The Edge by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online

okay?”
    “Yeah, sure, but you already know everything.”
    “Let’s do it again. I want it on record this time. Mac needs to hear it too.” Maggie made preliminary comments into the recorder. After a couple of false starts, Rob sat forward and said slowly and very clearly, “It was nearly midnight on Tuesday, April twenty-second. I was cruising north along the coast road. I didn’t see anybodyor anything until I came around a deep curve and saw Jilly’s white Porsche in front of me. I saw the car go toward the railing. It didn’t slow, just kept going, right on through. Then the Porsche speeded up. I was right on its tail. When it went over the cliff I was there in just a couple of seconds. I saw the headlights through the water and dove in right at that spot. It went down about fifteen, sixteen feet, I’d estimate, before the car hit the sand and settled. The driver’s-side window was completely open. I managed to pull Jilly through the window with no loss of time since her seat belt wasn’t fastened. I kicked off the bottom and headed straight up. I estimate that she wasn’t underwater more than two minutes, tops.
    “I towed her to shore, made sure she was breathing. I climbed back up the cliff and radioed for an ambulance from my patrol car. They arrived about twelve minutes later and took her to the Tallshon Community Hospital. At least it was close by.
    “That’s it, Maggie. I can’t remember anything else.”
    “Did you recognize Jilly when you realized it was a white Porsche?”
    Rob nodded. “Oh, yeah, I’d know Jilly’s Porsche anywhere, just like everyone else in this town would.”
    “What did you think she was doing?” I asked.
    “I didn’t have a clue. I yelled and yelled at her but it didn’t do any good. It was like she didn’t even see me or hear me. Maybe she didn’t.”
    “Did you see anything or anyone else?”
    “No, no one.”
    Maggie said, “In your opinion, was Jilly Bartlett willfully driving the Porsche over the cliff?”
    “It looked that way to me,” Rob said.
    “Is there any doubt in your mind,” I said, “that Jilly was attempting to kill herself?”
    Rob Morrison raised weary eyes to my face. He rubbed his fist over the thick dark whiskers on his chin. “No,” he said finally, “I’m really sorry, but in my opinion, she was trying to kill herself.”
    “What about a mechanical problem that caused her to lose control?”
    “Her car’s still twenty feet under water, but I didn’t see any signs of mechanical problems. No exploding tires, no smoke coming from the hood, no skid marks, nothing like that. I’m sorry, Mac.”
    Half an hour later, Maggie and I were sitting in her car outside Paul and Jilly’s house.
    “You look ready to fold in on yourself,” she said. “Why don’t you rest for a while before Paul comes home?”
    “I don’t have a key to the house,” I said. “If it weren’t for the big tooth convention in town I’d be at the Buttercup B and B. So I didn’t think I’d be staying here with Paul.”
    “So no key?”
    “No key. I figured I’d just curl up on one of those chairs on their front porch.”
    “You’re too big to do much curling,” she said, and drummed her gloved fingers on her steering wheel. “Actually, since we’re sharing information, why don’t you just tell me your ideas about Jilly? You know, the ideas you told me you didn’t understand. Then you can head for that porch chair.”
    “You’ve got a good memory.”
    “Yes. What ideas, Mac?”
    “Even if I tell you, you’ll think I’m a nut case, or you’ll just dismiss it because I was in the hospital when it happened, and you’ll think it was a psychotic reaction to a drug.”
    “Try me.”
    I looked away from her, then inward, back to that night. “I was in the hospital. I dreamed about Jilly being in trouble that night. Somehow I was with her when she went over the cliff.” I wanted to laugh myself at what I’d just said, but I just shook my