Shadow Lake. B.J. Daniels
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and go into the lake. He could prove she was telling the truth.
“I saw a man at my side window,” she said, knowing her story would be met with more than skepticism. “I couldn’t get my seat belt to release. I thought I was going to drown.”
The cop was waiting patiently.
“The car was upside down and I was under the water. I remember thinking I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. I heard what sounded like someone tap on my side window. I turned and…” She faltered. “I saw a face.”
“A face?” Walker asked.
“It was a man’s face. He had black hair that floated around his face and—” She grimaced. “His face was badly scarred.” She turned her own face away for a moment, jarred by the memory of the man’s monsterlike appearance. She was reminded of her own scar, her own shame that went with it.
“Scarred how?” Walker asked, his voice sounding oddly strained.
Her fingers trembling, Anna touched her face, starting at just below her left eye and swinging over the bridge of her nose and down under her right eye across her cheek to her jawline.
“And his eyes,” she added quickly. “I’d almost forgotten about them. They were a pale smoky gray reminding me of a wolf’s.” She saw the doctor exchange a look with Walker.
“You know someone with a scar like that?” she said. “It’s a small town. If he’s from here—”
“You’re telling me that you saw all of this on the bottom of the lake in the dark,” Walker demanded, now clearly angry.
“There was a light coming from somewhere,” she said, uncertain, though. “Maybe he had a flashlight or I saw him somehow in the glow of my car’s headlights. But I saw him.” She had, hadn’t she? She couldn’t make something like that up.
Obviously the cop thought her capable of making up just about anything—including being in the car at the bottom of the lake.
Her fingers went to her scar again. She traced its path nervously as she caught another exchanged look between the two men.
“I saw a badly scarred man under the water. He saved my life,” she said as she looked from the cop to Dr. Brubaker and back, confused by their reactions. “Don’t you see? The seat belt was jammed. He must have gotten me out and brought me here. I can’t imagine how else I survived. If you find him, he’ll tell you—”
Walker let out a curse. His face was crimson, his brown eyes wild with anger and something she’d hadn’t seen in them before—pain.
The doctor clasped a hand on the cop’s arm. “Walker, I need a word with you in the hall, now, please.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” Anna demanded, her voice rising as high as her emotions again. “You keep looking at each other. Do you know this man I described? Is that it? If you just find him, he’ll tell you—”
“Please, Mrs. Collins,” Dr. Brubaker said as he forcibly ushered the cop out the door. “Let me speak to Officer Walker a moment and I will be back.”
Before the door closed, Anna saw the brief heated exchange before the cop said something that silenced Dr. Brubaker. The doctor glanced back at her. She saw his expression as the door swung shut.
Fear made her fingers tremble as she reached for the phone and tried her friend Gillian’s number again. She needed more than a friend now. She had a bad feeling she needed a lawyer.
And she had no idea why.
Or why Marc would tell the police she’d been threatening to kill someone last night.
Gillian didn’t answer her cell phone this time, either. Anna left a message to call the Shadow Lake Hospital in Shadow Lake. “It’s urgent.”
When she tried Gillian’s office, she was told that her friend had taken a few days off. She’d left no forwarding number. Odd. Gillian hadn’t mentioned anything about it when they’d had lunch. Nor was it like Gillian to take any time off. Anna couldn’t remember the last time her friend had gone on vacation.
Something was terribly wrong.
WALKER ONLY MADE IT AS far as his patrol car. He sat in the darkness, his head swimming, anger eating him up inside. All he wanted to do was storm back into the hospital and make that woman tell him the truth.
She’d lied.
But for the life of him, he couldn’t think of any reason she would do that.
He ran a hand over his face.
“You need to get control of yourself,” Dr. Brubaker had told him as he’d led him down the hallway away from Anna Collins’s hospital room.
“You heard her in there. She’s lying.”
“You don’t really believe that woman in there killed anyone last night, do you?” Doc had demanded.
“Her husband seems to think she might have.”
“Go home. Get some rest. You aren’t thinking clearly. Give her some time to get her memory back. I’m sure all of this can be sorted out.”
Walker had seen the way Doc was with the young woman. Protective, as if she were his own daughter. Who wasn’t thinking clearly? he’d wanted to demand, but he’d had the good sense to keep his mouth shut and get out of the hospital before he did something he’d regret.
He didn’t need Doc to tell him that he was running on emotion right now. A lot of loss of his own.
Maybe he’d pick up a six-pack and drop by Billy’s. He went off shift over an hour ago.
Walker dialed the police chief’s cell. It rang four times before Rob finally picked up.
“Yeah?”
Nash sounded funny.
“Sorry to bother you, but I thought I should give you a heads-up on this case I got last night around midnight,” Walker said.
“The car that went into the lake,” Chief Nash said.
“Yeah.” He wondered how the chief had heard about it. “Anyway, I suspect it was an attempted suicide. The woman’s over at the hospital. Doc seems to think she’s going to be fine. But she swears she can’t remember a thing including an argument with her husband when she threatened to kill someone.”
“People make threats all the time, you know that,” Nash said.
“Yeah. I just have a gut feeling about this one,” Walker said, a little thrown by the chief’s response. Nash always had questions, convinced the answers were always in the details. “How are things over in Pilot’s Cove?”
“Fine. I got through sooner than I thought. I’m on my way back to town now.”
“Anything you need help on?” Walker asked, still wondering why Nash had let him believe it had something to do with the Pilot’s Cove Police Department.
“No.”
“We tried to get the car out, but Mac had to find a larger, newer tow truck,” Walker said, just for something to say since clearly the chief wasn’t interested. “Once we get the car out, maybe we’ll know more.”
“Sounds like you have everything under control. So if there’s no problem…”
He bristled at the chief’s irritation. No problem except for who she said saved her life last night. The chief was probably just tired and trying to get home to his young new wife. “I got it covered.”
“Good.”
Walker hung up, wondering what the hell was going on with the chief. Something, that was for damned sure. Nash had sounded like he had more important things on his mind. Like what? Walker wondered.
The chief’s