
human?"

She was up from the picnic table before she knew what she was doing, her hands fisted at her side and her heart hammering in her chest. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means… it means I'm tired," Quincy said more quietly, his voice already conciliatory. "It means I'm under pressure. It means probably, that I'm looking for a fight. But you're not the person for me to fight with. So let's not do this now. Let's forget I said anything, and simply not do this now."

"Too late."

"You looking for a fight, too, Rainie?"

She knew she shouldn't say it. She knew he was right and they were both stressed and now was not the time. Six long months without even one damn phone call. She brought up her chin and said, "Maybe."

Quincy got up from the picnic table. He dusted off his hands. He stared at her, and his gaze appeared a lot more composed than she felt. He'd always been so good at remaining in control.

"You want to know where we went wrong?" he said crisply. "You want to know why it started out seeming so right, and then the world ended, not with a bang, but a whimper? I can tell you why, Rainie. It ended because you have no faith. Because one year later, the new, improved Lorraine Conner still doesn't believe. Not in me. And most certainly not in yourself."

"1 don't have faith?" she countered. "
I
don't have faith? This from the man whose only way of coming to terms with his daughter's death is to turn it into murder."

Quincy recoiled sharply. "Strike one to the woman in blue jeans," he murmured, his expression growing hidden, growing hard.

Rainie wouldn't back down, though, couldn't back down. She'd only learned one way to deal with life, and that was to fight. "No hiding behind your wry observations, Quincy. You want me to see you as human? Then act human. For God's sake, we're not even having a real argument yet, because you're still too busy lecturing me!"

"I'm simply saying you have no faith – " "Stop psychoanalyzing me! Be less therapist, more man – "

"Man? Last time I tried being a man, you looked at me as if I was going to hit you. You don't need a man, Rainie. You need either a blow-up doll or a damn saint!"

"Son of a bitch!" Rainie opened her mouth to yell further, then suddenly froze. She knew what he was talking about. That night, their last night together nearly eight months ago in Portland. Going to Pioneer Square. Sitting outside at Starbucks and listening to some a capella group perform. Talking, relaxing, having a nice time. And afterwards, going to his hotel because she still had the dingy apartment. She'd been thinking that she'd been so lonely. She'd been thinking that it was so good to see him again.

She'd moved closer. Inhaled the scent of his cologne. How much she loved that fragrance. And she'd felt him grow still, his body nearly breathless as if he understood that even exhaling might frighten her away. He'd gone still, so she'd kept approaching. She'd smelled the skin at his throat. Explored the curve of his ear. And then, something had taken hold of her. Desire maybe – she had so little experience with the real thing. She'd just wanted to touch him, more and more, if he'd stay, just like that, not moving, not breathing. She'd unbuttoned his shirt. She'd smoothed it from his shoulders. He had a hard chest, sculpted by a lifetime of running. The whorls of chest hair felt spongy against her palm. She placed her hand over his heart and felt it race against her touch.

On his collarbone and upper arm. Three small scars. Souvenirs of a shotgun blast, not all of which had been absorbed by his vest. Tracing those scars with her fingertips. Quincy, the super agent. Quincy, the superhero. Marveling…

His hand had suddenly snapped around her wrist. Her gaze jerked up. For the first time she saw his expression, dark and glittery with lust.

And the moment flew away from her. Her body froze, her mind rocketed back and she was thinking of yellow-flowered fields and smooth-flowing streams. She remained touching his body, but it was harsh now, a sick imitation of the real thing. The way she'd been taught in the very beginning.

Quincy had pushed her away. He'd told her to give him a minute. But she hadn't. She'd been humiliated, embarrassed, ashamed. And being Rainie, she'd told him it was all his fault, then left without saying another word. In the following months, it had been easier for her to simply let the phone ring. If he did catch her at home, she was always too busy to talk.

He was right; she was the one who'd stopped returning his calls. But he was supposed to know better. He was supposed to understand and still come after her. Except he hadn't.

"I'm supposed to be patient," Quincy said, as if reading her mind. "I'm supposed to be persistent. I'm supposed to be tolerant of your mood swings, your temper, your troubled past. I'm supposed to be everything, Rainie, but frustrated and angiy – "

"Hey, I'm dealing with a lot of things – "

"And so am I! We're all dealing with things. Unfortunately, you seem to think you're the only person who's allowed to be petty Well, I have news for you. I buried my daughter last month. My coworkers are now conducting surveillance on her grave. And no matter what I do, I can't reach my ex-wife, whose family connections might have enough power to call it off. I'm not just mad, Rainie. I'm pretty damn pissed off."

"Well, there's your problem, Quincy – you're mimicking me when we both know I should be mimicking you."

