Randall sent a concerned look to Addison. "Are you all right?"
"I just want to get this over with." She'd made it over the first hurdle. She wondered how many more she would have to leap before the day was over.
The sheriff handed the stapled copies to Randall. "If you have any more questions or need any more information about this accident, feel free to give me a call."
"We'll do that."
Ten minutes later, Addison and Randall were back in his Jeep heading south on Highway 9 toward Hoosier Pass. In the half hour they'd spent with Sheriff White, the afternoon sky had gone from a crisp, flawless blue to charcoal gray. Ominous clouds billowed like smoke on the western horizon.
Addison pored over the accident report, trying to make sense of the handwriting and abbreviations. "This report lists icy road conditions and excessive speed as the cause."
Randall glanced over at her.
"My father was a cautious driver," she said. "He didn't speed. Not on a mountain road at night, especially if the roads were icy."
''The roads weren't icy that night. The report says they hit an icy patch."
Frustrated, she looked down at the report. Her eyes skimmed down to the bottom of the page where the sheriff had written a short summary, including another theory that the driver may have fallen asleep at the wheel.
"This isn't right," she said. ''There's no way my father fell asleep at the wheel."
"How do you know?"
"For one thing, my mother could talk a hundred miles an hour. She never stopped talking, especially if she had my father captive in the car." The memory made her smile. "Besides, I served coffee after dinner that night. Haitian Bleu, if my memory serves me. My father loved the dark grinds and drank it by the gallon. The man had enough caffeine in his system to keep the city of Denver awake for a week."
"The report says it was late, Addison. Well after midnight."
"My father was a night bird. He was retired and liked to stay up late and sleep late. I'm telling you he wasn't tired when he left my apartment."
"Are you sure he was driving?"
"My mother was blind as a bat at night. She never drove after dark."
For the first time since they'd left the sheriff's office, Randall gave her his full attention. "All the more reason to take a look at the vehicle."
Until now, she'd assumed he was only interested in seeing the scene of the accident, not the vehicle itself. ''The car rolled over two hundred feet." She glanced through the passenger window, realizing how physically grueling a trek into a ravine would be. "How are we going to reach it?"
The look he gave her wasn't friendly. "Don't take this personally, Ace, but you're not going with me. You're going to keep that cute little butt of yours in the truck and make sure I make it back in one piece."
The reference to her backside annoyed her, but not nearly as much as him telling her she wasn't going with him into the ravine. "Don't take this personally, tough guy, but I'll damn well go into the ravine with you if I feel it's necessary and I just happen to feel it's necessary."
"Dammit, Addison, I'm not kidding around." He pointed toward the horizon. “There's a front coming in, and I don't want to be here when it dumps two feet of snow. It's great for skiers, but hell on drivers."
She'd been too preoccupied to notice the line of steel gray clouds building in the west. "I'm fully aware of the weather, but I don't see what it has to do with me taking a look at my parents’ car."
"If that ravine's as rugged as I think it is, it's going to take me a while to rappel down. I don't need you slowing me down. I want to get in and out as quickly and as safely as possible. Then we've got to get down this mountain before heavy weather sets in. By the looks of those clouds, I'd say we have another couple of hours of decent driving left."
She hated it when he made more sense than she did. Granted, she was no rock climber, but it was going to be difficult to sit back and let him go into that ravine alone.
She was about to concede when he suddenly slowed the Jeep and pulled onto the narrow shoulder. To her right, Addison saw nothing but the tops of aspens and clear mountain air. She'd never been afraid of heights, but the sight of the drop sent a shiver through her.
"What mile marker does it say on the report?" he asked.
She paged through the report and found the mile marker number circled. "Forty feet south of mile marker thirty-five."
"This is it." Not giving her time to protest, he swung open the door and stepped out of the Jeep. "Stay put."
She shot him the best go-to-hell look she could muster.
He grinned and slammed the door.
Too restless to sit in the truck, Addison got out and walked to the rear of the Jeep. "I'm-going with you."