Panic shot through me. “Help me up, Earl. I can’t afford to be in the hospital! My health insurance from the mall job doesn’t kick in until next month.”
“Yeah, about that—”
I sat up and peeled the tape from the IV in my arm.
Earl objected. “Now hold up there a second.”
I scowled. “No! I might look like hell, but I feel fine.”
“Well, to tell the truth, you don’t look much worse than you did on prom night. Remember? You had that monster zit on your forehead and—”
“Shut up and help me get out of here! Do you have another set of coveralls with you?”
“Down in the truck.”
“Go get them. And hurry!”
EARL AND I WERE HALFWAY down the hospital corridor—two shady mechanics in shabby blue coveralls—when a doctor walked by us. I think he would have mistaken us for janitors if he hadn’t recognized my fancy haircut. Or maybe it was the bandage between my eyes ....
“Roberta Drex?” he asked, turning to stare at us as our paths crossed. “I’m your attending physician, Dr. Brown.”
Earl and I kept walking, pretending not to hear. The doctor called after us. “What are you doing out of bed Ms. Drex?”
I turned to face him. “Uh ... leaving. I’m sorry, but I can’t afford to stay here.”
The doctor appeared more annoyed than surprised. “You can’t afford not to. You were unconscious for several hours. Don’t you want to know what’s wrong with you before you leave?”
I scanned the doctor’s face. If I was dying, he didn’t give it away. “Okay. Give it to me straight. What’s wrong?”
Dr. Brown glared at me, then wilted. “Well, to be honest, we did an initial brain scan, but couldn’t find anything.”
I glanced over at Earl’s smirking face. He opened his mouth to say something stupid, but I shut him down with a look that could wither gonads at fifty paces.
“So, in other words, there’s nothing really wrong with me. Thanks, Doc. I’ll be leaving now.”
Dr. Brown grabbed my arm. “Hold on a moment! Yes, the initial scan indicates your brain appears undamaged. But you were struck by a ricocheting bullet, Ms. Drex. While it slowed considerably before it impacted your skull, there could be undetected residual effects.”
I frowned. “Like what?”
“Any number of things. But right now, the damage appears to be contained to skin abrasions and hematomas confined to the non-subdural dermis.”
Earl crinkled his nose. “That sounds bad.”
I sighed. “It’s just doctor talk for a scratch and a bruise. Am I right, Doc?”
“Yes,” Dr. Brown admitted. “You’re one lucky lady.”
“Yeah. Getting shot in the head. That’s my kind of luck, all right.”
“A sense of humor. That’s a good sign, too. Patients have been known to lose theirs as a result of head trauma.”
“Too bad,” Earl quipped. “So much for the power of prayer.”
I shot Earl another dirty look and turned to the doctor. “Then I’m good to go? Like I said, I really can’t afford to be here.”
The doctor pursed his lips. “Well, I’m still concerned. You lost consciousness longer than typical. You may have suffered a concussion. Still, there appears to be no brain swelling. The MRI we took should tell us more. To be on the safe side, I’d like to keep you overnight for observation.”
I winced. “Listen, I appreciate your concern and all. But a night here would cost me more than I make in a month.” I poked my chin in my cousin’s direction. “Can’t Earl here keep an eye on me?”
The doctor glanced at our threadbare coveralls and sighed. “I can’t hold you here against your will. But you’ll have to sign a form saying you refused treatment. I’ll have the nurse give you a list of concussion warning signs. Promise me if you have any symptoms you’ll come back to the hospital immediately.”
“Sure. I promise.” I sighed as relief emanated from my wallet.
Earl saluted the guy. “You can count on me, Doc.”
Dr. Brown’s face sagged with symptoms of early-onset regret. He blew out a breath and led us to the nurses’ station. I signed the waiver form while a nurse gave Earl a pamphlet on concussions and a bag of bandages. After thanking them, we headed toward the exit.
We were halfway down the hall when my head began to hum. I flinched, then did a double take.
