by Paul Duffau
She checked the display. A dozen or more texts, and a couple of Instagrams. She hesitated, feeling anxious. Her body, already on chemical overload, wanted a hit of endorphins, the kind that came fifteen minutes into an easy lope, not so slow to be jogging but nowhere near racing.
I need to run.
She glanced at Jules. The instructor was watching her in the mirrors that lined the length of the wall. She frowned when Kenzie put the phone back in her bag. Kenzie sidled away. Dropping into a low crouch, she pulled out her running gear, then slipped into a changing room. She was careful not to face Jules again. A scant two minutes later, she stuffed her uniform into the clothes bag, picked up both bags, and placed them by the door.
She was ready.
She had one hand on the door when Jules spoke.
“Kenzie.”
I could split, she thought, but turned around.
Jules stood by the thigh-high wall. Understanding filled the woman’s face, and concern. “Did you call your father?”
Kenzie shook her head but held on to Jules’s gaze.
The black belt sighed. “Be careful. I’ll let your father know what happened.”
Kenzie winced, already envisioning the coming lecture. She gave Jules an acknowledging nod, then she slid out the door, onto the sidewalk. Instead of the famous Seattle gray, she was greeted by a brilliant blue with sharp white clouds decorating the sunlit skies.
In three steps, Kenzie was running, but the expression on Robert’s shell-shocked face pursued her no matter how fast she fled.
Chapter 2
Mitch cussed as the bolt slipped from his grease-covered fingers, clinking and clanking as it dropped into the engine compartment of the Camaro.
He waited for the metallic sound of steel on concrete, but there was no ringing sound.
Crap, thought Mitch. If it didn’t land on the garage floor, it must have lodged somewhere in the compartment. He peered into the dim recesses around the motor and below the partially installed fuel pump. He didn’t see where it could have landed.
He gave an irritated sigh and, with both hands, threw the full weight of his lanky body onto the front fender of the car, rocking it on the worn-out suspension. Decades-old dust rose to mix with the smell of oil and grease. He wrinkled his nose.
Nothing.
He kept rocking the car, staying with the same type of rhythm he’d used as a kid on a swing. The hood squeaked, and Mitch checked it. The latch held. Then, he gave the muscle car an extra-hard shove at the bottom of the oscillation. The car bounced, and at the back came the sound of plastic hitting the concrete and shattering—and the tink of the bolt, dislodged by the violent rocking, falling free to the concrete slab.
He got down on his elbows and knees and ducked his head sideways to scrutinize the area underneath the frame.
How did it get there? he thought, spotting the bolt. It sat on the far side of the car, throwing a shadow from the light spilling in from the open garage door.
Mitch had the dented metal door run up, savoring the unexpectedly bright sunshine, so unusual for Seattle in the early spring. As a bonus, the sun warmed his back as he strained to get the wayward part.
He stretched to the full extent of his long arms. Three inches out of reach.
Naturally.
He withdrew his arm, and in a graceful movement, swung his legs up at the same time he pushed off with his hands, landing in a crouch, then rose up to his full height. He took two steps and curled around the passenger side of the car. From here, it took only a second to retrieve the bolt.
As he stood, a glimpse of hot pink caught his eye. His attention shifted from his project car to a girl running down the flight of steps at the far end of the narrow cul-de-sac. Her feet flicked at the concrete treads, landing just long enough to get the next leg down, like she was skipping. His assessment shifted upward from the feet, past the hot pink shorts, the loose baby blue shirt, to her face.
She’s cute.
And, noticing the motion under her shirt, he realized she wasn’t twelve, as she appeared at first. The girl reached the bottom of the steps and smoothed out to a lope.
Next door, Mrs. McFurkin’s yappy dog yipped at the intruder, interrupting Mitch’s appreciative thoughts. Mitch glanced sideways across the yard, annoyance crossing his face. The mutt, a designer dog—three-quarters fuzzy Pomeranian, the remainder the annoying bits of a Chihuahua—who answered to Muffles, was bouncing in excitement and trying to back out of his collar.
