The creek that ran along the left side of the road was high, and the sky was bright and beautiful. It was going to be another gorgeous day, but the morning air was still chilly. I shivered and zipped my pullover up. If I was going to keep running once colder weather set in, I was definitely going to have to invest in some warmer tights and a thicker jacket.
I reached the bridge, tapped the barrier, and turned around to jog the half mile back toward where I’d parked. I decided to do an interval workout, alternating faster pace on the way to the bridge with a slower pace back to where I’d started. I did two, feeling all of the stress of the past few days finally ebbing a bit. As I ran my third interval, I got to thinking about how far I’d come in the few weeks I’d been training and letting my mind entertain fantasies of surprising Tim by winning my age group in the local Thanksgiving 5 K I’d signed up for. I was just getting ready to start my fourth fast lap when I heard the motorcycle coming up the road behind me. It sounded rough, not at all like the sharply tuned engine on Otey’s big hog.
“Maybe he’s riding one of the old ones,” I said out loud to the forest critters. I stopped and turned around, shading my eyes against the brightness of the sun, which was just reaching that angle where it blinds you when you look east. I could barely see the motorcycle and rider.
Still assuming it was Otey, I waved and hollered, not sure if he’d be able to hear me over his engine or not. “I’m on lap four. Got two more to go.” I turned back around, restarted the interval timer on my watch, and headed back toward the bridge. Just then, the motorcycle revved. I stopped and turned around once again. All this starting and stopping was really going to mess with my workout. The rider revved the engine once more, white smoke poured out of the tailpipe, and the bike headed straight toward me, picking up speed.
“Otey, this isn’t funny!” I yelled.
My brain suddenly registered that the bike was getting faster and faster, and that I was in danger of being hit if I didn’t start moving. I screamed and the adrenaline kicked in, allowing me to run faster than I thought possible. I dashed and darted about like a crazed seabird, trying to decide if I should go left into the river, up the steep slope bordering the right side of the road, or keep straight toward the bridge, which was still about a quarter mile away.
I was halfway up the treacherous slope, which levels out at the top into a wooded thicket, when my foot hit a patch of mud. I slipped, but managed to grab onto a bunch of prickly weeds to keep myself from falling back down into the road. The motorcycle suddenly went silent. I caught a glance of the rider, someone far too small to be Otey, jumping off the bike and heading up the slope on foot. I clawed and scrambled back to my feet, deciding that flight was probably better than fight. I’d just reached the top when the person chasing me grabbed me by the tail of my pullover and yanked me backwards.
So, fight it would have to be. I stumbled and flailed, trying to get my footing, but ended up on the ground upside down and backwards, my head cracking against the side of a rock as I went down hard.
My attacker, who was still somehow standing, was dressed in one of those jumpsuits professional racers wear, a white one, and a plain white helmet. The visor was smoked, so I couldn’t see his or her face.
All of the sudden, he or she stomped down hard on my right arm. I screamed as the searing pain overtook me and tried to roll out of the way of the next blow. I failed.
It hurt even worse as the boot slammed down again, this time on my elbow. I attempted to roll to the side once more, reaching over with my left hand, thinking that if I could just grab hold of the attacker’s foot, maybe I could cause them to fall, but they either anticipated my action or I was moving slower than I thought. The foot crashed down on the side of my head, hitting me right on the temple, right in the spot I’d hit on the rock.
The last thing I remember, before I woke back up, was the feeling that my head was about to crack wide open.
When I regained consciousness, Otey was carrying me down the road toward the abandoned house where I’d parked. As soon as I became fully aware and remembered being chased, I panicked, screaming and thrashing around. “Don’t kill me! Please, oh God! Please don’t hurt me!”
Otey nearly dropped me, but, being much bigger and stronger than me, managed to keep upright. “Dadgummit, Marty, stop. I ain’t trying to kill you. I’m trying to get you to the car. Stop flopping around. You’re fixing to make me fall.”
I wasn’t really sure if I believed him. “No! No, I’m fine. Really. Put me down.”