Standing in front of the visitor’s lounge was the guy in the hoodie. The man I’d caught stealing a bike outside the mall. The guy I’d chased. The same punk who’d shot me with his Saturday-Night Special.
I gasped and elbowed Earl in the ribs. “What’s he doing here?”
“Who?”
“That guy.”
“Where?”
Anger boiled up inside me. “Over there, Earl. By the vending machine. That’s the guy who shot me!”
Earl shook his head like I was crazy. “That ain’t him.”
My eyes narrowed. “Yes it is. How many other people would be wearing tiger pants and lime-green Crocs?”
Earl patted my shoulder. “Around here? Could be anybody.”
I scowled. “Dang it, Earl! I guess I’m gonna have to run him down all by myself. Geez! I always have to do everything. Get out of my way!”
I took a step toward the guy and blanched. He was gone.
“Where’d he go?” I took another step.
Earl caught me by the arm and spun me around. “Stop it, Bobbie.”
“Let go of me!” I tugged against my cousin’s bear-claw grip. “We’ve got to go after him!”
Earl looked me in the eye. “Hold your horses, Cuz. I’m telling you, I’m a hundred percent sure whoever you saw wasn’t the kid who shot you.”
I glared at my cousin. Only a man could be a hundred percent sure of anything.
“How can you say that?” I hissed.
“’Cause the punk who shot you got runned over by a monster truck heading for the mud-bugging flats. He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Squashed flatter’n road kill. Well, everything but his Hello Kitty backpack.”
Chapter Two
ON THE HOUR-LONG DRIVE from the hospital in Gainesville to our hometown of Point Paradise, Earl wouldn’t stop ribbing about me “seeing ghosties,” “losing it,” and my “screws coming loose.”
By the time we made it back to the auto garage, I’d convinced myself that the world was full of jerks in tiger-skin hot-pants. The guy I’d seen at the hospital couldn’t have been the same one who’d shot me. There’d probably been a sale on green crocs and Hello Kitty backpacks at Walmart, and now the town was crawling with lookalike doofuses.
The whole thing had been a figment of my imagination.
As I climbed out of the truck, I caught my reflection in the side mirror and remembered that my half-shaved head was, unfortunately, no figment.
I blew out a breath. Then I stomped across the parking lot and up the stairs leading to my apartment above the garage. I fumbled the door open, marched into the kitchen, and fished a pair of scissors from a drawer. Then I stood in front of the hall mirror and began whacking away at my remaining locks.
“Practicin’ medicine without a license is illegal in Florida,” Earl said, coming in behind me.
“I’m pretty sure it’s illegal everywhere,” I said sullenly. “And this isn’t a medical procedure.”
“Sure it is.” He snorted. “It’s a mullet-ectomy.”
My eyes narrowed. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, blew out a sigh, and snipped off the last strands of hair hanging behind my left ear. The long clump fell to the floor, along with what was left of my vanity.
I turned my head to get a side view of my homemade hairdo. It was all I could do not to groan out loud.
A choppy band of inch-long auburn hair encircled the back and sides of my otherwise bald head. If that weren’t bad enough, an angry red crater pulsed like a mini volcano in the center of my forehead.
Earl laughed. “You know you’re famous now, right?”
“Famous?” My pulse lurched. “Good grief! Please tell me you didn’t talk to any reporters!”
Tiger Pants Shoots Cyclopoid Mall Cop. Good lord! I could end up on the home page of the Florida Man website!
Earl smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Just one. Turns out Third-Eye Blind’s looking for a new mascot.”
I bit down hard against a sudden, stinging pressure behind my nose. Crying wasn’t my style. Especially not in front of Earl Shankles. But geez! How much more was I supposed to take?
“I need a wig,” I hissed.
“Nah. I think you look great.” Earl chuckled and rubbed his hands together. “I guess some money’s gonna change hands tonight.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Bobbie. Half of Point Paradise thinks you’re really a guy. Now that you’re going bald, people round here will be calling in their bets. You can count on it.”