Not a real dog, he thought as a distant memory tugged at him. Labs don’t bounce when they bark!
Mitch stepped back into the garage before the girl could see him and mark him down as a perv. He put a hip against the car. From the relative shadows inside, he continued to watch the girl as she came down the sidewalk on the far side of the street.
A sleek low-slung black car silently slid into the driveway of the older, decrepit two-story house across the street, the rear bumper blocking the sidewalk.
The girl, closing fast, started to dodge when she was five yards from the car. At the same time as she left the walk for the grassy planter strip, the driver and passenger doors of the car sprung open and two men, dressed identically and incongruously in dark clothes and sunglasses, jumped out.
The passenger ran around the back of the car, into the street, like a defensive end cutting off a running back on a sweep. The other man closed on the other side of the girl, who skidded to a stop at the pincer attack.
Mitch watched it happen. It took a fraction of a second for the shock to wear off, and he launched off the Camaro.
“Hey!”
Muffles barked at them all.
Mitch sprinted into the street, chasing the car’s passenger.
In front of him, the helpless girl shied away from the driver and evaluated the other guy. Mitch saw her glance at him, dismiss him. Chest rising and falling, she backed diagonally away.
The assailants didn’t say anything as they stalked her. Mitch saw that the goon closest to him had something in his hand, saw the arm swing up. With relief, he realized it wasn’t a gun.
Without warning, the girl darted toward the driver. Mitch watched as her bare left leg lashed out, straight and fast, while her tiny hands came up into a defensive position. The ball of her foot snapped into the driver’s groin, the sole leaving a waffle pattern on his black trousers.
Sprinting, Mitch still managed to wince.
The driver let out a guttural “unnn” as his body collapsed into a fetal position, his eyes showing white all the way around.
One down.
Mitch got a clear picture of the second one as he barreled toward the assailant.
A mean-ass dude with a stun gun and a crappy crew cut. Big.
Mitch’s gut twisted.
“Run!”
The girl spared a glance at him and, discounting him, reset her feet. The soles of her running shoes gripped the grass and didn’t let her pivot to meet the new threat. Fear and anger flared on her face as the second man closed fast, but with caution, heeding the lesson his buddy learned the hard way.
Everything moved soooo slowly.
As the seconds stretched, Mitch estimated the time to close the last ten yards.
How long it would take for the mean-ass kidnappers—they had to be kidnappers, nothing else made sense—to zap the girl?
The time for the runner to finish her turn.
The math didn’t work; he was going to be too late.
At the last moment, he sensed rather than saw Muffles. The pom-chi-pom-pom that Mrs. McFurkin doted over had successfully slipped his collar and chased him into the street. The next instant, Muffles attached himself to Mitch’s pant leg, grrrring ferociously, as though it made any sort of difference. Mitch pitched head-first into the air.
Why do I only crash and burn when I have an audience, he thought irrelevantly, then straightened and swung his leg out to avoid kicking the stupid frickin’ fur ball.
The world turne
d topsy-turvy, but Mitch could see the passenger pause at the sounds of the dog behind him. The math changed. Mitch’s body rotated like a dart headed for a bull’s-eye. He was on the way down and, from instinct born of frequent practice, he braced for the impact with the ground.
He hit the side of the man’s leg below the knee. The fabric of the pants abraded his cheek as Mitch managed to get his head out of the way.
Always protect the brain bucket.
His shoulder took the brunt of the collision. White pain flared in his brain, a double crack echoing in his ears as the dude’s knee gave way at the same time as Mitch’s left collarbone. The man started to topple as Mitch’s momentum carried him under the man, then he was sliding on the damp, fragrant grass on his back.
The stun gun flew from the man’s hands, falling under the girl’s leg, already raised in attack position. Mitch saw the leg extend, catch the guy in the lower ribs, and expected to hear another crack. Instead, the ribs folded in as the man’s fall robbed the side kick of its effectiveness.
