"You most certainly will not, young lady," Lucinda said, at her most autocratic.
"You've had a shock to Your system, and you need to rest."
"I'm not hurt," Roanna said again, wondering if anyone was actually listening to what she said.
"Then I need for you to rest. It would fret me no end if you went off gallivanting, when common sense says you should give yourself time to get over the shock."
Roanna gave Webb a speaking glance. He lifted one eyebrow and shrugged, not at all sympathetically.
"Can't have you gallivanting," he murmured, and dropped his gaze lower, to her belly, Roanna sat back down, warmed by the silent communication, the shared thought about their child. And while Lucinda was blatantly using emotional blackmail to get her way, it was done out of genuine concern, and Roanna decided there wouldn't be any harm in letting herself be fussed over for the rest of the day.
Webb went outside to get into his truck, and stared thoughtfully at the spot where Roanna's car had been parked. There was a dark, wet stain on the ground, visible even from where he was. He walked over and hunkered down, examining the stain for a moment before touching it with his finger, then sniffing the oily residue. Definitely brake fluid, a lot of it. She must have had only a little fluid left in the lines, and it would have been pumped out the first time she used her brakes.
She could have been killed. If she had gone across the highway instead of into a cornfield, she very likely would have been seriously injured, at the least, if not killed outright.
A cold sense of dread touched him. The shadowy, unknown assailant could have struck again, but this time at Roanna. Why not? Hadn't he done it before with Jessie? And with more success, too.
He didn't use the cellular phone, with its insecure channels, or go back inside to face the inevitable questions. LINDA 1101AARD
Instead he walked down to the stables and used Loyal's phone. The trainer listened to the conversation, his thick, graying brows pulling together as his eyes began to snap with anger.
"You think somebody tried to hurt Miss Roanna?" be demanded as soon as Webb hung up.
"I don't know. It's possible."
"The same person who broke into the house?"
"If her brakes have been sabotaged, then I'd have to say Yes."
"That would mean he was here last night, messing around with her car."
Webb nodded, his expression stony. He tried not to let his imagination run away with him until he knew for certain if Roanna's car had been tampered with, but he couldn't stop the stomach-tightening panic and anger at the thought of the man being so close.
He drove out to the intersection, all the while carefully scanning around him. He didn't think this would be a trap designed to get him out in the open, because there was no way to predict exactly where Roanna's accident would happen. Though he was acutely aware that this was roughly the same location where he had been shot at from ambush, he was more afraid that this hadn't been aimed at him, but specifically at Roanna. Maybe she hadn't simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time the night she'd been hit on the head. Maybe she'd been lucky instead, that she'd managed to scream and alert the household before the bastard had been able to finish the job.
Jessie had been killed, but by God, he wouldn't let anything happen to Roanna. No matter what he had to do, he'd keep her safe.
He parked the truck on the shoulder next to the downed section of fencing and waited for the sheriff. It wasn't long before Beshears drove up, and Booley was riding in the front seat with him. The two men got out and joined Webb, and together they waded through the flattened cornstalks to
where the car sat. They were all grim and silent. After the other two incidents, it was asking a bit much to believe that Roanna's brakes had failed on their own, and they all knew it.
Webb lay down on his back and wormed his way under the car. Broken corn stalks scraped his back, and tiny insects buzzed around his ears. The smell of grease and brake fluid filled his nostrils.
"Carl, hand me your flashlight," he said, and the big flashlight was passed under the car to him.
He turned it on and directed the beam to the brake line, He spotted the cut almost immediately.
"Yall want to take a look at this?" he invited.
Carl lay down and grunted as he squirmed under the car to join Webb, cussing as the cornstalks gouged his skin.
"I'm too old for this," he muttered.
"Ouch!" Booley declined to join them, as the weight he'd added since retirement would have made it a tight fit for him.
Carl hauled himself into position next to Webb and scowled when he saw the line.
"The son of a bitch," he growled, lifting his head to examine the line as close as he could without touching it.
"Cut almost through. A nice fresh, clean cut. Even if she'd managed to make it onto the highway okay, she'd have wrecked when she got to the stop light on 157. Guess it was pure luck she ran into this field the way she did."
"Skill, not luck," Webb, said.
"She took some driving courses in college."
"No fooling. Wish more folks would take something like that, then we wouldn't have to pick pieces of them up off the highway," He glanced at Webb, saw the tightening of his mouth, and said, "Sorry."
Carefully they wormed their way out from under the car, though Carl cussed again when a stalk caught his shirt and tore a small hole in it.
"Did you check the other cars at the house?" Booley asked.
"I took a quick look under all of them. Roanna's was the only one touched. She usually parks in the garage, but she left her car outside last night."