She spotted the white van before Hennessy spotted her. Since he came from the direction of the Little Farm, she assumed he’d had time to go home, talk to his wife and drive out while she’d been running around Front Royal and the Village.
He caught sight of her as their vehicles passed, and the flare of recognition burned over his face.
“Yeah, that’s right,” she muttered as she rounded a curve, “not my truck, since you beat the hell out of it last night.” She shook off the annoyance, took the next turn. Her gaze flicked up to the rearview mirror to see the van coming up behind her.
So you want to have this out? she wondered. Have what Ford called a face-to-face? That’s fine. Great. He could just follow her home where they’d have a-
The wheel jerked in her hands when the van rammed her from behind. The sheer shock didn’t allow room for anger, even for fear, as she tightened her grip.
He rammed her again-a smash of metal, a squeal of tires. The truck seemed to leap under her and buck to the right. She wrenched the wheel, fighting it back. Before she could punch the gas, he rammed her a third time. Her tires skidded off the asphalt and onto the shoulder while her body jerked forward, slammed back. Her fender kissed the guardrail, and her temple slapped smartly against the side window.
Small bright dots danced in front of her eyes as she gritted her teeth, prayed and steered into the skid. The truck swerved, and for one hideous moment she feared it would flip. She landed with a bone-jarring thud, nose-down, in the runoff gully on the opposite shoulder as her air bag burst open.
Later, she would think it was sheer adrenaline, sheer piss-in-your-face mad that had her leaping out of the truck, slamming the door. A woman ran across the lawn of a house set back across the road. “I saw what he did! I saw it! I called the police!”
Neither Cilla nor Hennessy paid any attention. He shoved out of the van, fists balled at his sides as they came at each other.
“You don’t come to my house! You don’t talk to my wife!”
“Fuck you! Fuck you! You’re crazy. You could’ve killed me.”
“Then you’d be in hell with the rest of them.” Eyes wheeling, teeth bared, he knocked her back with a vicious shove.
“Don’t you put your hands on me again, old man.”
He shoved her again, sending her feet skidding until she slammed into the back of the truck. “I see you in there. I see you in there, you bitch.”
This time he raised his fist. Cilla kicked him in the groin, and dropped him.
“Oh God. Oh my God!”
Dazed, adrenaline seeping out like water through cracks in a dam, Cilla saw the Good Samaritan racing down the road toward her. The woman had a phone in one hand, a garden stake in the other.
“Are you all right? Honey, are you all right?”
“Yes, I think. I… I feel a little sick. I need to-” Cilla sat, dropped her head between her updrawn knees. She couldn’t get her breath, couldn’t feel her fingers. “Can you call someone for me?”
“Of course I can. Don’t you think about getting up, mister. I’ll hit you upside the head with this, I swear I will. Who do you want me to call, honey?”
Cilla kept her head down, waiting for the dizziness to pass, and gave her new best friend Ford’s number.
He got there before the police, all but flew out of his car. She’d yet to try to stand, and would forever be grateful that Lori Miller stood like a prison guard over Hennessy.
Hennessy sat, sweat drying on his bone-white face.
“Where are you hurt? You’re bleeding.”
“It’s okay. I just hit my head. I think I’m okay.”
“I wanted to call for an ambulance, but she said no. I’m Lori.” The woman gestured in the direction of her house.
“Yeah. Thanks. Thanks. Cilla-”
“I’m just a little shaky. I thought I was going to be sick, but it passed. Help me up, will you?”
“Look at me first.” He cupped her chin, studied her eyes. Apparently what he saw satisfied him enough for him to lift her to her feet.
“Knees are wobbly,” she told him. “This hurts.” She laid her fingers under the knot on her temple. “But I think that’s the worst of it. I don’t know how to thank you,” she said to Lori.
“I didn’t do anything, really. You sure know how to take care of yourself. Here they come.” Lori pointed to the police car. “Now my knees are wobbly,” she said with a breathless laugh. “I guess that’s what happens after the worst is over.”
SHE TOLD the story to one of the county deputies as, she imagined, Lori gave her witness statement to the other across the road. She imagined the skid marks told their own tale. Hennessy, as far as she could tell, refused to speak at all. She watched the deputy load him into the back of the cruiser.
“I’ve got stuff in the truck. I need to get it out before they tow it.”
“I’ll send someone back for it. Come on.”
“I was nearly home,” she said as Ford helped her into his car. “Another half mile, I’d have been home.”
“We need to put some ice on that bump, and you need to tell me the truth if you hurt anywhere. You need to tell me, Cilla.”
“I can’t tell yet. I feel sort of numb, and exhausted.” She let out a long sigh when he stopped in front of his house. “I think if I could just sit down for a while, in the cool, until I, I guess the phrase is collect myself. You’ll call over, ask a couple of the guys to get the stuff out of the truck?”
“Yeah, don’t worry about it.”
He put his arm around her waist to lead her into the house. “Bed or sofa?”
“I was thinking chair.”
“Bed or sofa,” he repeated.
“Sofa.”
He walked her into the lounge so he could keep an eye on her while he got a bag of frozen peas for her temple. Spock tiptoed to her to rub his head up and down her arm. “It’s okay,” she told him. “I’m okay.” So he planted his front paws on the side of the couch, sniffed at her face, licked her cheek.
“Down,” Ford ordered when he came in.
“No, he’s fine. In fact… maybe I could have him up here for a while.”
Ford patted the couch. On cue, Spock jumped up, bellied in beside Cilla and laid his heavy, comforting head below her breasts.
Ford eased pillows behind her head. He brought her a cold drink, brushed his lips lightly over her forehead, then laid the cold bag at her temple.
“I’ll make the calls. You need anything else?”
“No, I’ve got it all. Better already.”
He smiled. “It’s the magic peas.”
When he turned away, stepped out onto the back veranda to make the calls, the smile had turned to a look of smoldering fury. His fist pounded rhythmically against the post as he punched numbers.
“Can’t go into it now,” he said when Matt answered. “Cilla’s here. She’s all right.”
“What do you mean she’s-”
“Can’t go into it now.”
“Okay.”
“Her truck’s about a half mile down, headed toward town. I need you to send somebody down to get whatever she picked up today out of it. Hennessy was at her, and now the cops have him.”
“Holy sh-”
“I’ll call you back later when I can talk about it.”
He clicked off, glanced at his hand and saw he’d pounded it often and hard enough to draw some blood. Oddly, it helped.
Deciding he was calm enough, Ford stepped back inside. Because she lay quiet, eyes closed, one arm over the dog, he opened the window seat to take out one of the throws stored inside. Her eyes opened when he draped it over her.
“I’m not asleep. I was trying to remember how to meditate.”
“Meditate?”
“California, remember? Anyone living in California over a year must meet minimum meditation requirements. Unfortunately, I always sucked at it. Empty your mind? If I empty part of mine, something jumps right in to fill the void. And I know I’m babbling.”
“It’s okay.” He sat on the edge of the couch, turned the bag of peas over to lay the colder side on her temple.