The stun gun clattered on the sidewalk and slid into the overgrown shrubbery, and Mitch slid faceup and headfirst into the bottom of a maple tree. His skull exploded in red waves of pain as skin peeled away on the bark, the back of his head riding up the trunk until his neck buckled sideways. He came to a stop when his broken shoulder arrested his movement.
Time reverted to normal speed, and with it, pain engulfed his body. He tried to lift his head, but shock waves from his shoulder caused his whole body to shudder. A moan escaped his lips before he clamped them shut.
The girl, is she okay?
He lifted his head again, suppressing the wracking signals sent by the nerve endings in his shoulder, his scalp.
He saw her standing, hands raised, eyes narrowed. Like a startled doe, she stood poised to take flight. The sunlight framed her body with a faint halo, and when she took stock of him, he saw the same golden light in her irises.
He stared at her as she took one reflexive step toward him. Her small fists opened, and one hand went to her mouth. He tried smiling as she took an inventory of the damage, flitting from head to shoulder, down his long, lanky body.
“You’re hurt,” she said. Her voice held dispassionate calm. The glow seemed to increase.
Thanks for noting the obvious, he thought. He didn’t say it out loud, though—no sense in offending pretty girls.
“Hi,” he said, easing away from the damaged side as he struggled to sit up. If he folded his left arm over and used his right elbow for leverage . . .
His vision went dark around the images, and he had to take several deep breaths. He managed to get disentangled from the maple, crushing red blooming tulips in the process. Damaged petals added their scent to the air.
While he moved, she moved, too. He saw her legs slip into his narrowed field of vision, femininely fit and muscular, as she dropped to a knee next to him. He looked up to her face, and the curve of her lips, the captivating eyes, pulled him in. When was the last time he was this close to a girl other than in a physics lab?
“I’m okay.” He forced the words out and smiled. His face felt twisted and, based on the disbelieving shake of her head, he gathered the girl disagreed.
She reached out a hand, tentatively. On her arm, he saw fresh bruises. The welts sparked an unreasoning anger inside as he remembered another arm that bore similar marks.
She didn’t speak.
The hand touched his chest, fingertips first. With gentle pressure, she forced him back down, prone on the grass.
Mitch let her.
She leaned over him, the pressure on his chest from her hand grew, and he found it hard to breathe. The aura around her returned, and Mitch saw small hairs, loose from her ponytail, moving on a breeze that he couldn’t feel.
Warmth flowed outward from her hand, from his chest, filling his core, extending to the shoulder. At the base of his neck, a tingle started and grew.
She spoke with quiet force. One word, one that he didn’t recognize.
“Æsculapium.”
The tingle turned into a torrent, white light filled his brain, streaks of rising fireworks into the darkness of the pain. He clutched at the hand on his chest.
The skyrockets split and burst, recombined, and he heard himself moan, except it wasn’t him.
The pressure from his chest disappeared before he could capture the hand, fingers grasping at air. The world around him went gauzy, and he blinked. The girl stood over him, staring, and backed away.
“Rest.”
His last sight was the girl bounding away as his arms fell across his chest.
Chapter 3
Mitch awoke to blue skies and Muffles’s atrocious breath. Silhouetted against the heavens, and blocking out most of his view of them, was Mrs. McFurkin. He turned his head to get away from the flicking, slobbery tongue and the smell of week-old tuna.
What the hell does she feed that dog?
“Why’dja let my dog off the leash?”
Mitch leaned onto his elbow to lift himself off the ground, then paused, eyebrows encroaching on his forehead as he realized that nothing hurt. An ache maybe in the shoulder. He grimaced at the memory of his shoulder hitting the tree. He finished swinging over to stand, going to hands and knees before recovering his feet.
A spell of light-headedness hit him, and he held on to a tree branch for support.
“You . . . drinkin’?” McFurkin’s voice sounded perpetually suspicious. “Or smokin’?” The undercurrent of her words carried the conviction that he must have been up to something.
