But she had to think clearly, concentrate on the problem at hand. That was her role in the little dance they always did, she and her brother.
He got them into trouble, she got them out.
“Maybe we should—” he started to say.
“Shut up.”
“What?”
“I said to shut up.”
“You don’t have to talk to me that way.”
“I should talk to you that way a lot more often. Then maybe you wouldn’t do so many stupid things.”
“God, first cancer and now this. I don’t deserve it, I really don’t.”
He started crying then.
Sat there like a big overgrown baby and blubbered.
She supposed she should go over to him and try to make him feel better.
But she sure didn’t feel like it.
She wanted to slap him some more.
The dream of her own Senate seat had been about to come true when...
And then, as she was sipping her scotch, leaning on the bar, looking out the window, trying to will out of existence the dead girl on the floor...
...she remembered the conversation she’d been having right before she’d picked up her Faith Baldwin book and started to doze off.
Praise God, praise God.
There might be a way out of this after all.
Just then David revved up the blubbering. She shook her head. He made her sick. She could barely stand the sight of him.
But she had to pull him through just this one more time. For her sake, not his.
“I get cancer and now this,” David said every few moments between sobs. “Cancer and now this.”
She went over and stood above the dead girl and felt a wave of optimism.
With a lot of careful planning, she could get them out of this situation. She was sure of it.
Then she stalked over to David and slapped him across the face again and told him to shut the hell up.
She had a lot to think through and she didn’t need him wailing in the background.
Part 2
Eight
1
The rain was a bitch.
It had already flooded out two small bridges, filled up a few dozen basements, knocked down three power lines, and washed out a lot of the fall planting local farmers had done in the past two weeks.
Away from town, the rain had also turned a lot of the county roads into treacherous mud puddles resembling, in places, quicksand.
David did the driving. Helen did the scouting. She was looking for signs of any other vehicles.
All they needed was to get pulled over for speeding or something. A nosy cop could look in the trunk and destroy their lives.
Excuse me, Miss Cummings.
Yes?
Well, I just took a look in your trunk and darned if there doesn’t seem to be a dead girl in there.
A dead girl? Don’t be preposterous.
No, ma’am. I mean I know how nice and respectable you and the Senator are, but there really does seem to be a young lady in your trunk. You want to walk back there and take a look at her?
At which point, David would go totally to hell and admit everything.
He’d be sobbing when they brought him into the police station.
He’d be screaming his guilt for all to hear.
And Helen, who had waited so long and so patiently to become a senator, would see all her dreams dashed.
She said, “Watch your speed.”
“I’m doing thirty miles an hour exactly.”
“Doesn’t look like it from here.”
“You’re looking at the speedometer from an angle.”
“Just watch your speed.”
They were nearing the City Limits sign out by Bevins Creek. From there, it would be a short drive to the place Helen had in mind.
Nice, short drive on an old road hardly used anymore.
Perfect place for a corpse to be in a trunk.
David said, “I really did like her.”
“Yeah. I can see why.”
“You’re being sarcastic.”
“David, she was trying to blackmail you.”
“But she could be sweet.”
“Right.”
“She could.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Her parents are going to take this real hard. They really loved her.”
“Right now, I can’t worry about her parents.”
“She had a nice little dog, too.”
He started crying again. Was just driving along and his eyes overflowed with tears.
“I didn’t mean to kill her. I really didn’t.”
“I know.”
“When I saw her fall — and I heard the noise her head made, you know, cracking against the TV set — I knew right away she was dead.”
“Don’t think about it, David.”
“I really didn’t mean to kill her.”
“You’re speeding again, David, and don’t tell me it’s the angle I’m looking at the speedometer.”
He erupted, as he did upon occasion when his sister’s bossiness really got to him.
He took his hand off the wheel and began banging the steering wheel. And he began shouting.
“Just shut your fucking mouth, Helen! And keep it shut! You fucking understand me!”
He put his face, his crazed face, close to hers, and when he shouted he sprayed spittle all over her.
She knew enough to leave him alone now.
“I didn’t mean to aggravate you,” she said quietly.
“I say she’s a nice girl, you tell me she isn’t.”
“David, please—”
“Maybe she was trying to blackmail me. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t a nice girl at least some of the time.”
“David, listen to me—”
“You’ve never liked a single fucking girl I’ve been with my whole life.”
“David, she was—”
“Neither one of my two wives. Not any of the four women who lived with me. Not one of them, Helen. And you know what?”
She didn’t say anything, just stared straight ahead.
“Now we’ve got a dead girl in the trunk of our nice new Lincoln Towncar, and you still can’t say anything nice about her.”
She was watching the road ahead, something David wasn’t paying much attention to, when she saw Hartson Bridge. Or what was left of it.
The bridge itself had vanished beneath several feet of muddy water. All you could see was the steel top of the bridge where people liked to sit when they fished.
The creek had overflowed its banks and was flooding the entire area with muddy brown water.
“Oh, shit,” Helen said.
“Maybe we can make it.”
“No way.”
“This is a big car.”
“No way, I said. What if we got stuck out there. We’d have to call for help and there we’d be with a dead girl in the trunk and everybody snooping around.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you, Helen.”
“Yeah, well right now I’m a lot more worried about how we get out to the woods.”
He looked at her and his anger was gone completely. Now he was a helpless little boy again.
“What’re we going to do, Helen? What’re we going to do?”
2
When she got home, Amy fixed herself a cup of instant hot chocolate and carried it to the living room, where she turned on Jay Leno. Much as she liked her western boots, it was a whole lot more comfortable to sit around in her cotton pajamas and her slippers. Every few minutes, she’d hit the mute button on the remote and listen to the wind whip the rain through the trees.
Then she’d stare at the phone on the end table and think about calling Richie.