Five Minutes Alone (2014) by Paul Cleave

Author:Paul Cleave [Cleave, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery, Private Investigators, Murder, Thrillers & Suspense, Crime, Thrillers, Suspense, Serial Killers, Police Procedurals, Thriller & Suspense, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense
ISBN: 9781476779157
Amazon: B00IWTWJE6
Barnesnoble: B00IWTWJE6
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2014-10-21T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FORTY

Bridget doesn’t say much. She has one leg pulled upwards and her fingers interlocked around her ankle, with her chin resting on her knee. The only time she makes any conversation is when she’s giving directions. The route they’re taking—it’s making him worry it’s a wild-goose chase. Whatever part of her brain short-circuiting this morning never changes direction—it’s left here or right there, and there’s never any hesitation, never any Oops I think it might have been that way, no looping around and covering old ground.

They are north of the city. Long, straight roads for most of the journey, big paddocks and farm animals and long grasses, orchards and trees, and then a turnoff and similar roads, but slightly narrower, slightly less traveled, then there are houses and smaller farms, then back to stretches of long paddocks that look deserted to the left, and to the right a forest.

“We’re close,” she tells him.

It’s secluded out here. Not the best place to shoot and bury somebody, but not the worst. After another fifteen minutes she tells him to slow down, and half a minute after that they’re pulling into a spot twenty yards off the side of the road.

“Tate’s car isn’t here,” he tells her. “Nobody is here.”

“He’s hidden it,” she says, taking off her seat belt. “Or maybe he’s not here yet.”

“How far in?” he asks.

“About ten minutes,” she says, “only . . . something isn’t right,” she adds. She has her eyes closed and her hands on the side of her head, she’s applying pressure as if trying to pop her own skull. “I feel dizzy.”

“Take a few deep breaths.”

She takes a few deep breaths. “It’s not helping. I feel sick.”

“Let’s get you outside.”

“Not that kind of sick.” She lets go of her head and she twists towards him. “The last thing I remember about that day,” she says, “when Emily died, is that we were at the movies. I don’t remember walking across the parking lot, but I know we must have, and because I can’t remember it I can’t even tell you what I could have done differently. Did I scream? Did I try to protect my daughter? Was it my fault? Had I not looked before stepping out? I don’t know. I know what I was told. I was told I tried to push Emily out of the way, but what nobody ever tells me is that I should have done more. It was my job to protect her, and I failed.”

“I’m sorry about what happened,” he says, and he is. He remembers Tate getting the phone call. He remembers something else, something he’ll never tell another soul. His first thought when he heard the news was Thank God it wasn’t my family.

“We should hurry. I don’t want Teddy to go to jail. Can you help him, Carl?”

He nods, and he has an image of the bullet in his skull going up and down inside him. “I can help him.”

“He’s through those trees,” she says.

“Can you show me?”

She opens the door as a way of answering.

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