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Humbled that he continued to hold her, she tried to pull herself together. Finding this car was a key piece of the puzzle, but they needed more. “I only remember one gunshot, but there could have been more,” she admitted. “I also remember getting out of the passenger door and disappearing into the woods. I must have found the river and dove into the water to escape.”
“You don’t remember that part?” Doc’s voice was a low rumble in her ear. She longed to stay cradled against his chest but forced herself to pull away.
To stand on her own two feet.
“I don’t.” She straightened her spine, glanced around, and sighed. “And I don’t remember who was in the car behind me. Yet the fact that I got this far indicates I must have had a head start. I thought I was going to get away, but they caught up in time to cause me to crash.” Her voice dropped a bit. “I prayed, and I know God was watching over me, giving me just enough time to escape.”
“I believe you’re right about that,” Doc agreed. “And you were smart to take off into the woods.”
Not smart as much as desperate.
“There’s a bullet hole in the rear bumper near the license plate.” Rex knelt on the ground and placed the tip of his fingertip against the hole. “This bullet might have contributed to the crash, but I doubt it. It doesn’t appear to have struck anything vital in the car.”
She shivered and was grateful for Doc’s sweatshirt. “It was likely my tire getting hit that caused me to slam into the tree. I remember the wheel jerking wildly in my hands. And that I was going too fast to avoid the crash.”
“Rex, let’s make a note of the license plate and the VIN,” Doc said. “In the morning, we’ll call to have the car towed. Maybe a more thorough inspection by a mechanic can tell us more.”
“Fine with me.” Rex rose to his feet. “I’m not convinced the car will reveal any more clues, but it appears that heading this way was a good idea.”
Fiona stared blindly at the woods. She was glad they’d come and found her car, but it wasn’t enough to know that she’d crashed and escaped by jumping into the Kentucky River.
She wanted to know why someone had fired at her, forcing her escape.
Her father? His employees? Tristan? Someone else?
She needed answers!
Her frustrated despair must have shone on her features because Doc reached for her hand. “We’re making good progress.”
She nodded, even though she wasn’t convinced. “We need to take this road back the way we came. See if we can figure out where the chase started.”
Doc and Rex exchanged a glance. “I think we head back just far enough to find a place to get some sleep.”
She stared into the darkness for a long moment, then finally turned to face them. “I think we all know that this road likely intersects at some point with the road that leads to my father’s farm. That’s where we need to go.”
Again, they exchanged a glance. “You’re probably right, but if your father has any sort of security system in place, we can’t just drive up to the main gate. We’ll need light to see what our best options are for getting inside undetected.”
“We know someone will be up taking care of the horses early,” Rex added. “So we’ll move in as soon as there’s enough light to see where the cameras are located.”
She understood they’d both hoped her memory would have returned enough to help with that by now, but they hid their disappointment well.
“Okay.” Her shoulders slumped beneath the weight of her failure. “We’ll wait a while before getting too close.”
“Let’s just check the interior of the car first,” Doc suggested. “Maybe we’ll find something inside.”
She stood back as Rex and Doc leaned into the wreck. Doc pulled a slip of paper from the glove box. “Fiona’s registration.” He turned the paper so he could read the writing printed there. “The address matches the farm.”
“Great,” Rex said. “At least we know now that’s likely the nexus of the crime.”
The idea that she lived at her father’s farm was depressing. She’d have preferred knowing she was independent of her father’s wealth, but it seemed as if that was not the case.
It didn’t sit well to know all she did was give a few riding lessons each week while living off her father’s money. Especially after they’d argued about horse racing.
Pulling her hand from Doc’s, she turned and trudged back to Rex’s SUV. Maybe they didn’t have a lot of options except to wait for the first rays of light to make their next move. It would be unheard of for a man who owned a prized racehorse not to have some sort of security system in place.
Yet they absolutely needed to get inside her father’s farm.
Because she knew deep in her bones that was where this nightmare had begun.
