Free Nowhere to Hide by Carlene Thompson Page B

yours. It’s time for us to go and it’s freezing outside.”

    Marissa settled onto the seat of Catherine’s sensible sedan, fastened her seat belt, flipped down the visor, and looked in the mirror at her bandage-free face. “Oh no,” she groaned. “Just fifteen minutes ago the doctor told me I look fine.”
    “You do look fine.” Catherine started the car and crept to the exit of the hospital parking lot, even more wary of driving on snow since Marissa’s wreck. “You look fine for someone who was punched in the nose by an air bag less than forty-eight hours ago. Give your poor face a chance to heal.”
    Marissa groaned again.
    “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Marissa, but this fixation on your looks makes you sound vain and shallow.”
    “Thank you, Catherine,” Marissa said dully. “My feelings aren’t hurt at all.”
    “I’m trying to make a point. You sound vain and shallow, but you’re not vain and shallow.” Catherine paused. “I believe you’re obsessing about your appearance rather than thinking about what almost happened to you Saturday night.”
    “My sister the psychologist.”
    “Yes, I’m both and I know you very well.” When Catherine stopped at a red light, she broke her two-handed grip on the steering wheel, reached over with her right hand, and clasped Marissa’s gloved left fist. “You’re holding in your emotions so tightly it must hurt. I sat by your bedside most of Saturday night. You had one nightmare after another. Once you got up and started to run. I grabbed you and you said, ‘Mommy,’ threw yourself against me, and started sobbing.”
    “I don’t remember that happening,” Marissa said meekly.
    “I know. It was another moment of the normal human weakness you try to hide. You always try to act like the tough girl. Right now you’re trying not to cry. I can tell.”
    “I don’t want to cry!”
    “Okay, then don’t. I’m just saying that although you’re tough in many ways, you don’t have to act as if you’re indestructible. You’re not, and thank goodness, because if you weren’t vulnerable, if you didn’t have a soft side, you wouldn’t be Marissa Gray.”
    “Whom everyone knows and loves.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Well, somebody sure as hell didn’t love me Saturday night,” Marissa declared. “Because no matter how many times people tell me the wreck was an accident, I know somebody wanted me dead!”
    Which was exactly what she repeated at police headquarters fifteen minutes later. Although she sat in Eric Montgomery’s office, he’d left open his door and after her loud declaration the large outer room fell into complete silence. Marissa could feel her sister blush, but Eric simply gazed at her with steady amber eyes and an expressionless face. Finally, he asked formally, “Do you know of anyone who would want you dead, Marissa?”
    “Well, no, of course not. I would have reported someone threatening me or stalking me. But this person walked right in front of my car—”
    “And you don’t think that could have been an accident?”
    “A person dressed up like it’s Halloween walked deliberately in front of my car on an icy highway and you think it was an accident?” Marissa’s voice rose. “That’s ludicrous!”
    “You think this person wanted to kill you,” Eric said calmly, “yet you just admitted he walked in front of your car on an icy highway. Doesn’t that sound more as if he wanted you to kill him ?”
    “Why would I kill him? I don’t even know who it was!”
    “Maybe he’d planned a suicide.”
    “A suicide? Dressed up like a ghoul? Following the car halfway down the riverbank and trying to jostle the car loose so it would fall in the river? Or do you believe he hoped to commit suicide by having the car fall on top of him?”
    “Marissa, you’re shouting,” Catherine said gently. “I know you’re upset, but you might be taken more seriously—”
    “If I act nonchalant?”
    “If you stop sounding