"I can't be perfect for you right now, Rainie."

"Dammit, I am not that needy!" Rainie scowled at him. Quincy merely shook his head.

"You have to have faith," he said quietly. "I know it's hard, but at some point, you have to believe. Some people are evil, some people will hurt you, but not everyone will. And trying to stay safe by going at it alone doesn't work in the end. Isolation is
not
protection. I know. I thought it would be easier if I never opened up to my family, if I never got too close. Then I lost my daughter, and it hasn't been any easier at all. I am falling apart."

"Quincy – "

"But I am going to put myself back together," he continued as if he hadn't heard her. "I am going to find the son of a bitch who did this. And if I have to be angry to do that, I'll be angry. And if I have to stop sleeping and start swearing and behave like an utter jerk, I'll do that, too. I'm coping, Rainie, and nobody ever said coping had to be pretty. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to try to reach Bethie again."

Quincy turned away. He started walking back to his car. Rainie knew she should say something, but what came out didn't make much sense.

"Just because you survive, doesn't mean you'll end up happily-ever-after," she yelled at him. "Just because you cope, doesn't mean you'll win. Bad things can still happen. There's the jackals, you know. And, and…jackals everywhere…"

"Good night, Rainie."

He wasn't going to stop. It was her turn to make the effort; fair was fair. Funny, she'd never thought about it until now, but in her family, no one was ever encouraged to stay.

"It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks," she muttered in her own defense. But Quincy was already gone and there wasn't anyone else left to hear.

The hour was growing late, dusk beginning to fall. In his car, Quincy used his cell phone to call his ex-wife. But once more he got the machine.

Rainie didn't have a cell phone. She went into the restaurant and used the pay phone in the lobby.

"Hey, Big Boy," she said a moment later. "Let me buy you a drink."

Virginia

By nine P.M.
, Rainie was edgy and tense. She'd returned to her motel for a quick shower before meeting Officer Amity – who was now suggesting that she call him Vince. In her room, she discovered a phone message from the same lawyer who'd called that morning. Some attorney named Carl Mitz was all hot and bothered to get in touch with her. He'd left numbers for his pager and his cell phone. Rainie studied the numbers without calling any of them.

Prospective clients were never this eager. Prospective clients made it their business to make you find them.

Rainie put the message aside. She showered. She washed her hair. She stood for a long, long time with the hot water beating down on her neck and shoulders. Then she put on the same old clothes and headed for the bar.

Officer Vince Amity was already there. He'd also showered and now wore a black western dress shirt tucked into a faded pair of jeans and finished with a pair of scuffed-up boots. The shirt stretched across broad shoulders. When he stood, the jeans barely contained the bulge of his thighs. A fine specimen of a man. The proverbial hunk of burning love.

Rainie ordered her bottle of Bud Light and told herself she did not miss Quincy.

"Ribs here are really good," Vince said.

"Okay."

"And the sweet potato fries. Ever had sweet potato fries? Worth every minute of the ensuing open-heart surgery."

"Okay." The waitress came by. They placed their twin orders for ribs and sweet potato fries and the minute the waitress was gone, Vince gamely tried again.

"So how long do you think you'll be in Virginia?"

"Don't know. Right now, I have more questions than answers, so at this rate it could be a while."

"Where are you staying?"

"Motel Six."

" Virginia has more to offer than Motel Six, you know. Ever have some free time, feel like seeing any of the sights…"

He let the invitation trail off politely. She nodded with equal politeness. Then he surprised her by saying quietly, "I ran a background check, Rainie. You don't have to pretend for me."

She stiffened. She couldn't help herself, even if she was supposedly now at peace with her past. Old habits died hard; she found she was relentlessly stroking the icy cold bottle of unconsumed beer.

"You run background checks on all your dates?" she asked finally.

"Man can't be too careful."

She gave his muscle-bound build a meaningful look and he rewarded her with a grin.

"You found me at work, asked a lot of questions, and kept following up," he told her. "Call me old-fashioned, but I like to know more about the women chasing me. Besides, your friend Sheriff Hayes sang your praises from here to the Mississippi – "

"He tell you I was indicted for man one?"

"Charged but never tried."

"Not everyone sees the difference."

"I'm from Georgia, honey. We consider all women dangerous; it's part of their charm."

"The open-minded men of the South. Who would've thought?"

Officer Amity grinned again. He leaned over the old wood table and planted his thick forearms. "I like you," he said bluntly, "but don't play me for dumb."

"I don't know what you mean – "

"I'm not who you want to have dinner with tonight."

"Luke," Rainie declared grimly, "has a big mouth!"

