Fancy Gap (16 page)
“So how many carbs do you think were in that wonderful lunch?” Louisa asked as she gave Quinn a sideways glance.
“Probably enough for me as I kick your most beautiful butt on our ride this afternoon. Heck, we might as well go see my friends at the Mock Orange bike shop in Winston-Salem to get you a faster bike.”
“Dream on, Lance. I’m going to carry a handful of rice to mark the road so you don’t get lost.”
“So let’s get this right: Exactly how far are you capable of riding in these here mountains today?” he asked as he gave her a mock-quizzical look.
She didn’t respond. He had the home-court advantage. The question at hand was how to neutralize his advantage. He wasn’t stupid—but he was a man. As he bent over to fill the dishwasher, she sashayed up behind him and slipped her arms up under his until she had him in a full nelson. She straightened him, sliding her right hand slowly down the side of his ear and lightly passing her fingers by his lips as she nibbled on his earlobe.
He burst out laughing as he spun to face her sultry smile. “Nice try, you hot sexy thing, but all that won’t weaken the two legs that will power me through all those hills this afternoon.” She laughed too, realizing that her come-on to zap his strength had failed miserably. She walked into the bedroom to change her clothes. “I’ve got at least fifty miles in me this afternoon. Think you’re up to that, Lance?”
He was already slipping out of his jeans when she tossed out the challenge. Without missing a beat, he fired back, “This isn’t the flat George Washington Parkway, my dearest. There are some big hills just a waitin’ for us out there.”
“I can play on that court. As a matter of fact, I bet I finish first. Second place cooks dinner and waits on the other all night long,” Louisa suggested.
“Deal,” Quinn agreed as he headed out the door to the bikes.
Louisa soon appeared, wearing a sleeveless Craft top and matching bottoms. She tucked her hair up under her helmet as she slipped her Oakleys into place. Quinn was impressed. Her bike was set up with her Speed Play Lite pedals, waiting for her to snap in. She popped her Garmin into place on her handlebars as the little computer synched up with its satellite. She never looked at Quinn as he prepared his bike.
She’s putting on a really good show for me,
he thought.
She’s trying to psych me out.
They rode side by side down 608 and took a left on the Parkway at the Orchard Gap Inn, taking in the beautiful scenery. Quinn checked his cadence and saw that he was spinning at a solid eighty-five. Louisa was in a comfortable rhythm.
As they approached the steep, downhill section before the Orchard Gap Road intersection with the Parkway, Quinn braked slightly to slow down. His 200-plus pounds would take him down any hill faster than Louisa’s 120 pounds. Gravity was his friend, at least on the downhills.
Within a minute, they were heading up the steep Orchard Gap grade. Quinn worked his Shimano gears effortlessly to get into his easiest gear. His cadence was still a smooth ninety. Louisa rose out of the saddle and hit the hill hard. Her stroke was superb. She pulled away easily and put a good twenty feet on Quinn.
Not a problem,
he thought.
The great equalizer is at hand: the next downhill.
She turned her head slightly to the left as she crested the hill.
Got him on that one,
she thought as she smoothly shifted into the right gear for the immediate descent. Her cadence picked up. She expected Quinn to take over and take it to another level. She wasn’t disappointed.
Recess was over, Quinn decided. This was his home course. He worked his gears right up the line until he had all he needed to fly down the hill. No more than halfway down, he stopped pedaling the moment he entered her peripheral vision and glided by her easily. He needed her to see him coast by her. And she did.
Quinn had thirty feet on her by the start of the next uphill. He shifted and jumped out of the saddle to keep the momentum going. As they slowed near the top of the near hill approaching Doe Run, he could hear her coming up slowly on his left hip. She shifted smoothly into another gear as she passed him toward the crest of the next hill at Groundhog Mountain. His adrenalin kicked in as he caught up to her just before the wicked, mile-long, downhill stretch.
They both shifted furiously as they rocked side by side into the downhill. Quinn looked down at his Garmin and saw they were flying downhill at forty-two miles per hour and had traveled all of seven miles. Forty-three to go—game definitely on! The next eighteen miles to the turnaround at Chateau Morrisette were pure hell on wheels. Neither of them gave an inch, and they tried every trick they knew to gain the upper hand. Louisa owned the uphills, and Quinn kicked butt on the downhill sections. No words were exchanged or needed for those exhilarating moments when they defied gravity, mile after mile over the peaks and valleys.