A vein pulsed in my left temple. “Could you cut me a break, just this once? I got shot in the head, for crying out loud.” My reflection in the mirror made me wince afresh. “What am I gonna do? I can’t go around looking like this.”
“Just do what we guys do when we go bald.”
I braced myself for another insult. “What?”
“Wear a hat.”
“Oh.”
Earl held out his Redman chewing tobacco ball cap. I nearly choked. In the saga of our redneck family, the grubby cap was legendary.
“Lucky Red” had been handed down to Earl by his father. He’d been wearing it the day he’d caught a twelve-pound bass in a fishing tournament on Wimbly Lake. The scale-busting lunker had won my uncle a shiny trophy and a brand-new bass boat. It was the most luck our family had had in generations.
Lucky Red was one of Earl’s few prized possessions. Lending me the cap was the closest thing to “I love you” my cousin had ever expressed to me.
“Thanks.” I reached for the cap.
Earl yanked it away. “It’s a loaner, mind you.”
“Fine.” I snatched the cap from Earl, stared at the dirty brim and scowled. “Great. Looks like I’ll have to wash it first.”
Earl burst out laughing.
Part of me longed to join in, but the rest of me snuffed out the urge.
Perfect. Here I am, borrowing “luck” from the very man who stole all of mine in the first place.
Good one, universe.
Har har har.
Chapter Three
“DOCTOR SAYS YOU SHOULD take it easy,” Earl said, towering over me with his luxurious headful of shiny, black hair.
After just sheering myself like a sheep, I found myself envious of him for that, too.
Great. Like I need another reason.
“Yeah. I know,” I said sullenly, and carried Lucky Red into the kitchen. Earl trailed along behind me, annoying me to no end with his persistent existence.
“I could’ve carried you up the stairs,” he said.
“I’m not an invalid, Earl!”
“I know that! Sheesh. I’m only trying to help.”
“Sorry.” I gave my cousin the best smile I could muster under the circumstances, then reached into the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a spray bottle of Windex. “It’s just that, well, I’m used to taking care of myself.”
I spritzed the ball cap while Earl hovered over me like an incompetent, micromanaging supervisor.
“I know you are, Bobbie. But you don’t have to. You want me to stay the night on the sofa?”
“No.”
He folded his huge arms over his barrel chest. “Well, I’m staying anyway. Somebody’s got to keep an eye on you.”
“Fine.”
I scrubbed the cap with a sponge while Earl wandered around the shabby, two-bedroom apartment that had been my parent’s place for thirty years. When Dad passed away six months ago, I’d come back to try and salvage the family business.
It wasn’t going well.
“This place looks like a museum to your folks,” Earl called out from the living room.
“Yeah. It should. It was their place, after all.” I hadn’t had the heart to change a single thing since I’d moved in. “It feels like sacrilege for me to even be here.”
Earl poked his head back into the kitchen. “Why would you say that?”
“You know why.” I kept my voice flat. “They never wanted me in the first place. I’m the prodigal son who turned out to be the pitiful daughter.”
Earl opened his mouth, but shut it without saying anything.
I put Lucky Red in the sink and filled the basin with warm, soapy water. “Listen, I’m gonna let your hat soak for an hour while I go take a nap.”
Earl held up a piece of paper and shook it at me. “Keep the bedroom door open. This here list from the hospital says I should check on you every fifteen minutes.”
My throat tightened. “Okay. Whatever.”
I stomped to my parents’ old room, kicked the oversized work boots from my feet, and flopped onto the bed. I wasn’t tired. I just wanted a moment’s peace.
Alone.
By myself.
Without Earl.
I stared at the picture on the nightstand. Inside the cheap frame was an image of my father, Robert Drex, sitting behind the wheel of a red, 1964-1/2 Ford Mustang. He was parked in the lot in front of the shop. A shiny, new sign above the garage’s service bay doors proudly proclaimed Robert’s Mechanics. My mom, Edith, stood below the sign, her back against the wall. Her mother, my Grandma Selma, stood beside her, holding me in her arms.