"Sheriff Hayes is a good friend. It's nice to see they grow them right in Oregon, too. By the end of this evening, however, I'm gonna be even a bigger friend for you."

"Oh yeah?"

The waitress interrupted them with heaping platters of food. The minute she was gone, Vince said, "Eat your ribs, ma'am. Then I'll take you to Amanda Quincy's car."

Society Hill
,
Pennsylvania

Bethie was humming when they finally pulled up to her darkened town house. It was nearly ten o'clock; the moon was full and the humidity a soft, fragrant caress against her wind-burned cheeks. It had been a wonder-ful day, a glorious day, and while the hour was growing late, she still wasn't ready for it to end.

"What a fabulous evening," she said gaily.

Tristan smiled at her. Three hours ago, as the day cooled and slid into a purple-hued dusk, he'd taken off his sweater and tucked it around her shoulders. Now she snuggled in soft, cable-knit cotton, inhaling the scent of his cologne and finding it as poignant as his touch earlier in the afternoon. He'd retrieved a navy-blue blazer from the trunk for his own warmth. The jacket was finely cut but there was something about it that nagged at her. Giggling, she'd finally gotten it.

He looked like an FBI agent, she teased him. He'd become a G-man. Fortunately, the comment seemed to amuse him.

"What now?" she asked.

"I believe that's your call, love."

"Are you playing hard to get?"

"I thought it would be an interesting change of pace."

Bethie giggled. She was probably still feeling the effects of the champagne, she decided, because she'd never been the giggling schoolgirl type, not even when she'd been a giggling schoolgirl. Today, however, they'd had one bottle of champagne in Pennsylvania Dutch country, then another bottle back in Philadelphia, sitting down at the waterfront after a superb lobster dinner at Bookbinder's. She'd been worried about driving home, but fortunately the champagne didn't seem to affect Tristan at all. He was a solidly built man, and one who could apparently hold his liquor.

Interesting, she thought absently, but should a man who'd just had a kidney transplant be able to hold his liquor? She wondered when he took all his pills.

"I don't think we're alone anymore," Tristan murmured.

"What? Where?" She looked around her quiet street wide-eyed. Tristan had his arm draped casually around the back of her seat. She leaned her head closer to him.

"I don't see anyone," she said in an exaggerated stage whisper.

"Your neighbor. Through the lace curtains."

"Ah, good old Betty Wilson. Old bat. She's always watching me. About time I had something good to show her." Bethie draped her arms around Tristan's neck and kissed him full on the mouth. He complied readily, his other arm curling around her back and trying to draw her closer only to have the gearshift get in the way. They broke apart breathlessly, thwarted by bucket seats, and she was struck once more by the taste of him on her lips, and her own desperate hunger for more.

His eyes had grown dark again. She loved it when they held that intense, burning gleam.

"Bethie…" he said thickly.

"Oh God, come inside!"

He smiled. "I thought you'd never ask."

Virgin
ia

The salvage yard was dark and deserted, but Officer Amity had come well equipped. He handed out two high-powered flashlights, then strapped a fanny pack filled with tools around his waist. Rainie was impressed.

"I didn't take you for the breaking and entering type," she told him.

Amity shrugged. "When I called earlier, the owner wasn't big on cooperation. Salvage yards can be that way. They've paid for the vehicles and they're afraid to have their newfound property seized as part of a police case. Understandable maybe, but why should you and I keep beating our heads against a wall, when we're both so capable of scaling a chain-link fence?"

"I can do fences," Rainie assured him. "Dobermans have me a little more concerned."

"No dogs. I drove by earlier."

"No dogs? What kind of self-respecting salvage-yard owner doesn't have a dog?"

"The kind who's been turned in to the humane society twice and could no longer afford the cruelty-toward-animal fines. Now he has a security company that drives around in hourly intervals. You see headlights, duck."

"Cool," Rainie said and started whistling "We're off to see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz."

Five minutes later, they'd scaled the eight-foot-high fence and were making their way through the final resting place for thousands of cars. Compacted cubes of metal were piled into rusted-out heaps. Back ends, front ends, bumpers were scattered about like dismembered limbs. The newer acquisitions sat quietly in long lines, fully formed skeletons still awaiting their fate.

"Sheee – it." Amity whistled, looking out at two football fields' worth of wrecked vehicles and untold numbers of tires.

"I'd say look for an SUV," Rainie murmured, "but that doesn't exactly limit our options."

" America 's love for the big automobile," he agreed. "Kind of ironic that we're about to compare a Ford Explorer with the proverbial needle."

"Split up?"

"No."

