Shades of Deception

by Piper Dow

  She walked partway down the aisle before ducking into one of the stacks. She stepped quickly to get to the other end and ducked behind the end of the stack, then stood silently for a minute or two, listening. She didn’t hear any footsteps following her. She held her breath and risked turning the corner to see if he was trying to find her.

  Waiting a few more moments, Kelly hurried to the study cubbies in the back room to find Marie and her friend. Marie was there, standing at the back of the sitting area.

  “Diana had to go,” she said, her eyes not meeting Kelly’s. “Listen, I don’t want to really get involved. I’m only here because Sam used to be a good kid, but I don’t know much.”

  Kelly took a deep breath to quiet her frustration. “Please tell me whatever you know. I know that Sam had written some disturbing things were going on, and then she came home and was attacked, and as of this morning, she was still in a coma. Whatever you can tell me, it might help us figure out what is happening!” She spoke quietly but urgently.

  Marie hesitated, then nodded. “A couple of months ago, Sam was taking a class - an online summer class that had something to do with local history. She started researching one of the legends, and then she started talking about really freaky stuff. A lot of people around here see things and hear things, and the townies all say it has to do with the legends and its best left alone. Sam said she didn’t believe in the legends, and she didn’t want to leave it alone.” Marie looked around and lowered her voice even more, so that Kelly had to step closer to hear. “Then Sam started talking crazy. That’s part of the legend. Nobody wanted her to mess with it, but she wouldn’t stop, and she kept getting crazier. The store manager had to fire her - he said it was because she missed a shift, but he would have kept her on if it wasn’t for the legends. And I know Sam, but honestly, she was acting like she was high or something some of the time.”

  Marie glanced at her watch. “I have to go, I have a class,” she said. She tightened her hold on her book bag.

  “Wait - do you know anything about Jill, Sam’s roommate?” Kelly asked quickly.

  Marie startled, looked around again, and shook her head. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I hope Sam is okay, but I can’t get into more of this.” She stepped passed Kelly and walked quickly toward the side entrance of the library.

  Kelly glanced around the study area and sank into a nearby chair. This had to all be tied into that stupid Skinwalker thing that Sam had been talking about. Frowning, she wondered if she could access any information on the legend online. A soft noise from behind her in one of the stacks set her hair on end. Slowly, she stood and crept toward the stacks, trying to remain as quiet as possible. Rounding the nearest corner, she spotted the back of a blue sweatshirt exiting the other end.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Fear gripped her, tightening its grip on her heart. Who was the guy from the photos, and why was he messing around following her? Anger quickly replaced the fear. She didn’t need more drama from this guy following her around and trying to listen in on her conversations! Kelly hurried to the end of the stack and looked down the aisle. She didn’t see the blue sweatshirt. Moving quickly, she checked each row as she headed for the main lobby of the library. Climbing the steps to the entry, she saw the blue sweatshirt heading out the door. It was the same man that had been getting his coffee from the machine. Kelly sped across the library and caught the door as he hit the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hey!” she shouted at him.

  He ignored her, turning down the sidewalk and rounding the corner of the building. Kelly bounded after him, reaching out to grab the back of his sweatshirt a few steps down the side of the building.

  “Hey!” she shouted again.

  The man spun around, catching her wrist in his hand. His tousled hair and scruffy beard seemed at odds with the quick intelligence in his brown eyes. His grip prevented her from falling, caught short by his sudden stop, but also prevented her from stepping away from him.

  “You don’t want to do this,” he said in a quiet undertone. “There’s enough going on without you two getting hurt, too. Go home and leave things alone. Stay safe.”

  He abruptly let go of her wrist with a little shove, unbalancing her. He had taken two steps away before she managed to grab at his sweatshirt again. “Wait! What do you know?” she said, her voice not quiet but no longer shouting.

  Sighing, he turned around again and took a step back toward her. Instinctively, Kelly felt a knot of fear tighten in her stomach. The man was not a large man, but he moved in a way that spoke of control. His eyes swept the campus behind her quickly as he turned. “You need to let this go,” he said. “You want your sister to be okay, you want your brother to be okay, then you need to get on that bus and go home and leave this alone. I can’t give you anything more.”

  The fire in Kelly’s stomach was spreading. He had to know what was going on - she had to make him tell her!

  “Kelly!” a relieved shout from the front of the library caught her attention.

  Kelly turned to see Wayne standing with the bicycle, one hand in the air to catch her attention. There were more students on the grounds now; classes must have just let out. She turned her attention back to the man, but he had taken advantage of her distraction and had disappeared into a crowd of students heading to the student center. Wayne rolled the bike up to her side.

  “They had tubes there, and there was a guy who was chaining his bike up to the rack that helped me change the tube,” he said, indicating the tire with grease streaked hands. “I need to go in and wash my hands. Who was that guy?”

  “I don’t know,” Kelly moaned. “That is the guy who was at the hospital yesterday, and then today he was following me in the library! I followed him out here to find out why he is following us and he told me to leave things alone and go home, or else we’ll end up in more trouble - we have to go after him!”