The last mile—straight up the Parkway to Winery Road at mile marker 170—was a beast. Quinn had a significant lead going into the hill, but Louisa quickly caught up to and passed him as they neared the top. By the time they reached the vineyard, he was just off her tire and was already dead tired. He prayed to the great cycle god in sky that she was spent.
It didn’t take long to get the answer. She got to Chateau Morrisette first.
They pulled off the road and stopped under a tree across from the vineyard patio. A late-afternoon, mountain breeze was blowing softly across the mountaintop. Louisa leaned her bike against the tree, whipped off her jersey, and threw her arms up in the air as she did a little dance. Her sports bra was dripping wet.
Quinn lay on the ground, trying to regain some semblance of normal breathing and heart rate. She finally plopped herself down next to him and rested her head on his heaving belly.
“You are a beast!” he blurted. “No other word describes what you just did out there. All you wanted to do was spank my sixty-two-year-old butt every mile of the way. You’re an untamed animal!”
She rolled her head ever so slightly and looked at him. “You’re lucky I held back a bit, ole fella!”
After rolling over and over again in laughter, they agreed to a truce. The ride back would be civil. Then they walked to the vineyard store and bought a bottle of Angel Chardonnay, along with a large slice of cheese and some French bread. The cork pulled for them, they ambled back to their bikes, barefoot and spent. They took slugs of wine from the bottle, alternated with bites of cheese and hunks of bread. They giggled like the children who lived in their hearts and souls.
The next half hour was spent discussing the hilly twenty-five miles they had just ridden.
“One of these days, we have to ride the four gaps,” Quinn suggested.
“For some reason, that already sounds tough,” Louisa replied.
“I’ve ridden three of the four. They’re some of the toughest ascents I’ve ever done. I think you’ll have fun with those climbs, because you’re destined to be an uphill-climbing beast,” Quinn offered “When you’re ready, we’ll ride Squirrel Gap, Willis Gap, Orchard Gap, and Pipers Gap.
The descents are crazy-dangerous, with loose gravel, sharp turns, and some rabid dogs. Some riders who have lost control on the descents have suffered some serious injuries. It’s easy for even experienced riders to overshoot the curves. The cumulative elevation gain for the eighty-two mile loop is eleven thousand two hundred feet! Are you scared yet?” Louisa looked at him with a smile on her face as she got back into the saddle for the ride back.
The ride back took at least a half hour longer than the ride out. Their Garmins were turned off as they surveyed the beautiful mountain vistas they had missed on the way out. They stopped several times to sneak into the bushes and water the flowers.
The sun was getting lower in the afternoon sky as they rode into the driveway at the Chateau. Without a word, they both knew the hot tub beckoned. Quinn set the bikes in the shed as Louisa tipped the top off of the tub. The water was a perfect one hundred and one degrees. Clothes flew in all directions as they scrambled into the tub, wearing only sunglasses to look at the setting sun. The forty jets messaged their muscles and tendons as their fingers intertwined for the full twenty-minute cycle. A halo of contentment settled over the tub.
After the tub cycled out, they toweled off and headed to the kitchen to start their assigned duties on the dinner detail. As Louisa started preparing the greens for the salad, Quinn slowly slid the cork out of a great Cahors from Clos La Coutale that he had fetched from the wine cellar. As he sipped his wine, he turned on the six o’clock news and was shocked to see a breaking news segment on WXII, the Winston-Salem NBC affiliate station. The reporter was standing outside the parking lot at the entrance to Devil’s Den.
“Louisa, come here,” Quinn called. She picked up her wine glass on her way into the living room and sat next to him on the ottoman. The picture of Pete Preston tied to the iron grate flashed on the screen.
“Oh, my fucking word!” Louisa yelled out as she stared at the TV. “What sick motherfucker is responsible for that?”
Somehow she knew instinctively that she and Quinn would be drawn into the tragedy.
* * *
Tim and Susan were back at their apartment when the first phone call came. Susan looked at her cell phone and saw the name Shannon, Tim’s cousin, who lived in Wisconsin.