Otey hesitated, clearly trying to decide what to do, then shifted me in his arms a bit and resumed trudging toward my car. “Naw. I’m not fixing to put you down. What the heck happened to you, anyway?”
I resigned myself to his carrying me, and reached up, gingerly touching the side of my head. My brains seemed to be intact, but the pain was intense. “How long was I out?”
Otey reached my car and gently lowered me onto the hood. “I ain’t sure. When I got here, I didn’t see you, so I warmed up figuring I’d catch you. I would of probably missed you if you hadn’t been moaning. What was you doing up on that slope?”
I told him about the rider on the motorcycle chasing and attacking me.
His face grew grim and he clenched and unclenched his fist several times. “You got any ideas about who it was?”
“No.” I told him everything I could remember about the bike and the rider, which, of course, wasn’t much.
He mulled it over for a few seconds, still opening and closing his fist. “I noticed a little bike turning onto Main off of Chamber Drive. Rider wore one of them suits like you described. Only reason I noticed it was ‘cause it looked and sounded like the bike had a blown head gasket.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t really see it well, but I did notice it didn’t sound right and there was a bunch of white smoke when it revved.”
“That’s gotta be the same one. I’ll ask around. See if anybody around the bottom knows who it belongs to. You ask Timbo.”
“Oh crap! He’s going to make himself sick over this, especially after all that stuff that happened last summer.” I slid down off the hood of the car and steadied myself, checking to see if my legs were stable enough to hold me up. My arm felt better, but my head hurt worse. Otey opened the passenger side door of my car and helped me in.
“Plus this here thing with Vivi Anne.” His voice was thick with emotion. He cleared his throat a couple of times before continuing. “We best be getting out of here so I can take you to the E.R.”
My head was swimming, so I leaned the seat back. “No. I’m fine,” I lied. “Just take me home. I need to grab a shower, then I’ll call Detective Winger.”
My head hurt so freaking bad, I knew seeing a doctor wasn’t a bad plan, but I couldn’t stand the idea of spending hours sitting in the E.R. Besides, having, as they say, been there and done that, I knew that pretty much all they were going to do was run me through the concussion protocol. I wasn’t seeing double or anything like that and I knew who and where I was, so the E.R. would just end up being a waste of time and money. Money I didn’t have.
Otey studied me. “You sure you don’t need a doctor?”
“I just need to take a couple of ibuprofens, put some ice on my head, and I’ll be good to go,” I said. “What about your bike?”
He shrugged. “I’ll just push it out behind the house next to that old shed. I can walk over to Darren’s from your place and get him to ride me out here to pick it up. It’ll be fine. Ain’t like people don’t know it’s mine, so nobody’s fixing to mess with it, even if they was to see it.”
He was right. His bike was a beautiful example of his work, sporting a paint job that made it look like a Bengal tiger on the prowl.
While Otey drove, I put in a call to Detective Winger. He didn’t answer, so I left a message, asking him to give me a call back as soon as possible. I figured it was best to talk to him first about what had happened just in case he wanted to keep it qu
iet for some reason, and, honestly, I didn’t want to go to the police station to file a report because I wanted to tell Tim about what had happened in person instead of having him hear about it over the radio.
After I finished the message, I closed my eyes and tried to remember the details of what I saw and heard before the attack. Unfortunately, my memory was fuzzy, and I couldn’t call up anything other than the basics I’d told Otey.
I couldn’t help but think it was personal and that it was related to Vivi’s murder. Someone looking to randomly beat up a stranger certainly wouldn’t have chosen to do it early on a Thursday morning out on Skillet Road. On the other hand, how did they know I’d be there? The only other person who knew about our workouts was Otey.
My attacker couldn’t have been Otey; she had definitely been much, much smaller. I wasn’t sure it had been a woman, but I was leaning in that direction. If I’d learned anything over the past year or so during my various run-ins with the Doom Divas, it was that there are women in this world who are every bit as strong and vicious and deadly as any man.
