Cry Mercy

“Thank you, Suse,” Emme said, and hugged her before she left.

“I'll see you all on Monday,” Susa

“Where does she go when she takes off like that?” Emme heard Mallory whisper to Trula, who shook her head and whispered back, “Beats the devil out of me.”

She'd already missed the entire day, but Susa

Susa

In some ways, the trips were a comfort to her. She was doing something for the man she loved, and with luck, someday he'd understand just how much of herself had gone into these journeys. She wasn't unaware of the risk involved, of course. She knew it was possible that she'd discover what had happened to his wife and he'd still see her as his best friend, nothing more. But she clung to the hope that once the truth was known, once he knew for certain that Beth had left this life, when he looked for love again, maybe someday he'd look to her.

Susa

THIRTY

Needle in a haystack time.

Susa

Over the past two years, Susa

The scenario that played out in Suse's mind had Beth finding herself in a line of traffic that was not moving. She'd have been in a hurry to get home. Maybe Ian was fussing in the backseat, maybe she was frustrated at not having her phone with her. She was always talking to someone when she was driving. It was the one thing Robert consistently criticized her for.

What would Beth have done under these circumstances?

Might she have decided not to wait patiently for the police to direct the cars off the turnpike? To Suse's way of thinking, she'd have driven on the shoulder of the road and slipped off the turnpike exit as quickly as she could. With no signs to direct her, perhaps Beth might have done what Suse could see herself doing under the same circumstances: she'd have asked the person in the tollbooth. There was a good chance she'd have been directed to the main road, and hopefully that would take her around the mountain.

The main road off this stretch of highway was a two-lane affair that went through one small town after another, and at first glance might have appeared to be the most logical, took her down the mountain, not up. There were signs that pointed toward this town or that, one state or county road or another, but for a stranger, the signs meant nothing. The last time Susa

It wasn't long before she noticed that the road narrowed around those hairpin turns, and that some of the guard rails at several of the turns bore numerous scrapes, battle scars from vehicles that may not have fared quite so well as she had so far. She had to slam on the brakes several times to take the turns on all four wheels, and on more than one occasion, opposing traffic had caused her to hug the right side of the road a lot closer than was comfortable. On an icy road, drivers could find themselves one misstep from disaster.

The sudden blast from the horn of the SUV behind her startled her and caused her to jump, and she swerved even closer to the guard rail. The driver of the SUV was right up to her rear fender and made no effort to back off. As she rounded the curve, her foot on the brake, she saw a driveway up ahead on the right, and she practically slid into it to get out of the SUV's way. The driver laid on the horn as he passed her, his middle finger in the air, and she watched him disappear down the next hill at a speed she couldn't even imagine on a road like this.

That's how it happens, she thought as she caught her breath. That's how cars get pushed off the road. If this had been winter, any accumulation of snow or ice on these roads would have been deadly.

And then she recalled that Beth and Ian had disappeared in the dead of winter.

She checked her rearview mirror for oncoming cars, then drove back onto the roadway. Several hundred yards ahead was a slight clearing. She pulled over and parked. She stuffed her bag under the front seat and locked the door after she got out. She walked back to the curve where the SUV had crowded her and studied the metal guard rail. It was dented and bore the scrapes of many a passing car. She stepped over it and walked downhill a short distance. The bottom of the ravine was littered with old tires and plastic trash bags holding God knew what. From somewhere below she could hear the sound of a stream, but there was little else to break the silence.

It would have been a place like this where Beth went off the road, she thought, only higher up the mountain, maybe. Someplace where a car could go over and be hidden from view by trees or thick undergrowth that even in February would prevent it from being seen from the road.

She walked back to her car, knowing she was right, in theory. All she had to do now was find the right road, on the right mountain.

Three hours later, she stood behind a guard rail that did its best to wrap around an exceptionally narrow turn. On the opposite side of the road, a huge piece of rock jutted out from the side of the mountain and hung partially over the left lane. A driver coming uphill in the right lane, unfamiliar with the configuration, might well overcompensate if a vehicle was coming too quickly from the left. Susa