Stranger In Cold Creek. Пола Грейвс

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СКАЧАТЬ she’d seemed closer than ever to putting down permanent roots in Cold Creek.

      Miranda zipped up her jacket and headed out to the fleet parking lot. The small sheriff’s department had jurisdiction for the whole county, but most of the crime, such as it was, happened near the county seat of Cold Creek or along Route 7.

      She turned on the cruiser’s light bar but left the siren silent as she sped down Route 7 toward the sprawling Bar W Ranch, one of the largest cattle spreads in the panhandle. Despite the chilly temperatures, the Bar W Ranch kept their cattle grazing year-round through a strategic plan utilizing both warm-and cold-growth grasses. Some patches of grass were already green, despite the frigid temperatures, and several dozen head of cattle had gathered there to graze.

      She peered down the highway, looking for a hitchhiker. But with the threat of snow, even traffic on the highway was nearly nonexistent. Nor could she find any sign that a vehicle had pulled over on the dusty shoulder on either side to pick up anyone thumbing for a ride.

      Had it been a false report?

      She called it in. “Taylor, I’m seeing no sign of a hitchhiker on Route 7. Could the call have come from a hoaxer?”

      “Could have, I suppose.” Taylor’s gusty sigh roared through the radio. “Sorry about that, Duncan. I know you were hoping hard for some sign of the girl.”

      “I think while I’m down this way, I’m going to check in on Lizzie Dillard. She swears someone’s been stealing eggs from her henhouse.”

      “A lawman’s work is never done,” Taylor drawled, amusement thick in his gravelly voice.

      The narrow one-lane dirt road that led to Lizzie Dillard’s farm, well-rutted and hell on the cruiser’s shocks, had been given the dubious name Glory Road. At one point, in the area’s distant past, a charismatic preacher had turned this part of the panhandle into a series of peripatetic tent revivals, and Glory Road had come into being to accommodate wagons, horses and pedestrians traveling from revival to revival.

      The revivals had ended after a spectacularly messy sex scandal involving the preacher and a half dozen of his pretty young acolytes, but the name of the road had lived on to the present.

      By the time she pulled into the bare yard in front of Lizzie Dillard’s farmhouse, a light snow had begun to fall, whipped into icy needles by the hard north wind. Miranda tugged up the collar of her jacket and hurried up the porch steps. She knocked on the sagging screen door. “Lizzie?”

      Lizzie didn’t answer, even after another knock, so Miranda headed around to the chicken coop out back. “Lizzie?”

      Lizzie Dillard came out of the chicken coop and looked up in surprise. “Hey there, Miranda. What’re you doin’ out here? You want a piece of pecan pie? It’s still warm from the oven, and I could put on a pot of coffee.”

      Miranda ignored the answering rumble of her stomach. “No, thank you, Lizzie. I just came by to talk to you about those stolen eggs.”

      “Aw, honey, I didn’t tell your daddy about that so you’d come out here. It’s probably some wily ol’ gray fox.” Lizzie handed Miranda the basket full of brown eggs and turned to secure the door latch on the coop.

      “A fox got in the henhouse and just stole the eggs?” Miranda tried to temper her skepticism, but Lizzie shot her a knowing look.

      “I reckon I raise tough hens.” Lizzie laughed at her own joke. “Sometimes, they just want the eggs. It happens. You sure you don’t want to come in and warm up?”

      The snowfall had started to pick up, the flakes fatter and denser than before. The ground temperature was still above freezing, but if the snow got much heavier, it wouldn’t take long to start sticking, even on the roads. “I’d better get on the move,” Miranda said, not letting herself think about Lizzie’s warm kitchen and hot pot of coffee. “Call us if anything else happens out here, okay?”

      “Sure thing.” Lizzie walked with her to the cruiser. “You be safe out there. My old bones are tellin’ me this might be a big snow.”

      “I hope your bones are wrong,” Miranda said with a smile.

      Back in the cruiser, she checked in with the station. Bill Chambers was manning the front desk instead of Taylor, who’d taken a lunch break. She filled in Chambers on the call that had brought her out here. “No new calls about a hitchhiker?”

      “Not a thing.”

      “I’m coming back in, then.” At the end of Glory Road, she took a left onto Route 7, heading south toward town. Snow had limited the visibility to about fifty yards in all directions, forcing her to drive slower than she normally would. Fortunately, the snow seemed to have convinced most other drivers to stay off the road.

      She was halfway to town before she saw another set of headlights in the rearview mirror, cutting through the snow fog behind her. A second glance revealed the headlights moving closer at a reckless rate of speed.

      Miranda turned on the light bar and the siren, figuring that would be enough to make the car flying up behind her slow down.

      She was wrong. The second vehicle whipped around the cruiser and pulled even in the passing lane. It was a Ford Taurus, she saw. Dark blue. She tried to get a look at the driver, but the dark-tinted windows, liberally frosted with a layer of snow crystals, hid the car’s occupants from view.

      She grabbed her radio and hit the bullhorn button. “Pull over,” she commanded, easing off the gas.

      The other car slowed with her but didn’t pull over.

      She pushed the call button and gave Chambers a description of the vehicle. “Don’t know what this fellow’s up to, but if there’s a unit in the area, I could use backup.”

      “On its way,” Chambers promised.

      Snow was starting to dance across the road surface, collecting on the edges. If the precipitation didn’t slow soon, the road would become hazardous.

      “Pull over,” she ordered again, but the driver of the Taurus didn’t change speed at all.

      What the hell was going on? Was this an ambush?

      Why would someone ambush a Barstow County deputy?

      With shocking suddenness, the Taurus fell back, catching Miranda off guard. She glanced in her side mirror, trying to figure out what he was doing.

      The right front of the Taurus was even with the left rear panel of the cruiser. In the split second Miranda had to think, she realized the Taurus was in the perfect position for the classic police chase tactic known as the PIT maneuver.

      Just as the thought flashed through her mind, the Taurus bumped the left rear panel of her car, sending the cruiser into a textbook spin.

      If the road had been dry, she might have been able to recover from the PIT maneuver. But as the cruiser turned in a wild circle, the wheels hit a patch of accumulating snow and spun off the road, hitting a shallow arroyo that sent her into a roll.

      Amid the shriek of crumpling metal and the blaze of fear rising in her chest, her head slammed into the side window and the whirlwind of sound and color faded into dark silence.

      * СКАЧАТЬ