“I just realized that something isn’t right. I didn’t kill Beth. No, I’d been at the newspaper, giving my cartoon to Boots O’Malley, seeing what he thought, you know?”
“I know. And he laughed, right?”
“Yes. I heard the sheriff say later that Beth’s body had been thrown at least twenty feet.”
Lily stopped. She squeezed Dr. Chu’s hand so tightly her knuckles whitened.
“Just stay calm, Lily. Everything is just fine. I’m here. Your brother and Mrs. Savich are here. Forget what the sheriff said. Now, you suddenly recognized that you didn’t kill Beth.”
“That’s right,” Lily whispered, her eyelids fluttering. “I realize that something is wrong. I suddenly remember taking those sleeping pills that Tennyson put on the bedside table. I took so many of them, felt them stick in my throat and I swallowed and swallowed to get them down, and I sat with that bottle and chanted, more, more, more, and then the bottle was nearly empty and I thought suddenly, Wait, I don’t want to die, but then it was too late, and I felt so sorry for the loss of Beth and the loss of me.”
“I don’t understand, Lily,” Savich said in that darkly smooth voice of his. “You told me about the pills you took just after Beth’s funeral. Why are you thinking about that now, while you’re driving?”
“Because I realize that I can’t really remember actually taking those pills. Now isn’t that odd?”
“It’s very odd. Tell us more.”
“Well, I realize I didn’t want to die then, and I don’t want to die now. But why is the guilt eating at me like this? What’s inside my brain that’s making me want to simply drive the Explorer right into the thick trees that line this horrible road?”
“And did you find an answer, Lily?”
“Yes, I did.” She stopped, just stopped and sighed deeply. She was asleep. Her head fell lightly to the side.
“It’s all right, Mr. Savich. Let’s just let her rest awhile, then I’ll wake her and we can carry on. She’ll be back with us when she wakes up. We’ll see if she needs to go under again.
“You know, Mr. Savich, I’m getting more and more curious about that first time when she took all those sleeping pills. Just maybe we should go into that as well.”
“Oh, yes,” Sherlock said from behind them.
However, they didn’t have to wake Lily up. Not more than another minute passed when suddenly Lily opened her eyes, blinked, and said, “I remember everything.” She smiled at Dr. Chu, then said to her brother, “I didn’t try to kill myself, Dillon, I didn’t.”
Dr. Chu took both of her hands now and leaned very close. “Tell us exactly what happened, Lily.”
“I came back to myself. I felt clear and alert and appalled at what I’d been considering. Then the road twisted, started one of those steep descents. I realized I was going too fast and I pressed down on the brake.”
“What happened?” Savich said, leaning toward her.
“Nothing happened.”
Sherlock whispered “I knew it, I just knew it.”
Savich said, “Did you pump the brakes the way Dad taught you way back when?”
“Yes, I pumped gently, again and again. Still there was nothing. I was terrified. I yanked up the emergency brake. I know it only works on the rear tires, but I figured it would have to slow me down.”
“Don’t tell me,” Savich said. “The emergency brake didn’t work either.”
She just shook her head, swallowed convulsively. “No, it didn’t. I was veering from the center toward the deep ravine on my left. I pulled back, but not too far because the redwoods were directly to my right, thick, impenetrable. I was going too fast, and the downhill grade was becoming even steeper. That stretch twists and wheels back on itself a whole lot before it flattens out at the outskirts of Ferndale.”
Sherlock said from behind her, “Did you slam the shift into park?”
“Oh, yes. There was an awful grinding noise, like the transmission was tearing itself up. The Explorer shuddered, screamed, and all the wheels locked up. I went into a skid. I tried to let the side of the Explorer scrape against the redwoods, to slow me down, but then the road twisted again. I knew I was going to die.”
Savich pulled her very gently into his arms, settling her on his lap. Dr. Chu never released her left hand. Lily lay against him, her head on his shoulder. She felt Sherlock’s fingers lightly stroking her hair. She drew a deep breath and said, “I remember so clearly slamming head-on into that poor redwood, thinking in that split second that the redwood had survived at least a hundred years of violent Pacific storms but it wouldn’t survive me.
“I remember hearing the blaring of the horn, so loud, like it was right inside my head. And then there just wasn’t anything.”
She pulled back and smiled, a beautiful smile, clean and filled with self-awareness and hope. “Now, this is a very strange thing, Dillon. The brakes didn’t work. Did someone try to kill me?”
Since Dr. Chu was still holding her hand, Lily wasn’t frightened. Actually, she felt good all the way to her toes. Her smile didn’t fade a bit with those awful words.
“Yeah,” Savich said, looking directly into her eyes. “Probably so. Isn’t that a kick?”
“Now,” Dr. Chu said, “let’s just go back and see how it happened that you ended up in the hospital with all those sleeping pills in your stomach.”
Lily felt peaceful and excited at the same time. “Yes, let’s go back.”
6
Hemlock Bay, California
“All right, MAX, whatcha got?”
Sherlock walked over, looked down at the laptop screen. “Oh, dear, he’s not doing anything. You don’t think he’s becoming MAXINE again so soon, do you, Dillon? He’s in a mood?”
“Nah, MAX is still a he, and he’s just concentrating. He’s going to turn up something for us.”
“You hope.”
“MAX just shuddered a bit. That means he’s digging deep. Is Lily asleep?”
“Yes, I just checked on her. She didn’t want a pain pill. Said she didn’t need it. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Lily told me that a doctor who could make her feel good without hurting her was sure an improvement over a husband who can’t. She said she still feels better for having met her.”
“Since Dr. Chu didn’t hold our hands, we’ll have to work out our stress at the gym. Too bad.” Then Sherlock laughed. “Remember when she asked Dr. Chu to marry her? That was good, Dillon. She wants out of this mess.
“Now, according to Mrs. Scruggins, Tennyson will be home in about two hours. She told me she’s making a vegetarian dinner just for you-her special zucchini lasagna, and an apple-onion dish that she assured me would make you hum and help you keep your, er, physique perfect. I think she’d like to see you on a calendar, Dillon. What do you think?”
Savich just laughed, then smacked MAX very lightly on his hard drive with the palm of his hand.
“Not going to commit yourself, are you? Okay, she’s got a big crush on you, Dillon. I think it struck when she saw you in your T-shirt this morning, your pants zipped up but not fastened. There was lust in her eyes when she said your name. She had her hands clasped on her bosom. That’s a sure sign of palpitations. She wants you.”
Savich cocked a dark eyebrow at his wife. “Don’t go there, Sherlock, it scares me too much.”
She thought about how she felt whenever she saw him in a T-shirt-or less-and didn’t doubt Mrs. Scruggins’s fast-beating heart one bit. She lightly touched her fingertips to the back of his neck and began to knead.
MAX beeped.
“He’s jealous.”
“No, that was a burp. Well, maybe he’s telling me he’s distracted, what with you draped all over me.”