Rainie nodded and pretended not to hear the concern in his voice. The moon was full, visibility great for a nighttime rendezvous. Still she was conscious of the total hush, the unnatural still of a cemetery-like place. In the dark, abandoned metal took on lifelike shapes, and it was hard not to turn shadowy corners and feel the hairs prickle at the nape of her neck.

They walked in silence, flashlights slicing through the twisted heaps. Every few feet they'd come to an SUV, check for make and model, then keep on moving. One dozen down, five hundred to go. They stumbled upon one particularly crushed compact car and Rainie recoiled at the stench of dried blood.

"Jesus!" she cried, then stuffed a fist into her mouth to keep from saying more.

Vince swept his flashlight over a four-door sedan that had forcefully become a convertible. The cloth seats had once been blue; now they were stained with ugly splotches of brown.

"I'm guessing car versus semi," he said.

"I'm guessing decapitation," Rainie moaned and quickly moved on.

The sound of an approaching engine rumbled through the silence. Rent-a-Cop. They ducked swiftly behind a mountain of twisted chassis, still too close to the bloody convertible and Rainie pinched her nose with her fingers to block out the smell. She was thinking of the medical report now, the one Quincy had no doubt read time after time after time. How Amanda Quincy had struck the telephone pole at approximately 35 miles per hour. How the force of that impact pushed the front bumper down and the rear bumper up, launching her unsecured body into the air. Her body had hit the steering wheel first. The column had crumpled as it was designed to do, sparing her internal organs but doing nothing to halt her flight. Next had come the dashboard, bending her body like a rag doll at the waist. Finally came the metal frame of the windshield, not designed to crumple on impact, and now driving deep into Mandy's brain while the unyielding glass crushed all the bones in her face.

The security guard finally moved on. Amity and Rainie stood. She said, "I know how to find the Explorer."

"The windshield?"

"Yeah." And maybe it was horrible, but things moved much faster from there.

They finally found the dark green remnant at the very edge of the salvage yard; Rainie called it a remnant because it certainly didn't resemble a vehicle anymore. The entire back end had been clipped off, no doubt soldered together with some rear-ended SUV's front end by the auto world's equivalent of Dr. Frankenstein. The runners were gone. Both doors and the front seats stripped. The tires shed. What was left looked like a gutted fish head, lying on the gaping back hole where its body used to be while its crushed bumper smiled obscenely in the dark.

"Spooky," Amity muttered.

"Let's not linger."

"I'll second that."

Officer Amity opened up his fanny pack and spread out his wares. He was the proud owner of two pairs of latex gloves – a little late to protect the evidence now, Rainie thought, but what the hell. He'd also brought a penknife, a screwdriver, a wrench, four Baggies, and interestingly enough, a magnifying glass.

He handed her the screwdriver, and wordlessly they went to work. First they took off the trim piece of the B-pillar, exposing the plastic casing around the driver-side seat belt. Rainie tested the strap with her hand, and true to Amity's report, it spooled toothlessly onto the floor. He held up the flashlight to provide better lighting and before they went any farther, she got out the magnifying glass. She held it up to the casing. Then she looked somberly at Amity. The plastic casing bore deep scratch marks: they were not the first to pry it open.

"I hereby do solemnly swear," he murmured, "to disassemble all 'nonoperative' seat belts in all auto accidents to come."

Rainie exchanged the magnifying glass for the penknife and cracked the mechanism open. Inside was a giant white plastic gear, with one main white plastic paw and one small back-up lever in case the primary failed. In theory, when the seat belt was pulled forward, it turned the gear, which then caught on the lever and froze. Except that in this case, the main paw had been filed down and the back-up lever clipped off. Rainie pulled on the seat belt again, and they both watched the white gear spin around and around and around.

"If she'd taken it in," Amity said after a moment, "the mechanic guy would've caught it."

"So our guy had to make sure she didn't have the vehicle serviced."

"Isn't that risky, though? If you're going to tamper with a seat belt, why do it a whole month before? Seems like you'd do it day of, or maybe I've just been watching too much
Murder, She Wrote."

"Prejudices," Rainie said. "Yours, mine, any cop's. She knows the seat belt is broken, so she doesn't even put it on. And when you arrive at a scene where the driver is drunk and hasn't even bothered to strap in…"

"You think she's pretty stupid," Amity said quietly. "You think, whether you mean to or not, that she got what she deserved. And then you don't ask too many questions."

"Nobody looks too closely," Rainie agreed. She was frowning though, chewing on her bottom lip. "It still seems risky. I mean, if you wanted to kill someone and have it look like an accident, would you simply tamper with a seat belt and hope fate sooner or later takes its course?"

"Victim has a history of drinking and driving. Perp provides the alcohol, then lets her get behind the wheel. Chances are she won't make it home."