The revivals had ended after a spectacularly messy sex scandal involving the preacher and a half dozen of his pretty young acolytes, but the name of the road had lived on to the present.
By the time she pulled into the bare yard in front of Lizzie Dillard’s farmhouse, a light snow had begun to fall, whipped into icy needles by the hard north wind. Miranda tugged up the collar of her jacket and hurried up the porch steps. She knocked on the sagging screen door. “Lizzie?”
Lizzie didn’t answer, even after another knock, so Miranda headed around to the chicken coop out back. “Lizzie?”
Lizzie Dillard came out of the chicken coop and looked up in surprise. “Hey there, Miranda. What’re you doin’ out here? You want a piece of pecan pie? It’s still warm from the oven, and I could put on a pot of coffee.”
Miranda ignored the answering rumble of her stomach. “No, thank you, Lizzie. I just came by to talk to you about those stolen eggs.”
“Aw, honey, I didn’t tell your daddy about that so you’d come out here. It’s probably some wily ol’ gray fox.” Lizzie handed Miranda the basket full of brown eggs and turned to secure the door latch on the coop.
“A fox got in the henhouse and just stole the eggs?” Miranda tried to temper her skepticism, but Lizzie shot her a knowing look.
“I reckon I raise tough hens.” Lizzie laughed at her own joke. “Sometimes, they just want the eggs. It happens. You sure you don’t want to come in and warm up?”
The snowfall had started to pick up, the flakes fatter and denser than before. The ground temperature was still above freezing, but if the snow got much heavier, it wouldn’t take long to start sticking, even on the roads. “I’d better get on the move,” Miranda said, not letting herself think about Lizzie’s warm kitchen and hot pot of coffee. “Call us if anything else happens out here, okay?”
“Sure thing.” Lizzie walked with her to the cruiser. “You be safe out there. My old bones are tellin’ me this might be a big snow.”
“I hope your bones are wrong,” Miranda said with a smile.
Back in the cruiser, she checked in with the station. Bill Chambers was manning the front desk instead of Taylor, who’d taken a lunch break. She filled in Chambers on the call that had brought her out here. “No new calls about a hitchhiker?”
“Not a thing.”
“I’m coming back in, then.” At the end of Glory Road, she took a left onto Route 7, heading south toward town. Snow had limited the visibility to about fifty yards in all directions, forcing her to drive slower than she normally would. Fortunately, the snow seemed to have convinced most other drivers to stay off the road.
She was halfway to town before she saw another set of headlights in the rearview mirror, cutting through the snow fog behind her. A second glance revealed the headlights moving closer at a reckless rate of speed.
Miranda turned on the light bar and the siren, figuring that would be enough to make the car flying up behind her slow down.
She was wrong. The second vehicle whipped around the cruiser and pulled even in the passing lane. It was a Ford Taurus, she saw. Dark blue. She tried to get a look at the driver, but the dark-tinted windows, liberally frosted with a layer of snow crystals, hid the car’s occupants from view.
She grabbed her radio and hit the bullhorn button. “Pull over,” she commanded, easing off the gas.
The other car slowed with her but didn’t pull over.
She pushed the call button and gave Chambers a description of the vehicle. “Don’t know what this fellow’s up to, but if there’s a unit in the area, I could use backup.”
“On its way,” Chambers promised.
Snow was starting to dance across the road surface, collecting on the edges. If the precipitation didn’t slow soon, the road would become hazardous.
“Pull over,” she ordered again, but the driver of the Taurus didn’t change speed at all.
What the hell was going on? Was this an ambush?
Why would someone ambush a Barstow County deputy?
With shocking suddenness, the Taurus fell back, catching Miranda off guard. She glanced in her side mirror, trying to figure out what he was doing.
The right front of the Taurus was even with the left rear panel of the cruiser. In the split second Miranda had to think, she realized the Taurus was in the perfect position for the classic police chase tactic known as the PIT maneuver.
Just as the thought flashed through her mind, the Taurus bumped the left rear panel of her car, sending the cruiser into a textbook spin.
If the road had been dry, she might have been able to recover from the PIT maneuver. But as the cruiser turned in a wild circle, the wheels hit a patch of accumulating snow and spun off the road, hitting a shallow arroyo that sent her into a roll.
Amid the shriek of crumpling metal and the blaze of fear rising in her chest, her head slammed into the side window and the whirlwind of sound and color faded into dark silence.
* * *
THE SQUEAL OF tires and the crunch of ripping metal broke through the whisper of snow falling outside the rental house, rousing John from a light doze.
His nerves rattling, he froze for a moment, his pulse hammering inside his head as he listened for a repeat of the noise.
Had he dreamed it? His house was close to Route 7, the busiest highway in Cold Creek, though so far, he hadn’t seen all that much traffic on the road, certainly nothing like the busy street in front of his apartment building back in Abingdon, Virginia.
Still, it was snowing outside, and cars and snow didn’t mix that well, especially in an area where there wasn’t a lot of snow over the course of an average winter. Maybe he’d heard a car’s tires squealing outside and in his half-dream state, imagined the rest?
His shoulder ached as he donned hiking boots and shrugged on his heavy jacket, but he ignored the pain. Pain was good. It was a reminder he’d taken three bullets and lived to tell about it.
He headed out to the porch and peered into the fog of falling snow. About fifty yards down the road, a flash of color caught his eye. Strobing color, like the light bar on the top of a police vehicle.
Except the light wasn’t coming from the road. It was coming from several yards off the highway.
Patting the back pocket of his jeans to make sure he still had his phone, he left the porch and headed into the snow shower, keeping his eye on the flashing light. Within a few yards, he could see the light was coming from the light bar on the roof of a Barstow County Sheriff’s Department cruiser lying on its side in a patch of scrub grass. The roof was damaged, the front windshield shattered, but the light bar continued to flash.
As he neared the cruiser, movement on the highway caught his attention. A dark-colored sedan crept along the shoulder, as if rubbernecking the accident.
John waved at the slowly passing vehicle. “I need help here!”
The sedan kept going until it disappeared into the fog of snow.
Grimacing, John headed for the cruiser. A loud creak sent John backpedaling quickly. The cruiser started to shift positions until it landed on all four wheels. Two wheels were flat, John saw, and there was significant damage to the chassis. Clearly a rollover.
Once the cruiser settled, he hurried to the driver’s door and looked through the open window. The first thing he noticed was blood on the steering wheel. Then hair the color of Georgia clay.
Damn it.