  But as Kelly looked around again, she knew that it was useless. The few seconds it had taken to fill Wayne in had been enough for the man to disappear.

  “Are you serious?” Wayne was astounded. “Kelly, are you crazy?”

  Kelly turned back to look at Wayne, frustrated almost to the point of tears.

  “Don’t you see? This proves that Sam wasn’t involved in whatever this is! Something big is going on,” she said.

  “Yeah, it proves that something dangerous is going on, Kel!” Wayne shot back. “We have enough to bring back to the police and let them handle it. Let’s just bring the pictures and the rest of this back and let someone who’s trained to deal with this do it. Do you want to end up like Sam?”

  Kelly bit back a retort. “Sam lost her job because of this skinwalker legend - one of her friends from the bookstore told me in the library,” she said. “She said no one will deal with any of the weird stuff that goes on because of the legend. How do we know that the police are going to be able to get anywhere?”

  “Why do you think we can get anywhere if you don’t think the police can get anywhere?” Wayne reached out to put his hand on Kelly’s arm to make sure she was listening to him. “Kelly, you said we needed to come to Sam’s to see what we could find so that the police would keep looking past the drugs in her system. We’ve got enough to get them to do that - we don’t need to turn up hurt like Sam. Let’s go back and turn this stuff in.”

  Wayne was insistent. Kelly hated that he was making sense - she wanted to chase that man down and make him tell her what was going on. Her anger that he had gotten away from her overshadowed the fear he had made her feel.

  With Wayne tugging at her sleeve, Kelly agreed to head to the bike shop to return the bikes. The time in the library had taken longer than she thought - they would have to make good time to get to the shop before it closed. They went to the bike rack in front of the library where Kelly had left her bike. Looking down as she pulled the bike out of the rack, Kelly gasped.

  “Someone’s slit the tire!” she yelped.

  Wayne quickly l
ooked around. There was no one looking at them, though a couple of guys were hanging out at a picnic bench under a tree not too far away.

  “Let's take it to the bookstore. I know where the bike stuff is - come on, just wheel it over,” Wayne said in a quiet voice. He looked around again. “We need to get it fixed and get out of here, Kel.”

  Kelly pushed the bike wordlessly, following Wayne across the campus. Anger burned in her veins, making her hands shake a little as they walked.

  Wayne returned quickly from inside the store with a tube for the tire and a screwdriver and a hand pump to blow the tire up.

  “The cashier said I could borrow them - they keep them inside to work on decorations or something - I wasn’t really listening. I told him I’d do it right here in front of the store and bring the tools right back,” he said.

  He unfastened the tire with the quick-mount attachment and soon had the tire off the rim. Someone had slit through the casing and the tube, but just replacing the tube would be enough to get them back to the bike shop. Kelly was probably going to lose some of the deposit she had put down, but she should get most of it returned. Wayne used the screwdriver to work the tire back over the rim and set to work pumping it up with the pump.

  Kelly looked around the campus, searching for the man in the sweatshirt. One man leaned against the side of a building that announced it was the science pod, watching with idle curiosity as Wayne pumped the tire. He was wearing a tan jacket, though, and had dark blond hair. A couple sat on a bench in front of a sculpture of twisted metal. The girl had her dark head resting on his chest, his arm curled around her shoulders and resting at her waist. Dozens of other students walked in pairs and groups across the grounds, disappearing into buildings or heading to the parking lot. A couple of guys were pulling out packs of cigarettes as they neared the sidewalk approaching the front street.

  Kelly turned and saw a couple of men heading toward a gray car in the parking lot. She started - it was the man with the blue sweatshirt! He was with another man in jeans and a sweater who opened the driver’s side door, jangling car keys in his hand. He threw his head back and laughed, a barking sound that Kelly could hear across the lot. The man in the blue sweatshirt smiled and shook his head as he got into the passenger side of the car.

  “Wayne! It’s him!” Kelly said, pointing.

  Wayne turned to look where she was pointing, then quickly grabbed her hand and pulled it down. “Kelly, quit pointing,” he hissed.

  “But it’s the guy from the library, from the hospital!” Kelly argued. She wanted to run to the car, to scream - she didn’t know.

  “Kelly,” Wayne’s hiss was insistent. “See that other guy - the driver?”

  “No, the one in the blue sweatshirt!” Kelly’s voice was rising with her frustration.

  “No, Kelly - listen!” Wayne grabbed her shoulder and shook her a little. “Do you see the driver? That is the guy that let me use his tools to change the tire on this bike,” Wayne nudged the bike he had ridden with his foot. He looked at the other bikes standing in the bike rack. “Look - the bike he pulled up with is still here - it’s the green one there. He seemed chatty, now that I think about it - I was so glad he was here with tools I could use it didn’t register how talkative he was.”

  Wayne kept his hand on Kelly’s shoulder as they watched the car pull out of the parking lot. It joined a string of others in the drive toward the campus exit. As the vehicle passed slowly in front of the grounds separating the bookstore from the street, the man with the sweatshirt looked at Kelly. He gave no sign of recognition, then spoke an answer to the driver of the car before turning away.