“Hello Susan, I just had to call you. Have you watched TV at all this afternoon?”
“No, we haven’t. We just came back from the horrible place where Pete’s body was found.” She started to sob.
“I’m so sorry for you and Tim. I hate to tell you this, but you need to turn on the cable news channel. They’re showing a terrible picture of Pete.”
“Tim, turn on the TV right now and find the cable news channel,” Susan blurted out. Tim found the remote and scrolled through the channels. He stopped on a cable news channel showing the anchor talking while a gruesome picture of Pete appeared behind him. Pete’s lower abdomen and groin were blurred. Tim and Mary stared at the screen. Susan dropped the phone as she slumped into the chair behind her. She sobbed uncontrollably.
Tim picked up the phone. “Shannon, this is Tim. Susan can’t talk anymore. We’ll call you back when we can. Thanks for the call.”
“Tim, I’m so sorry. You and the kids are in our prayers.”
Tim flipped through different channels and saw what he dreaded: The picture and story was on every TV news program and, he suspected, gone viral on the Web. He turned on his laptop and navigated to several news sites. The country now saw the horror of what was found at Devil’s Den. He understood that his family’s tragedy would now become a national, if not global, obsession.
He had seen other families plead for the return of their missing children on the
Today Show
in the morning or
Oprah
in the afternoon. He had felt the pain those families felt. Now he felt the dagger of reality sticking in his gut. He looked at his wife and knew that they had to keep the glimmer of hope alive for Katie’s safe return. He understood the power of the media to enlist their audience to help with the search for Katie. He was now convinced that Katie was somewhere nearby.
He was sure of it.
His mind drifted to what he would do if left alone with Pete’s killer. His vengeful thoughts were interrupted when his iPhone rang. “This is Tim.” he answered.
“Tim, this is Father Tony. Have you been watching television?”
“Yes, we have, Father. It’s just horrible.”
“It is, Tim. What kind of sick person would take and pass along such a terrible thing? I feel sick to my stomach about all of this. Have you talked to Sheriff Pierce about the picture yet?”
“No, not yet, Father. I plan to call him soon to find out what he may know. It looked like the deputies had shut off access to the trail while we were there. I just can’t imagine who could have taken the picture.”
“Tim, many of the parishioners have called me and suggested that we have a prayer vigil at the church tomorrow night. There are so many people who want to help.”
“Oh, Father, of course, we’ll be there.”
“Good. Plan on having dinner with us at five, and then we’ll go to the church and pray.”
“Thank you, Father, for thinking of us. We need your prayers and help.”
Tim hung up and told Susan of Father Tony’s offer of the prayer service. “We’re blessed to have such a caring and thoughtful priest so near us now. I just know something good will happen through him and the church,” Susan said as she wiped at her nose.
Tim dialed his phone as she was talking. The sheriff picked up immediately.
“Tim, I’m sure you’ve seen that terrible picture by now.”
“We’re so sick that some twisted freak would do such a thing. Susan hasn’t stopped crying since she saw it.”
“Tim, I understand. We have the investigators working overtime trying to determine who posted the photo. Jim Craig from the state police has his best internet forensics expert on it. We believe that the pool of possible idiots who posted the picture is small. We might have some idea by late tomorrow. Also, I spoke to Dr. Kahn, our medical examiner. He expects to be finished with his work by Tuesday.”
“Thank you, sheriff. Do you think the hikers who found Pete might have taken the picture?”
“ We thought of that, Tim. We sent two deputies over to Galax to see what kind of cell phones they have and let the forensics team determine if the picture could have come from those cameras. I’d be surprised if it was one of our officers at the scene. But I’ve been surprised before.
Tim, there is one other thing. We plan to hold a press conference after lunch tomorrow in the conference center at the government center. The local, regional, and national people have all gotten a hold of this. Unfortunately, it’s going to be media zoo. Our county administrator, our board chairman, and Johnny Berry from the state police will all be here. If you and Susan can be at my office at noon, we can have lunch and talk about what will happen when the bottom-feeders from the press descend upon us.”
“We’ll be there, sheriff. We need as much attention as we can get to get everyone in this part of Virginia and North Carolina looking for Katie. When do you think the M.E. will determine the cause of death?”