Page 7 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
Someone yanked open her door. “Sorry, Sheriff, when you fishtailed, we couldn’t stop.” A moment, then a face thrust into hers. “You okay, Sheriff?”
Kateri blinked at the star-pattern of pain before her eyes.
The face belonged to Deputy Sheriff Gunder Bergen. Good guy. Good law officer. Second in command. He knew stuff.
“Who did we hit?” she asked. “Did we kill him?”
“Moen’s coming.”
Moen stuck his head in the driver’s door. He leaned a hand on the steering wheel and one on the seat and spoke to her. “The body was John Junior. He was already dead. Like… there was no rigor mortis so a few days ago, right?”
Bergen inched in farther, leaned a hand on the dashboard. “We’re getting the coroner out here, but yeah. What killed him?”
Moen switched his attention to Bergen. “Gunshot wound.”
“Close range? His father shot him?” Bergen asked.
The two men were talking over the top of her. Which was annoying as hell. “He shot his son so he could use the body as a diversion?” Kateri clicked her seat belt and let go.
The buckle smacked Bergen on the thigh.
He jumped back, bumped his head on the roof, looked surprised as the dog who ate the bumblebee.
“No. I mean, maybe, but the shot was long range, entered the right side at about the liver. He bled out.” Moen looked hard at Kateri. “Sheriff, you don’t look much better than the corpse.”
Bergen nodded. “Ambulance just pulled up. We’ll send her to the hospital.”
Kateri said the obvious. “Don’t be silly. I’m fine.”
“You sound just like my wife right before she collapsed with a ruptured appendix,” Bergen said.
“I’m fine,” she repeated. The air coming in the door washot. Wasn’t it? “Did we get John Senior?”
Moen clearly didn’t want to give this report. “The diversion worked. He gunned it. Road was too narrow. No one could get past us. He’s gone.”
CHAPTER THREE
“Now I’m not fine.” As her brief burst of hope faded, Kateri felt each torn stitch. “Hand me my walking stick.”
Moen pulled it out of the backseat and passed it to Kateri.
Four years ago, an earthquake had hit the coast of Washington. Kateri Kwinault had been the regional Coast Guard commander. She had lost her Coast Guard cutter in the resulting tsunami, saved her crew, been sucked out to sea and drowned by the frog god…
She said, “Moen, move the cars and the body and get after John Terrance.”
“If we do that, Sheriff, we’ll compromise the evidence.”
She looked at Moen.Lookedat him.
“Right away, ma’am.” He ducked out of the car.
She could hear him shouting instructions. “Good boy,” she muttered.
Some people thought she was nuts thinking she had seen the frog god, that ancient god who lived in the depths of the ocean and whose leap caused the earth to move and the tsunamis to rise. Some people made snotty comments about her belief that she had died and been resurrected. But after too much time in the hospital, too many operations, too many joint replacements and months of rehabilitation—after surviving when she should have died—she didn’t care what anyone thought. She knew what she knew.
So she used a genuineLord of the RingsGandalf-tested polished walnut staff to help her get around… Maybe it wasn’t truly Gandalf-tested. But it was genuine walnut.
To Bergen she said, “Terrance is up here for a reason. He’s got a hideout and supplies. Find out where.”
