“I don’t understand, Lily,” Savich said in that darkly smooth voice of his. “You told me about the pills you took just after Beth’s funeral. Why are you thinking about that now, while you’re driving?”
“Because I realize that I can’t really remember actually taking those pills. Now isn’t that odd?”
“It’s very odd. Tell us more.”
“Well, I realize I didn’t want to die then, and I don’t want to die now. But why is the guilt eating at me like this? What’s inside my brain that’s making me want to simply drive the Explorer right into the thick trees that line this horrible road?”
“And did you find an answer, Lily?”
“Yes, I did.” She stopped, just stopped and sighed deeply. She was asleep. Her head fell lightly to the side.
“It’s all right, Mr. Savich. Let’s just let her rest awhile, then I’ll wake her and we can carry on. She’ll be back with us when she wakes up. We’ll see if she needs to go under again.
“You know, Mr. Savich, I’m getting more and more curious about that first time when she took all those sleeping pills. Just maybe we should go into that as well.”
“Oh, yes,” Sherlock said from behind them.
However, they didn’t have to wake Lily up. Not more than another minute passed when suddenly Lily opened her eyes, blinked, and said, “I remember everything.” She smiled at Dr. Chu, then said to her brother, “I didn’t try to kill myself, Dillon, I didn’t.”
Dr. Chu took both of her hands now and leaned very close. “Tell us exactly what happened, Lily.”
“I came back to myself. I felt clear and alert and appalled at what I’d been considering. Then the road twisted, started one of those steep descents. I realized I was going too fast and I pressed down on the brake.”
“What happened?” Savich said, leaning toward her.
“Nothing happened.”
Sherlock whispered “I knew it, I just knew it.”
Savich said, “Did you pump the brakes the way Dad taught you way back when?”
“Yes, I pumped gently, again and again. Still there was nothing. I was terrified. I yanked up the emergency brake. I know it only works on the rear tires, but I figured it would have to slow me down.”
“Don’t tell me,” Savich said. “The emergency brake didn’t work either.”
She just shook her head, swallowed convulsively. “No, it didn’t. I was veering from the center toward the deep ravine on my left. I pulled back, but not too far because the redwoods were directly to my right, thick, impenetrable. I was going too fast, and the downhill grade was becoming even steeper. That stretch twists and wheels back on itself a whole lot before it flattens out at the outskirts of Ferndale.”
Sherlock said from behind her, “Did you slam the shift into park?”
“Oh, yes. There was an awful grinding noise, like the transmission was tearing itself up. The Explorer shuddered, screamed, and all the wheels locked up. I went into a skid. I tried to let the side of the Explorer scrape against the redwoods, to slow me down, but then the road twisted again. I knew I was going to die.”
Savich pulled her very gently into his arms, settling her on his lap. Dr. Chu never released her left hand. Lily lay against him, her head on his shoulder. She felt Sherlock’s fingers lightly stroking her hair. She drew a deep breath and said, “I remember so clearly slamming head-on into that poor redwood, thinking in that split second that the redwood had survived at least a hundred years of violent Pacific storms but it wouldn’t survive me.
“I remember hearing the blaring of the horn, so loud, like it was right inside my head. And then there just wasn’t anything.”
She pulled back and smiled, a beautiful smile, clean and filled with self-awareness and hope. “Now, this is a very strange thing, Dillon. The brakes didn’t work. Did someone try to kill me?”
Since Dr. Chu was still holding her hand, Lily wasn’t frightened. Actually, she felt good all the way to her toes. Her smile didn’t fade a bit with those awful words.
“Yeah,” Savich said, looking directly into her eyes. “Probably so. Isn’t that a kick?”
“Now,” Dr. Chu said, “let’s just go back and see how it happened that you ended up in the hospital with all those sleeping pills in your stomach.”
Lily felt peaceful and excited at the same time. “Yes, let’s go back.”
6
Hemlock Bay, California
“All right, MAX, whatcha got?”