Is it because a small part of me wishes I’d asked her to share the soup Frank gave me? Maybe invited Hazel to my place for dinner and a glass of wine? Asked her more questions about the game she was so enthusiastic about?
Maybe—
But before I can complete the thought, something else grabs me.
Maybe a hundred yards up ahead, where the road takes a sharp turn, my headlights catch something that doesn’t look right.
It takes me a second to realize in the darkness.
The guardrail. It’s not smooth and uninterrupted, like it usually is.
It’s broken. Torn.
Slowing as I approach, I get a better look at the damage. Alarm jolts through me.
This doesn’t look like a car just glanced off it.
It looks like a car went right through.
Shit.
If there was an accident, did it just happen? Or have the police already been and left?
But if they had, wouldn’t they have put up traffic cones as a warning? Some kind of temporary barrier?
Am I the first to come upon it?
Even during the day, this isn’t a busy road. And when I travel it at night, many times I’m the only one on it. So it’s possible…
But.
My heart stumbles.
Hazel.
She drives this way. What if?—
No. Don’t jump to conclusions.
I pull off the road just before I reach the broken guardrail and turn on my hazards. Then I hop out, leaving the car still running, and jog towards the river’s edge.
With each step, my worry increases. My adrenaline surges.
I want to believe it’s nothing. But there’s a heavy feeling in my gut that tells me it isn’t.
It’s the same terrible, nauseated feeling I’d get when we were on an op and things were about to go sideways. It’s the same feeling I had right before everything I believed fell apart in an instant.
And once I get to the grassy slope that leads to the river, my gut is proven right.
There.
In the water.
Two tail lights still glow from a partially-submerged car.
Shit.
I dig in my pocket as I scramble down the hill, yanking out my phone and calling 911. As soon as the dispatcher picks up, I break into her greeting with a crisp, “I’m out on Route 5, about five miles south of Morrisville. Right where the road curves around the river. There’s a car in the water. It’s nearly submerged. Get someone out here. Quickly.”
