“I’ll need to keep these, Mrs. Bliss. I’m sure there’s some mistake, but this car was reported stolen yesterday, and the department has to take possession of it.”
I laughed nervously. “Of course there’s a mistake, Dennis. This is my husband’s car, and we certainly didn’t report it stolen.” My voice was raised, and Michael complained with a quick bleat of alarm and dropped back to sleep. “You must give those back to me. This car is obviously not stolen.”
“Ma’am, I can radio back to the station to have someone come and pick you up, but I can’t let you take the car. Your name isn’t on the registration, and I can’t let you drive it away.”
He was growing more agitated, his tightly controlled voice getting higher.
“That’s ridiculous. No one needs to call anyone.” My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly, I could feel the ridges of it pressing into the pads of my palms. I couldn’t let anyone call Press. I wanted to believe that it had all been a stupid mistake, but in my heart I knew better.
“I don’t want to take you into custody, Mrs. Bliss. Your little boy, neither.”
But I wasn’t listening. I’d made a decision. Jerking the car into DRIVE, I pushed down the gas pedal and veered onto the road. I had an impression of Dennis Mueller reaching out after me, and, glancing in my mirror, saw him stumble and fall into the road. That he might have been seriously injured never occurred to me. My mind was blank with fear.
Moments later, the red lights behind me had disappeared, and I was nearly to the intersection that would take me out to Highway 29 toward Charlottesville.
“It’s going to be all right. It’s going to be all right,” I whispered to myself under my breath, grateful that Michael hadn’t woken up. Reaching the intersection, I stopped and looked in my rearview mirror. Dennis Mueller hadn’t followed me. There was no light at the intersection—just a stop sign. I turned. Accelerated. But I hadn’t driven more than a few hundred feet when I saw the woman in the road. She was barely dressed in a sagging satin bathing suit or leotard, her hair wild about her chalky face, across which was a slash of bright red lipstick or, perhaps, blood. Her legs were short and heavily fleshed, her feet bare. She turned her head as I stomped the brakes, and I saw that the side of her scalp was torn away, bloody. It was Helen Heaster.
The Eldorado’s brakes locked and we fishtailed so that I lost control. I cried out as the car left the shoulder and hurtled, bumping and sliding, down the brush-clogged slope.
Chapter 36
The Truth
I was unconscious for such a short amount of time that Michael’s cries hadn’t quite turned into full-blown screams. My head ached, but my first panicked thought was for him. I fumbled for my seatbelt; but as I shifted, I realized my left foot was caught beneath the seat, and I felt a terrible pain as I pulled it free.
“It’s okay, baby. You’re fine. Just fine.” I spoke to calm him, but I had no idea if he was actually fine. The seatbelt had loosened and twisted with the rolling of the car, and I found him sideways, the belt squeezing his small torso in two. “You’re okay. You’ll be all right.”
Ignoring the voice in my head that wanted to shout for help—to scream in horror of what I might have just done to my second and only child—I struggled to release him. The buckle was caught up beneath his arm, and my heart broke for him when he began to cry harder as I squeezed it that much tighter to loosen it. But in a few seconds the buckle released and he dropped, free, into my hands.
Heedless of any injuries that I couldn’t see in the dark, I pulled him close and kissed his soft hair and his cheek that was wet with tears. He was free and he was breathing. That was all that mattered.
Except that I knew we had to get out of that car. We had to get away.
The car had stopped just short of the bottom of the hill, but hadn’t rolled, thank God. I was able to open the passenger door easily and pull Michael out. I tried to put him down for a moment so I could get my purse, which lay on the floor of the back seat, but he clung to me, crying and terrified. I felt cruel, but I had to wrest him from my neck. When I set him on the weeds outside the car, he screamed louder.
“It’s okay, Michael. It’s all right. I just have to get my purse.”
He wasn’t hearing me. I bent back into the car to grab the handle of my purse, but when I jerked it from beneath the seat, something popped out with it. Even with the car’s dome light on, the floor was in shadow, so I pulled up both the purse and the thing beside it so I could see it in the light.
It was a small, mud-encrusted sandal. A sandal that, beneath the mud, had once been white leather. Eva’s sandal.
When had I seen it last? My head was pounding and Michael was screaming. When? Why was it in Press’s car?