  Wayne dropped his hand and finished pumping the bike tire up. “We are going home. Now. Okay?” he asked.

  Kelly nodded without answering. She fished in her messenger bag and pulled out a pen and her notebook, writing “8GN” on the cover. She hadn’t been able to see the whole license plate, but maybe this would be better than nothing. There was nothing more they could do from here, today, and it was becoming more evident that whatever this was, it was bigger than she had thought. If the driver of the car had pretended to have a bike so that he could use helping Wayne to fix the tire as a way to talk to him, he must be involved, too.

  “Wayne - was that the car from Sam’s apartment?” Kelly asked when Wayne came back outside after returning the screwdriver and hand pump to the store clerk.

  “No - the car at Sam’s was dark brown, either a Nissan or a Honda, I couldn’t see which,” he said.

  “What was this one?” she asked, preparing to write his answer down next to the partial plate number she had written.

  “Honda, a civic, I think,” he said. Wayne was a car geek, though more when it came to American classics.

  Kelly nodded, making the notation. If they were going to go back and hand everything over to the police, she wanted to make sure she had done as much as she could to catch the men who had hurt Sam. She quickly stowed the notebook back in her bag and swung her leg over the bike seat. They would really need to put some muscle behind their pedaling if they were going to make it back to the bike shop now before it closed.

  Wayne pulled out his phone and tapped in the name of the bike shop. Kelly had thought they would need to go back by way of Sam’s apartment to get back, but it turned out there was a side road that would shave nearly 15 minutes off their route. Kicking off, they maneuvered out of the school campus and followed the voiced directions from the GPS.

  “Wayne, can you remember what the driver was talking about when he helped you change the tube of your bike?” Kelly asked as they rode.

  Wayne looked thoughtful. “He asked if I lived near campus – said if we couldn’t fix the bike he could get me a lift home. I told him I was visiting my sister. He asked who she was, wanted to know if maybe he knew her. I told him Sam’s name – I thought if he did know her, he might be able to tell me something, you know? But he said he didn’t recognize the name.” Wayne pedaled a little without speaking as he crested a small hill. “He suggested that if I was going to be around for a few days that he could hook me up with a party, but I said I was only here for the day. He asked where I was from, but I figured if he didn’t recognize Sam’s name, I didn’t really need him knowing more about me, so I told him I was from Riverside. I don’t know, Kelly. I can’t think of anything else, really.”

  Kelly mulled his words. Why would one of the men involved in hurting Sam act like he didn’t know who she was? He was with the guy in the sweatshirt, so he had to be involved, right? She shook her head. She needed to write things down to be able to make more sense of them. When they were on the bus headed back home she would be able to focus a little better on it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  They took another turn at the GPS’ prompting. The voice announced that they should arrive at the bike shop in nine minutes. Kelly smirked. It always seemed like a challenge to her when she used the GPS in her car, and it told her how long it should take her to reach her destination - she always made it where she was heading in less time than the GPS estimated. They were passing houses at regular intervals now, and blocks were more regular. They were nearing the center of town. She pushed her legs a little harder. Kelly knew where the bike shop was now, she recognized the grocery store she had gone to with Sam to pick up food the week she had visited. The bike shop would be two blocks down, on a side street near the gas station. They were going to make it just before closing time.

  Wayne showed the shop attendant the tires he had repaired. The tire on the bike he had fallen with was still in good shape, with just a scratch on the fork and another on hate handlebar. The tire on Kelly’s bike would have to be replaced, though. The attendant took off the price for a new tire and issued a return for the remainder of the deposit that Kelly had given him at the start of the day.

  “I know it can’t cost that much for a new tire, but I suppose I have to pay for the labor of having him take the tire apart to put the new tread on, too,” K
elly grumbled as she and Wayne walked back toward the bus stop.

  “It was still a better way to get around than walking, and cheaper than taking a cab,” Wayne pointed out. He had his backpack in his arms, one hand rummaging inside. “Looks like I’m out of food. Want to grab something in that coffee shop before the bus comes?”

  Kelly shrugged. She hadn’t noticed herself getting hungry, but now that Wayne brought it up, she supposed that it wouldn’t be long before she was. “Yeah, okay. We’ll have to get it to go, though - the bus should be here in 20 minutes or so.”

  Wayne pulled open the coffee shop door and led the way inside. He pulled his phone partially out of his pocket, glanced at the screen, and pushed it back into his pocket.

  “Who is it?” Kelly asked.

  “Mom,” he said. “She’s been texting me to see if I need a ride home from practice. I figured I would text her when we get on the bus and tell her I’m all set.” He walked up to the counter and glanced around.

  The waitress from earlier in the day was not there. A dark-haired woman shouted that she would be right over. When they had ordered drinks and sandwiches, they walked to a small table to wait for their food to be made. Kelly glanced around at the other patrons; the crowd was lighter this late in the afternoon. A couple of college students with laptops sat at the stools occupied by the students earlier in the day; Kelly figured those must be the seats closest to the electrical outlets.