Finders Keepers

Chapter One Rome Ashcroft left the Four Seasons Hotel in Albany a little after five a.m. on an October morning that had dawned clear and crisp. Heading north on the interstate, she let the 911 climb to twenty over the posted speed limit. When her radar warned her of a speed trap ahead, she eased off the gas before passing the trooper tucked into a narrow space between the tall spruce and fir trees that filled the wide median separating the north- and southbound lanes. The red Porsche was easy to spot and a magnet for highway patrol, so she’d learned to be vigilant, figuring the radar detector evened the playing field. But with empty roads and good weather, she liked the speed and the hungry way the coupe gripped the road, like a hunter on the prowl. An old girlfriend—who hadn’t been old at the time, they’d both been first year college students then—had told her she’d made love—the girlfriend’d used another word then too—like she drove. Hard and fast and smooth. Rome had chosen to take it as a compliment, as the woman in question had expressed her pleasure more than once that night, but she’d remembered the words and made it a point to let her bedmates set the pace after that. But behind the wheel of the highly responsive and powerful machine, she could indulge her desire to live out on the edge of control. When she left the interstate, the abrupt change from straight, unfettered highway to narrow, uneven, and barely paved roads put an end to her speed. Forty minutes out of the city, she powered down to a sedate fifty, to both her disgust and that of her coupe, whose engine strained and throbbed and threatened to break loose if her attention wavered for an instant. And she couldn’t afford not to pay attention, not given the heavy pockets of fog that appeared unexpectedly around curves in the twisting country roads, obscuring her vison for seconds at a time while she squinted into the murk without the faintest notion of where the shoulder—what there was of it—might be. She didn’t expect road lights, or even shoulder reflectors, but didn’t they believe in lane markings out here? At least she was the only one on the road. If the sky had been clear—or even visible—the sinuous two-lane that climbed and dipped and swerved would have been a fun exercise in sports driving, but she really didn’t want to arrive for the first day of work in the ambulance instead of waiting to meet it. Rounding a bend, she caught a glimpse of a faint red flicker in the wall of gray ahead, and her foot hit the brakes before her brain registered taillights! Heart pounding and mentally cursing softly, she peered ahead as the rear of what looked like a pickup truck disappeared into the swirling mist. That could have been a disaster, and her own mistake for not anticipating someone else on the road. Careless. Careless got you, or someone you cared about, dead. She took a breath. Right. Proceed as if Grandmother was in the car. Rome smiled. Had Grandmother Ashcroft been aboard, she would have been urging Rome to get a move on, dahling. Checking her mirrors, Rome pulled forward and just as quickly swerved to avoid a large dark shape half on the road and half in the bushes on the sloping shoulder, densely bordered by a thicket of trees that came right down to the road’s edge. She pulled over as far as she could without putting the 911 in the weeds, put on her hazard lights, and climbed out to investigate. With every step closer, the taste of ash built in her throat, and she flashed back to the rows and rows of similar shapes awaiting the last flight home—body bags on the airfield at Ramstein, eight clicks from Landstuhl Hospital where she’d been stationed in the last days of the Iraqi conflicts. She blinked and muttered, “Relax. It’s just an old duffel bag. Somebody’s trash, that’s all.” Or maybe not. Maybe the thing had flown off the back of that truck that had just sped away. Could have laundry in it or a week’s worth of clothes for some trip. She frowned and took a couple of steps closer. Or maybe not. “What the…” Something was off. Something about the bag raised an alert, a survival sense honed by a thousand trips in a Humvee over roads littered with IEDs. Her mind balked at registering what she thought she saw. No, she wasn’t wrong. There was something inside that bag, all right. Something moving. Her pulse spiked, and she ran. Running into the face of danger was second nature too. Time was everything in a crisis—seconds meant lives. Seconds meant soldiers—friends—bleeding out, limbs lost, brains forever damaged. She had to… Rome skidded to a stop, her leather soles sliding on the dew-damp road surface. She had to slow down. Think. Her being dead or wounded saved no one. And this wasn’t a war zone. This was rural Upstate New York. Farm country. Not Baghdad. The war was over. Focused now and totally present, Rome crouched next to the duffel, her hands steady even though her nerves were jangling and her stomach tensed into a ball. Gripping the pull on the big brass zipper cutting down the center of the worn, faded green canvas, she yanked. Something black came hurtling out and pain lanced through her palm. She rocked back on her heels—snake? Raccoon? Please don’t let it be a freaking skunk. The black body wiggled free and plopped onto the road. Rome stared. She spread the edges of the duffel and peered inside. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” * * * Tally Dewilde parked her baby-blue VW Bug in one of the three slots marked for clinic staff. The cute little signs, cut into the shapes of a cow, chicken, and bunny, perched on posts crafted