CHAPTER ONE
TAILLIGHTS GLOWED red in the darkness ahead of him as Mac Cordero drove along the rural outskirts of Honoria, Georgia. He wasn’t deliberately following the other vehicle. They just happened to be headed in the same direction on the narrow, hilly road bordered by thick woods on the left and a rain-swollen river on the right.
Mac had no particular destination in mind. He was merely killing time on this Friday evening, delaying his return to the no-frills motel where he would be staying until he made better arrangements for the next few months. He had things to accomplish in this oddball town, and the renovation of the 1920s-era Victorian-style house he’d recently purchased was the excuse he’d use if anyone asked why he was here. The real reason he was here—well, sometimes that even seemed like a mystery to him.
Because it was a warm, early-June evening, his windows were down, letting in the fresh, woodsy air and the sounds of night creatures. Neither lifted his mood, nor eased the frustration that he had accomplished so little since his initial visit to Honoria several weeks earlier. He was no closer now to solving the mystery that had brought him here than he’d been when he’d decided to pursue it.
The small car ahead of him began a steady ascent up a steep, blind hill. Mac shifted in the seat of his truck. All in all, it had been an unproductive day. He was beginning to wonder if boredom was all that awaited him here. He hated being bored.
A squeal of brakes brought him abruptly out of his thoughts. His hands tightened on the steering wheel when the taillights ahead of him swerved suddenly and erratically, then veered off to the right side of the road—straight toward the river. At the same moment, a light-colored van topped the hill in the center of the road, speeding, weaving, making no effort to slow down. Acting on instinct, Mac jerked his wheel to the right, pulling his truck to the side but stopping before it went over the edge. The van sped past, disappearing behind him.
Muttering a curse, Mac didn’t waste time trying to get a license-plate number, but jumped from his truck and ran to the edge of the road. The slow-moving river looked like black ink in the darkness, shimmering with multifaceted reflections of the three-quarter moon overhead. He saw no sign of the car he knew had gone over. Kicking off his shoes, he prepared to dive in.
A head broke the water in front of him as he started to jump. He heard a loud gasp for air, followed by what might have been a broken cry of pain and fear. A moment later, he was in the cold water, reaching the woman just as she went under again.
He grabbed her arms and hauled her to the surface, noting automatically that she was lightweight, slender. His hands easily spanned her waist as he treaded water and supported her until she caught her breath. It was difficult to see her features in the shadows, but he got the impression she was somewhat younger than his own thirty-three years.
Reassured that she was stable, he asked urgently, “Is there anyone else in the car?”
“No. I was alone.” Her voice was a choked whisper. “It…took me a while to get out. I had my windows down, but…”
“It wasn’t as long as it must have seemed to you.” He was aware that she was trembling so hard her teeth were chattering. The water was cool, but not frigid. Sensing that shock was about to set in, he tightened his grip on her. “Can you swim? Are you injured?”
“I…I don’t know,” she managed to say, clinging to him. “I hurt, but I don’t know exactly where yet.”
Because it made sense to him, considering the circumstances, he merely nodded and wrapped an arm around her to help her toward the bank. He would assess her injuries once she was safely out of the water, he decided, beginning to swim with steady, rescue-trained strokes.
The bank was steep, mud crumbling beneath his hands and feet as he helped the woman out of the river. It wasn’t easy to swing her into his arms and carry her up to the side of the road. Hard shivers racked her, and he could hear her teeth chattering. Damning the darkness that kept him from seeing whether she was bleeding anywhere, Mac settled her on the gravel beside the road. “I’ll be right back.”
He dashed to his truck, water streaming off him, his wet socks providing little protection from the rocks on the roadbed. Ignoring his discomfort, he snatched his cellular phone and dialed 911. Grabbing the lightweight jacket he’d tossed into the passenger seat earlier, he gave the emergency dispatcher a clipped summation of his situation, requested an ambulance and then hung up.
The woman was curled into a fetal ball when he returned to her. He suspected that if there was enough light, he would see that her lips were blue. She wore a T-shirt and shorts, and her feet were bare. She’d probably lost her shoes in the river. She lay in a puddle of water, trembling.