It could have been anyone, from Giselle, to Izzy, to those crazy Ricky Ray fans. Heck, it could have even been May Lynda. After all, she thought Otey and I were having a fling behind her back and she blamed me for her job loss. Could she have checked my phone and seen one of the texts I sent him? I didn’t think I’d ever mentioned Skillet Road, but maybe she’d been following him, or maybe he’d told her about our training sessions.
“Hey, Oats, you don’t think...” I started to ask if he thought she was capable of the attack, but stopped myself. She was his girlfriend, after all. Plus the more I thought about it, the more ludicrous it sounded to me.
“I don’t think what, Marty?” He pulled up to the light at Chamber and Main and signaled his turn.
“Nothing. I was just trying to think of who it could have been that killed Vivi and who attacked me. I think it’s gotta be related to Ricky’s disappearance, but I don’t have any good guesses, really.”
I suddenly remembered the note I’d found on the car on Monday and told Otey about it and about the basket of goodies and how I’d just assumed the basket came from Georgina. I hadn’t even asked her or anyone else about it. I definitely needed to check it out.
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not related at all and I have a stalker.”
“Maybe. Or, it might have been one of those two crazy fans of Ricky’s you had a run in with. That Sugar seems like she’s loony enough. Listen up. I want you to be extra careful, okay? Whoever it is, they might be liable to try again, you know?”
I started to nod in agreement, but the motion sent a spasm of pain across my head so intense that I had to close my eyes. “I will, Otey. Don’t you worry about that.”
“You want me to stay with you?” he asked.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll call Charli. I’m supposed to open the gift shop at ten. I’ll tell her what happened and see if she can cover.”
I’m ashamed to admit that I’d lied to Otey about calling Charli. And actually, it wasn’t exactly a lie. I was going to call her and tell her I’d be a little late getting to the shop, but I wasn’t going to mention the attack. The last thing I wanted was for her to know about it. She’d tell Mom and Dad and John. They would all react even worse that Tim and would try and make me hire a body guard or something.
“Okay, well, if you’re sure,” he said, wheeling my car into a parking spot just in front of my building. “I’ll just help you inside and then head on down to Darren’s.”
I don’t know why, maybe because of the pain, but I completely forgot about Beau, so when Otey unlocked my apartment door and there she was, in my living room, buck naked, doing a standing tree yoga pose, I panicked. I might even have cursed a little.
Otey obviously didn’t know what to do or say. He basically froze in place, staring at Beau, key still stuck in the door, his mouth sort of hanging open. “What the fu—,” he muttered.
Beau, on the other hand, was unflustered. She just said “hey”, bent forward, and went into downward dog pose.
I finally came to my senses and shoved Otey inside, grabbed the key out of the lock, and quickly shut the door before one of my nosy neighbors came by and saw Hollywood’s top-grossing actress being, well, gross.
Otey cleared his throat and fidgeted from side to side, staring at the floor.
I figured I might as well introduce them since, as Mom would say, the cow that’s out of the barn can act like a bull in a china shop. Or something to that effect. “Otey, this is Beau. Beau, Otey. Beau is, uh, a friend of Ricky’s.”
“We’ve met,” Beau said. She swung from down dog into cobra.
“Say what? Since when?” Stunned would have been putting it mildly. “Otey, you never mentioned you’d met Beau.”
He looked up, realized Beau was still naked, and quickly averted his gaze again. “It’s not like you told me about her, either. ‘sides, she said nobody else knew she was in town and she needed me to help her keep it that way. So the press and them crazy fans didn’t find out.”
“That’s what she said to me.” I frowned at Beau, who was doing cat and cow stretches. I tried not to stare, but it’s not every day a famous movie star does naked yoga in my apartment. “I thought you wanted to keep your identity a secret.”
She finally, mercifully, stopped with the posing and put on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt – both of which belonged to me, by the way.
“I did. I do,” she said, doing that eye thing of hers. I was getting wise to it and was determined not to let her manipulate me.
