But something about it still isn’t right. It’s five months later now, but Ingram dismissed the possibility of a second set of tires from the get go? When the photos showed them, even faintly? Why ignore even the hint of it?
There were definitely two types of tires in that photo. I swear there were. And by the doubt on Callum’s face when he examined more closely, he thought so, too.
I push up to stand, something that’s a little harder these days. I brush off my palms, and walk a little farther toward the edge. The quarry yawns open below. Steep, jagged rock walls drop into a hole as deep as the ocean. Imagining Zoe alone in her car, the impact of the guardrail on her body, the plunge…
I glance over at the section where the guardrail is missing. Zoe drove a tiny one-liter coupe. Lightweight. Low horsepower. A car like that shouldn’t have been able to plowthrough a guardrail like this unless she’d been flying. I glance around the open area.
Could she pick up speed like that here? And why were her tire tracks so faint if she was doing a hundred? She would have had to have been accelerating and that means her tracks would have gotten deeper as she drove toward the edge. Right?
I’m cold all over. Even the pregnancy heat that usually radiates off me can’t touch this place. There’s a sickening dull ache in the air. My intuition tells me to keep looking… I steady myself by gripping the guardrail.
And itmoves.
It shifts like it’s barely tethered.
I grip the metal, deep in thought, and to my surprise, the rail jiggles in my palms, loose enough that a child could have shaken it. I follow the metal to the nearest bolt. It’s thick, silver, industrial grade.
And it’s loose.
My heartbeat ticks up.
My throat dries. I walk farther, sliding my hand along the metal.
Next bolt.
Loose.
Next.
Loose.
All of them. The entire length I find bolts, uniformly loosened, like someone had gone along the length with a wrench.
I spin one bolt out—it was only hanging on by a few threads—and my mind runs calculations I wish weren’t true.
Did someone weaken the rail?On purpose?
“Shit…” The word barely escapes.
Before the implication can fully form, a sharp sound cracks through the quiet—a twig snapping in the tree line. I turn in a sharp, breathless motion, the world blurring around me.
My hand flies to my holster and I whip out my firearm. My heart slams itself against my ribs like it wants out.
“Hello?” My voice is steady, but my mouth is dry. “Echo Valley Police. Identify yourself.”
Silence. Not peaceful.Listening.
I take a slow step back toward my car. I scan the trees on the other side of the quarry; every shadow is too long, every stillness too deliberate.
Then a coyote yips, high and sharp. Another joins in. Then another. A chorus of howls erupts, startling a flock of birds from the trees beyond into the sky, their wings beating like a hundred frantic alarms.
I exhale shakily. Coyotes. Great. I have a firearm, but LA training did not cover “pregnant cop vs. wild dog pack.”
But the twig snapping? The prickling at the base of my skull? Was that an animal?
“Identify yourself,” I call again, half-terrified, half hating how I sound like I am.
My hands shake. Hell, my whole body does. I’m here alone. I’m pregnant.