“I’ve called for help,” he said, wrapping his jacket snugly around her. The thin fabric seemed to make no difference at all; she seemed hardly to notice it. Shock, he thought again, and shifted her onto her back, pushing her knees upward so that her legs were higher than her head.
Only marginally aware of his own soggy, chilled condition, he smoothed wet, nape-length hair from the woman’s face. His eyes had finally grown accustomed to the darkness and he could make out the woman’s features. Her skin was so pale it looked like porcelain in the milky moonlight. He took another guess
at her age—mid- to late twenties, perhaps. Her hair looked dark, but it was hard to tell for certain. “What’s your name?”
“Sharon.” Her voice was faint, but coherent, to his relief. “Sharon Henderson.”
“I’m Mac Cordero.”
She pulled a hand from the folds of his jacket and reached out toward him. “Thank you.”
He cradled her icy fingers in his larger, somewhat warmer ones. Their gazes met and held. Her eyes glittered in the moonlight. He knew his own face was in shadow, but he offered a faint smile of encouragement. “You’re welcome.”
She shivered again and he tightened his hand. He felt as if something passed between them at that point of contact—warmth, emotion…something. Most likely he was overreacting to the dramatic turn the evening had suddenly taken. When he’d complained of boredom earlier, he certainly hadn’t been hoping for anything like this.
A dark Jeep with a flashing light on the dash topped the hill and braked to a stop across the road. The driver stepped out of the vehicle and crossed to them swiftly, kneeling at the woman’s other side. “Sharon?” he said, recognizing her immediately, “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” she answered, but didn’t sound quite convinced.
“An ambulance is on the way. Can you tell me what happened?”
“I was leaving Tressie’s house after dinner. There was a van—it came out of the driveway on the other side of the hill without stopping. I swerved, but it ran me off the road—almost as if it was intentional.”
“I saw the van,” Mac added. “It never even slowed down.”
The other man looked at him. “Chief Wade Davenport, Honoria Police Department,” he introduced himself.
“Mac Cordero. I happened to be following behind Ms. Henderson’s car, and I saw the accident.”
“Judging from your appearance, I take it Sharon’s car went into Snake Creek?”
Mac frowned. Snake Creek? Hardly a name to inspire confidence. He hated snakes. Yet he knew that even had the water been crawling with them, he’d have gone in after her. Years of training and practice had kicked in the moment he’d seen someone in trouble. You could take the cop out of his uniform, he thought ruefully, but it was a hell of a lot harder to break those old cop habits.
“My car.” Sharon turned her head to look mournfully toward the edge of the road. “I just made the final payment.”
Davenport patted her shoulder. “Let’s not worry about that right now, okay?”
A siren broke the deceptively peaceful silence of the night. Davenport glanced in its direction, then turned his attention back to the soggy couple in front of him. “You said the van pulled out of the driveway just over the hill?”
Sharon nodded. “Yes. The driver didn’t even pause to see if anyone was coming from either direction.”
“That’s the Porter place. The Porters left for vacation three days ago.”
“You think the van was there to rob them?” She sounded appalled.
The police chief glanced at Mac, who had already leaped to that conclusion, then looked back at Sharon. “I’ll check that out as soon as you’re taken care of. I don’t suppose either of you got the number of the license plate on the van.”
“No.” Mac shook his head, knowing he’d be able to provide little detail. “I thought it was more important to make sure no one was trapped underwater.”
“You made the right call.” Davenport stood as an ambulance pulled up behind the Jeep. “I’ll have more questions for you later, if you don’t mind, Mr. Cordero.”
“I’ll tell you everything I saw—but I’m afraid it wasn’t much. It all happened too quickly.”
Two uniformed paramedics—a man and a woman—approached with swift efficiency. Only then did Mac realize that he was still holding Sharon’s hand. She clung to him when he would have released her, as if he were her only lifeline in frighteningly uncharted waters. He had to gently peel her fingers away so the medics could do their jobs.