Nobody was smiling.
Why the hell did I come back to Point Paradise? To help Mom out? To save Dad’s mechanic shop? To show Earl who’s boss once and for all?
I chewed my lip. Who was I kidding? I was no business woman. It wasn’t all my fault, but the shop was now so far in arrears I’d had to take that job at the mall just to keep the lights on. And Earl? He wasn’t even grateful! I mean, where else could a redneck jerk like him find work? Who would hire the moronic lug except my father?
The door to my bedroom creaked open. Earl stuck his head inside. “You doing okay?”
As if working as a mall cop hadn’t been embarrassing enough, I’d somehow managed to make myself even more dependent on my idiot cousin. It was absolutely the last damned thing in the world I wanted.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Earl eyed me skeptically. “Okay. But I’m leaving the door open wider. So it don’t squeak and wake you up.”
“Fine.”
“You need anything?”
“Only to be left alone.”
Earl’s dumb, pleasant face soured a notch. “Can do.”
Earl disappeared behind the door. I bit down hard against my anger. I knew I should be nicer to him. He was trying, after all. But it was so much easier for him.
He had won.
I tossed and turned, my mind seething over Earl Shankles. He was my first cousin. My life-long tormentor. The usurper of my father’s affections. The whole reason my life had turned out like this ....
BACK WHEN EARL AND I were kids, I’d spent every afternoon helping out around my dad’s garage after school. By the time I was eight, I could do oil changes, switch out spark plugs, replace dead batteries, and fix flat tires.
But everything had changed when I turned eleven. I’d hit puberty and had the audacity to turn out to be a girl after all. My mechanic-in-training days came to a screeching halt. My father dropped me like a hot soldering gun, banishing me from his service bay forever.
With his fantasy son reduced to wearing a training bra, my father had picked Earl to be my replacement. My cousin not only took my place as flunkey at my dad’s shop—he stole my father’s heart and never gave it back.
As soon as high school was over, I ran off to college and found someone else to break my heart all o
ver again.
I guess I showed them.
I blew out a sigh and stared at the ceiling.
What did Earl have that I didn’t? Why did Dad give him what rightfully belonged to me?
When I’d come home for my father’s funeral, I’d discovered that Earl had taken over running my father’s business. I figured it had been easy pickings for him. My mother had never wanted anything to do with the garage. I’m sure she’d gladly handed over the reins to Earl.
Well, I’d set that business straight on day one. I’d taken back charge of the books and Earl Shankles’ paycheck. Mom had been relieved. So relieved, in fact, that she’d taken the liberty of running away with our postman, David Applewhite, two days after Dad’s funeral. A week later she’d called to let me know they’d gotten married at a drive-thru chapel in Vegas.
Mom gets married again at sixty, and I can’t even get a second date ....
I glanced at the clock. Earl would be making his rounds any minute. I rolled over and sighed for the hundredth time.
For crying out loud, just go to sleep, Bobbie!
But I couldn’t. Something inside me was making me madder than a wet hornet. I felt trapped. Dragged down by circumstances beyond my control.
The door creaked open. I shut my eyes and pretended to be asleep. Logically, I knew it wasn’t Earl’s fault that my father had chosen him over me. But I couldn’t dislodge my resentment.
In the game of life, I was a dodgeball target.
And tonight, thanks to a random act of stupidity, I needed my crummy cousin to make sure I didn’t lapse into a coma.
I turned over on my other side and made myself a solemn vow.
There was no way I was going to let myself die in this lousy, run-down, piss-hole of a place in the middle of freaking nowhere.
That fate I planned to leave to Earl Shankles.
Chapter Four
WHEN I WOKE UP, IT was daylight. The old clock radio next to my frowning family’s photo read 9:38 a.m.
I stumbled to the kitchen, lured by the smell of brewing coffee. As I poured myself a cup, I noticed Earl’s Lucky Red cap was in the windowsill, nearly dry.
Moth Busters, Dr. Prepper, Oral Robbers: Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures 1, 2 & 3 Page 2