He just kept his hands on her.
“Who’s going to believe it? Geoff’ll know that’s not how it happened. What are you going to do, kill him, too? People know I don’t even do this, never mind drive up here and do it at night.
“And how did I even get up here? Geoff was out. My car’s at my house. How are you going to figure that one out, Wade? It doesn’t make sense. Nobody’s going to believe it.”
He stared like some mute, hunted animal.
“What’s your plan, Wade? What’s the goddamn plan?”
“I don’t know what the fucking plan is!” he screamed. He took his hand away from her and pounded the steering wheel several times. “I don’t have a plan!”
Dani looked at him, barely able to breathe. “Wade, please …”
She sat there, catching her breath. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She thought she had reached him. She waited for his breaths to calm. Then he turned the car back from the ledge and righted it on the road.
“Do that one more time I’ll shoot you here,” he said, and pulled out his gun.
He threw the car back in gear and continued climbing.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
“Sheriff Warrick, my name is Ty Hauck, and I was a police detective for years back in Greenwich, Connecticut. I’m here with Chief Joe Riddick of the Templeton police force up near Greeley. I know it’s late, but we have a bit of an emergency here that involves Chief Dunn of Carbondale and we need your help …”
Riddick had done about everything he could going through the skeptical night duty officer to raise the Aspen sheriff so late at night. Hauck couldn’t locate the number of the phone Dani had used to call him from earlier, his own phone no more than a mound of melted plastic back at Watkins’s barn, but he recalled Geoff’s name, Davies, and they were able to obtain his number, which they called, Robertson having told Hauck with relish that it was too late to stop it now, and, thank God, Davies answered. Saying how she was gone—the house empty—and only the dog was there, barking up a storm. And that she would never have left without leaving him a note, and anyway, the only car there had been his. He was worried out of his mind.
Their next call was to the Carbondale Police Department looking for Wade. Hauck was told he was out, on personal matters—that he had been for much of the day—and left strict instructions with the duty officer not to track him down. Hauck pleaded with the guy that it was urgent, but he wasn’t sure if the officer would do what had to be done against his boss with his career path on the line. That was when Hauck thought to bring in Aspen, which had the largest force in the valley.
“There’s been a number of people killed, both here and back where you are, Sheriff Warrick. Trey Watkins and the people in that balloon. And I’m sorry to say it appears Chief Dunn’s had a hand in them. But that’s not why I’m calling now. What’s pressing now is I’m pretty sure he’s got Dani Whalen with him, who’s aware of his involvement in these matters, and I believe he may have already done something terrible to her to keep her quiet. She’s gone missing and we don’t know where he is, and we need to find him, Sheriff, now—if it’s not already too late.”
“You think he’s going to what …?” the Aspen sheriff asked.
“I don’t know, sir. But he was apparently being squeezed by people up here to shut her up. Bad people.”
“Dani Whalen …” The sheriff already seemed to be in gear. “She’s Wade’s stepdaughter, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is, Sheriff,” Hauck said worriedly. “She is.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
They were almost at the summit now. Dani recalled that the access road led to a flat cliff top, which during the day paragliders and base jumpers used as a jumping-off point. And a sheer drop of two thousand feet.
She eyed Wade’s gun, but knew she couldn’t get close to it. What was he going to do, shoot her up there and then roll her body off to the valley floor? At the top, there would be nowhere for her to run or escape other than over the cliff.
Dani’s heart began to race. There was only a couple of hundred feet left to climb.
“I remember when I first met you,” Dani said. She wiped the blood off her chin. “I was what, ten? You were a whole lot different than my dad, and I went, ‘What the hell has mom brought home now?’”
He looked at her and tried to convey he wasn’t into this. “Shut up.”
“You weren’t exactly a girl’s dad,” Dani went on. “You were into all this cowboy stuff and had this hard exterior. But I got to like you, didn’t I? And I always thought you liked me. I kind of thought we had this deal. We didn’t show we liked each other, but inside we really did. In a way, I think you turned me a little into the person I am today. All the rough edges. And stubbornness.”
“I said, shut up!” He glared at her. “You were just a brat. You came with the deal.”
“No, I don’t believe you, Wade. We had good times. I can remember them. When you took me back east to school, all my roommates thought you were the bee’s knees. With your python boots and turquoise ring, all the big movie actors you knew …”
He shook his head. “It’s not gonna work, Dani. Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”
Dani saw that the tree line had thinned. Only another quarter mile or so of road. “I actually remember that I—”
A voice came over the radio. Up until then it had just been police cars and dispatchers talking between themselves. This time the voice was different.
“Chief Dunn. It’s Dave. Can you hear me?” Dave Warrick.
Wade slowed. He seemed startled. He turned the volume up, but didn’t make a move to talk back.