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Brooke looked at Beau, a range of emotions flying across her face again. She stroked Beau’s cheek. “We were so in love. We were going to be together. Then the accident happened. I thought he would come back for me. I couldn’t leave the house anymore except to see doctors.”
“Quinn,” the Chief hissed. “This is a waste of time.”
She ignored him. Brooke and Beau had had an affair. Both were married and the affair was even more taboo, given that Beau was the Sullivans’ marriage counselor. They would have had to meet in secret to carry on together.
“Brooke,” Josie said. “When you and Beau were together, where did you meet?”
Her brow furrowed. “I’m not sure. I think—”
“Was it the same bridge where you had your accident?”
“No,” said Brooke. “No. That bridge—there was something wrong with it. I didn’t want to drive on it, but we were fighting, and I took a wrong turn and we were fighting and—”
She broke off as tears spilled down her face. Josie found a tissue and handed it to her. As she dabbed away her tears, she said, “He thinks I don’t remember the accident, but I do.”
“I know,” Josie said. “I know you do. You took a wrong turn that day, you said. Where had you meant to go?”
“I only ever use the Candle Bridge to get back here. It takes longer but it’s safer, and since it’s farther away, he never thinks to look for us there.”
Josie looked at Noah and the Chief. Noah’s phone was already pressed to his ear.
“Thank you,” Josie told Brooke. She held a hand out for her phone but Brooke didn’t give it back.
“You’re going to see them, aren’t you?” she said.
“Yes,” Josie replied.
Noah said, “There is no Candle Bridge.”
The Chief said, “Quinn, I told you, this is a waste of time. Let’s get the sheriff’s dogs. A helicopter from the state police. We just have to do this the old-fashioned way and search. We’ll start at the Old Arch Bridge and follow the creek.”
Josie looked from the photo of Beau to Brooke. “Let’s bring her with us,” she said.
“Are you nuts?” said the Chief. “She needs to go to the hospital. Absolutely not.”
“I think if we take her, if she sees the creek, she might remember.”
“No,” said the Chief. “Now let’s go.”
Josie said, “Do you remember that time you took me to your house and showed me your sister’s cold case file?”
He bristled.
“Do you remember what you said to me?”
Josie would never forget it.Quinn, listen good, because I’m not going to say this again, and I’m sure as shit not going to say it in front of anyone else. You’re the best investigator I’ve ever seen.
The Chief threw both hands in the air. “For the love of crap. Fine. Bring her. But you’re keeping an eye on her.”
FIFTY-FIVE
Josie drove her own vehicle with Brooke strapped safely into the passenger’s seat. Brooke pressed a hand against the passenger’s side window, face as close to the glass as she could get it without touching, watching the darkened scenery flash past. Every so often her breath clouded the pane, and she quickly wiped it away. “I never get to just take a ride,” she told Josie. “We can only see doctors.”
Behind them was a convoy of vehicles including Noah, the Chief, Gretchen, Mettner and two Lenore County Sheriff’s cars. Even in the dark, with only the help of the headlights, Brooke started to remember some things by their third go-round in the area where the abandoned bridge sat. Road names and landmarks. Josie drove slowly, letting her talk until, almost subconsciously, she began to point out places where she and Beau had met. Behind an old barn on a farm that was no longer active. At the rear of a church cemetery. In the parking lot of a state park fishing area. Finally, the bank of a creek over which spanned a covered bridge, the trusses beneath its peaked roof open.
Not the Candle Bridge. The Cattail Bridge.
Josie parked along the bank, which was several feet below the bridge. As the vehicles behind them pulled in, headlights passed over the space between the base of the bridge and the rushing creek below. At first, she thought it was a trick of the light, but by the third time, she realized what she was seeing were two humans—one small and one bigger—suspended upside down from the bridge like cocoons.
