I’M ON INTERSTATE 84, HEADING SOUTHWEST. THE TRAFFIC IS FAIRLY light and the road clear. Snow in small banks lines the sides, and I glance up at the sky, hoping for a clear day. I didn’t think to check the weather before I left, but that’s what all-wheel drive is for, right? Most of my driving will be highway anyway, so I should be fine.

It’s only a three-hour trip, and Sadie and I make good time. It’s not quite eleven a.m., and we’re already here. I guess I was more anxious to get going than I thought. Once I’d made up my mind, nothing was going to stop me, not snow, not my family or friends. I’m in a desperate search to save myself. I can no longer hide or depend on someone else to do it for me.

Sadie and I sit in the parking lot of the hotel I’d booked online last night, and I call the front desk to see if we can do an early check-in. The woman tells me to come on in. They’ve got a room available. I adjust Sadie’s service-dog vest and take her for a walk first.

Inside the lobby, I pick up our card keys and head upstairs. The room is chain-hotel nice, knobby carpet, white puffy duvet on the king-size bed, faux granite in the bath with a glass-enclosed walk-in shower. Perfect for a place to disappear, leave my life behind for a few days. And a perfect place to gather my strength and take a stand.

I turn on the large flat-screen and switch to a news station. I take a deep, slow breath as I listen to the latest political wrangling, but anything is preferable to my story.

I search my tote bag and pull out a bag of Oreos and a bottle of water. Sadie stretches out on the floor and promptly goes to sleep. I pile up the pillows and get settled on the bed, switch channels, and find an old movie. The Creature from the Black Lagoon, black-and-white and suitably dramatic. No thinking, no worrying, just me and an old classic with pseudo-scary music and no connection to reality. I want to relax awhile, clear my head before getting down to the reason for my trip.

CHAPTER 48 - Rita

CHAPTER 48

Rita

KIM PEARSON SQUIRMS IN THE CHAIR FACING ME AND JOE. CHASE and Agent Metz are taping all the interviews and are in the little room next door watching on-screen. As each couple comes in, we are talking to the women first, while the husbands wait their turn.

“Mrs. Pearson, we’re interested in the night of July Fourth, last summer. You and your husband were at the Bradleys’ Mountclair home, correct?” I ask.

“Yes. Is this about the woman they found by the river?”

“Part of that investigation,” Joe says.

She seems to settle some, smooths the front of her sweater.