He glanced at her as she leaned forward to sniff at him, like she could smell anything. She struck him as pickled and pissed. Mitch tried to lean back away from the woman. Her breath washed over him, and his nostrils flared. Vaguely, he wondered what would happen if he held a match up to her mouth. Visions of a flamethrower flashed through his mind, and the corners of his lips curled up.
Muffles jumped against his leg, and he unconsciously lifted it to block the mutt.
“Don’ you kick my dog!” McFurkin yelled. She stooped at the waist to scoop Muffles off the ground, pressing the little animal close to her bosom. “Ought to call the cops, you causin’ trouble like this, and tryin’ to hurt Mr. Muffles.” As she said his name, she buried her face in the dog’s fur. Muffles lips curled up, supremely happy with the course of events.
At the mention of cops, Mitch’s stomach had flopped.
He should be calling the cops. He scanned the scene in front of him, then over to the open garage door of his house.
Nothing.
No goons, no car, no girl.
He rubbed his chest in the same spot that the girl had touched.
No girl.
Doubts assaulted him, and he wondered if any of it had happened. His hand drifted up, touched his scalp. No scrape. He searched at the base of the tree in disbelief. He had hit that tree, hard, with his head, felt the skin tear.
A discoloration caught his attention. He knelt, touched it, came away with tacky red on his fingers.
Blood, he thought. His blood. A shiver went through him, and he swallowed.
He stood again, peered at the grass. A faint divot and a general flattening of the grass where he had slid.
McFurkin’s whiny voice penetrated. She was still chattering at him, an angry squirrel trapped in the body of a walrus.
He focused on her.
“. . . are you lissenin’ to me?”
“No.” The word slipped out, and he mentally cussed himself in the abrupt silence.
McFurkin sputtered, and her face reddened. The mouth worked, and indignant sounds emerged, accompanied by flecks of spittle. She drew herself up, and her hands squeezed together, pulling them even closer to her chest. Muffles’s eyes bulged, and Mitch worried that she’d accidentally strangle the mutt.
Mitch stepped past the woman and headed back to his house. The light-headed feeling persisted all the way back.
McFurkin rediscover
ed her voice as he reached the driveway to his house, shouting slurred obscenities at him. Trouble sat on the near horizon, and he shook his head. Disrespecting adults was sure to raise his uncle’s ire, and Mrs. McFurkin was sure to tell.
The curses faded to angry mumbles. Mitch glanced over his shoulder to McFurkin, watched her waddle into the street and carry Muffles home.
Mitch reached the garage and retreated into its safe, dark recesses, to a battered workbench. He leaned against the bench, the vise digging into his hip. He shifted his weight to the other hip.
Call the cops.
He stood and patted his pockets. No phone. Shoulders slumping, he gazed out to the street. Sunlight flashed off something shiny. His phone must have fallen out of his pocket during his acrobatics. He paused at the edge of the garage and scrutinized the neighbor’s yard.
Muffles was inside. Good.
He hustled across the street. Halfway there, he saw the flat rectangle of plastic, way too small to be a phone. Mitch frowned. He stooped, and identified the card when he picked it up.
McKenzie Graham.
The picture on the learner’s permit didn’t capture that glow she wore.
He could return it, try to explain that he’d tried to help. . . .
His throat tightened as the address below her name registered.
Lake Washington Boulevard.
Nothing on the lake went for less than a million bucks. It explained the goons, but he’d look like an idiot showing up on her doorstep—assuming they didn’t have a big-ass gate keeping the ordinary folk out—to return the permit. What would he say to her? Hey, here’s your ID. You must of dropped it when you were kicking ass. Sorry I got in the way. And, dude, what the hell did you do to my shoulder and head?
Did rich girls say “dude”?
Nervous shivers made it hard to breathe. He wasn’t too sure he wanted an answer about his shoulder.
He put the thought out of his head and checked his pockets for his phone instead. Not on the ground, or in the gutter. He shrugged, frustrated, then remembered that he’d taken it out of his pocket when he went to work on the Camaro. He unconsciously did a second pat-down of his pockets as if to confirm it to himself, and slipped the permit into his back pocket.