“You two are the only ones around here who know,” she said. “I need for you to keep it locked down. Please? Look, the truth is, I lied to you, Marty. I didn’t even try to get in touch with my manager yet. I can’t explain it, really, but being here, it makes me feel closer to Vivi. I need to be here for her. At least for another couple of days.” She wiped a tear from the corner of her right eye and sniffled a couple of times.
I felt like a complete and utter jerk. “Of course you can stay here. And, of course I won’t say anything. Otey and I, we’re probably the two most trustworthy people in this town.”
Well, Otey was, but I really wanted her to trust me too. Okay, so she got me. Again.
“I know. Marty, you’ve been really great so far,” she said. “And, Otey, Vivi told me that she trusted you more than anyone else in the world. That’s why I went to see you.”
She glided over to Otey, rested her hand on his chest, and stared up at him, doing a variation on her eye thingie, but with the added twist of allowing another single tear to roll artfully down her cheek. It was even more effective that one of Mom’s patented southern belle, you’re-the-handsomest-man-in-the-world-now-go-do-my-bidding looks. I was fascinated, watching my friend getting suckered right into Beau’s spell.
“Vivi loved, you, you know? She talked about you all of the time, about how much she regretted hurting you. She said you never once let her down and, that if I ever needed anything, you would help me just because I was one of her friends. She said you always keep your promises.”
It was a load of hooey, of course, but Otey fell for it. I mentally rolled my eyes a couple of times, then went to the kitchen to get some ibuprofen for my headache, which, thankfully, was dissipating a little.
When I came back out, Otey, was still rooted in his spot by the door, but Beau had plopped on my sofa, her legs tucked up under her. She looked like a cat who’d finally caught the bird she’d been after.
“I reckon I’m going to take off now, Marty,” Otey said, stuttering and stammering to get out the words. “I done texted Darren and he’s good to go. I’ll catch ya’ later. Beau, if I don’t see you again before you leave, it was, uh, it was nice meeting you.”
After he left, I called Charli and fibbed that I’d overslept and was going to be a bit late getting down to the shop, left another message for Detective Winger, telling him I was going to come by the station to talk to
him within the next thirty minutes, and went in the bathroom to take a much-needed shower. While I waited for the water to heat up I studied myself in the mirror. My arm was badly bruised, but it wasn’t hurting as much as it had previously. There was a huge goose egg on the side of my head, and my hair had grass, mud, and some sort of sticky sap embedded in it. My eyes were puffy and ringed with dark circles. A fresh pimple had popped up just under my nose.
The weight of the week, of Vivi’s murder and getting fired, of being attacked, settled on me and I finally broke down. Delbert, who sat on the vanity watching me, rubbed against me and nuzzled his head into my side. That just made me cry harder. I climbed into the shower and just stood there, letting the water wash over me until it started to get cold and I ran out of tears.
18
Detective Winger leaned back in his fake-leather desk chair and steepled his fingers together. “Miss Sheffield, you expect me to believe you were just out on Skillet Road, first thing in the morning, lolly-gagging around, minding your own business, and out of nowhere, some ghostly figure on a motorcycle chased you down, beat you up, and left you for dead?”
I felt the rage rising, but hard as I tried, I couldn’t summon up exactly what Mom would do in the situation. I counted to ten, then ten again, and finally felt in control enough to speak. For once, when I talked to Winger, I was actually able to string words together without stuttering and stumbling.
Unfortunately, I was so angry, I was almost shouting. “Yes. Yes, I do expect you to believe me. If you doubt my story, my friend Otey, er, Will Dickerson can vouch for me. He saw the person on the motorcycle turning from Chamber Road onto Main. He found me, unconscious, on the bank and took me home.” I pointed to the knot on my head. “I didn’t get this because I’m clumsy.”
Winger clicked his tongue and leaned forward. “All right. So, why didn’t you call it in right then? Why did you wait? You said this happened sometime after 8 and before Mr. Dickerson found you, which you say was about 9:00. It’s almost 11:00 now. Why the hold up?”
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