All the Pretty Girls

Twenty

Whitney was driving in a panic. She’d tried Quinn at home, on her cell phone, at the country club for the remainder of the day yesterday and well into this morning. There was no answer at home or on the cell, and the country club staff hadn’t seen her since Monday after she’d finished her morning workout on the tennis courts. Whitney had continued to hit Redial throughout the evening, finally getting desperate when she reached the answering machine at Quinn’s home for the eighth time this morning. She left a message, telling her sister she was on her way over and to wait for her if she came home. If she got the message, she was to call immediately. She left the same message on Quinn’s cell phone, realizing she was starting to sound slightly hysterical. She needed to get a grip on herself. She might be wrong. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that it was just a coincidence. But she needed to tell her sister face-to-face so they could work it out together. They may not have been close, but Whitney did love her, and would do anything to protect Quinn.

The station had called, too, wanting her to come in and cover some new angle on the serial rapist that was breaking, but even that had to wait. Imagine, she was putting her own career on hold. She’d deal with that later. First, she had to see Quinn.

She forced her brand-new BMW X5 through the meandering traffic on Highway 70. This stretch of road, over Nine Mile Hill from Bellevue into the West Meade area, always lagged. All the locals knew that a speed trap waited to catch drivers as they blew over the hill faster than the forty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit allowed. She weaved, and touched her brakes as she came through the yellow flashing lights in front of St. Henry’s, warning her to slow down to fifteen miles an hour so she wouldn’t run over any lingering schoolchildren. She slowed to sixty-five, then punched the gas as she passed through the intersection. She saw a crosswalk monitor shaking a fist in the air in her rearview mirror, but didn’t slow.

The SUV gleamed in the sunlight, briefly blinding other drivers as it flashed past, narrowly missing bumpers and side mirrors. Horns blared, fingers were thrown, but Whitney ignored the danger she was putting herself and the other drivers in. The West Meade split at Highway 70 and Highway 100 was congested as usual, the awkward traffic pattern begging for an accident of mammoth proportions, but she caught all the lights. She found the short stretch of open road where Highway 70 briefly became the Memphis-Bristol Highway that indicated the wealth of the land had just increased tenfold. The sign for the Belle Meade Mansion flashed by in a blur of white and she realized she’d missed her turn onto Leake Avenue. No matter, she could get to Quinn’s house through the main entrance to Belle Meade. The railroad tracks flashed by on her left and suddenly she was on top of the entrance.

She knew she was going too fast as she tried to take the right turn. She braked hard, and the X5 slid into a 90-degree turn onto Belle Meade Boulevard. As the Beemer tried to obey its master and turn on a dime, Whitney lost control. The SUV weaved precariously, flashing across the turning lane right into the two bronze Thoroughbreds that graced the entrance into the Belle Meade enclave.

The life-sized metal horses bucked into the air and crashed onto the street behind her. The impact didn’t stop her SUV, which continued across the median into the oncoming traffic on the Boulevard. Drivers swerved to miss her, but one car stayed its course. Whitney’s BMW plowed into and over the Audi station wagon, crushing the car and its three occupants.

In her panic, she’d neglected to fasten her seat belt. Without the restraint to hold her in place, the impact hurled Whitney through the windshield as if she were a missile. Her left foot caught in the wiper blade, and her broken, bloody body splayed on the shiny hood, mingling with the splat of a couple of lovebugs, all three joined forever in death.