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.
If Bozo and the Cyclops had a baby, it still wouldn’t be this ugly.
Earl saw my horrified face and laughed. “You know you’re famous now, right?”
“Famous?” My pulse lurched. “Good grief! Tell me you didn’t talk to any reporters!”
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. I wasn’t the vainest woman in the world, 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.”
I felt a vein pulse 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.
My throat tightened with unshed tears. 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 croaked, and reached for the cap.
Earl yanked it away. “It’s a loaner, mind you.”
“Fine.” I snatched the cap back from Earl and sniffed sharply against a droplet tickling my nose. I stared at the dirty cap and scowled. “Great. Looks like I’ll have to wash it first.”
Earl burst out laughing.
Part of me longed to join him, 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 carried Lucky Red into the kitchen and laid the scissors on the countertop. 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 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 anything 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 nodded. “Keep the bedroom door open. The list from the hospital says I should check on you every fifteen minutes.”
My throat tightened again. “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.
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 his true pride and joy—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.
Desperate emptiness descended on me, then gnawed at me like a horde of starving ghosts.
Why am I here? To let Mom off the hook? To save Dad’s dying 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 didn’t even seem grateful! I mean, where else could a redneck jerk like him find work? Who would hire his stupid ass 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 stupid 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.
After all, 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 we 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 Shankles 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 over 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 Dad’s funeral, I’d discovered that, bit by bit, Earl had sneakily taken over running my father’s business. It had been easy pickings for him. A passive puppet to my father’s will, I’m sure my mother never wanted anything to do with the place. She’d gladly handed Earl the reins.
Well, I’d set that business straight right away. On day two of my return, I’d taken charge of the books and Earl Shankles’ overblown paycheck. Mom had been relieved. So relieved, in fact, that she’d taken the liberty of running away with our postman two days after Dad’s funeral.
After a lifetime wasted here in pointless Point Paradise, I couldn’t blame her. Still, she could’ve kept in touch. She’d called me only once since she left—to inform me she had a new last name. Applewhite.
A closet drinker, Mom and I never had much in common. I guess we had even less now.
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.
The bad blood between Earl and me had started nearly twenty-five years ago. But tonight it hurt like it had begun only yesterday. Logically, I knew it wasn’t Earl’s fault my father had chosen him over me. But my heart said it wasn’t my fault, either.
The blame had to fall somewhere, didn’t it?
Tonight, however, I didn’t have the luxury of wallowing in loathing or self-pity. I needed my crummy, good-for-nothing cousin to make sure I didn’t lapse into a coma. 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 was a fate I planned to leave to Earl Shankles.
Chapter Four: Friday
WHEN I WOKE UP, IT was daylight. The clock radio next to my family’s frowning 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. I heard the toilet flush. Earl emerged from the bathroom looking proud of himself. I didn’t want to know what for.
“Mornin’,” I begrudged as a peace offering.
“Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty. You feeling okay?”
“Yeah.”
“You know you snore louder than Candy Vincent?”
I scowled. “How do you know how loud Candy Vincent snores?”
“Uh ... rumors.”
“Yeah, right.”
Earl made himself a cup of coffee as I took a seat at the kitchen table. After he’d stirred in enough sugar to induce a diabetic coma, he joined me.
“While you were out like a light last night, you got a couple of calls on your cellphone.”
“My mom?”
Earl glanced away. “Uh ... no. Reporters mostly. When I told them you were gonna live, they kind of lost interest.”
“Story of my life.”
Earl stared into his coffee mug. “Your boss at the mall called, too. He said times are tough. Had to make some layoffs. Blah, blah, blah. Bottom line, no need for you to worry about coming back in.”
“Great. Any other good news?”
“Some cop called. Said he met you at the mall last week. What’s his name? Paul Newman?”
“Terry Paulson.”
Earl smiled softly. “Yeah. You always were good with names.”
Especially when the person looked better than Paul Newman.
“What did he want?” I asked.
“He said he wanted to marry you.”
I blanched. “What?”
Earl laughed. “Well, to use his exact words, he said he ‘had a proposal for you.’”
My nose crinkled. “I wonder what he meant by that?”
Earl wagged his eyebrows at me. “Maybe it’s an indecent proposal. No, wait. Maybe this guy’s opening up a new ghost-buster division. See any more haints last night?”
I shot him a sour face. “Only the ghost of my dearly departed hair.” I ran my hand along the red stubble. “Crap. What am I going to do? I can’t go see Detective Paulson wearing an ad for chewing tobacco on my head.”
Earl grinned. “Don’t worry, Bobbie. While you were snoring your lungs out, I thought of something. Here. I found this in granny’s place next door.”
Earl held out a shoebox.
“What were you doing snooping around in Grandma Selma’s apartment?” I demanded.
“Cool your jets. She was my granny, too.”
“Gimme that!”
I yanked the shoebox from Earl’s hands and lifted the lid. Inside was a short, curly wig made of blue and silver polyester fibers.
Poor Grandma. She’d worn her best Sunday wig to the grave with her.
I took the cheap wig out of the shoebox and held it up to the light.
Earl snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re actually thinking about wearing that thing.”
“No. But seeing as how I don’t have a lot of options, maybe Beth-Ann can fix it. See you later.”
I got up from the table.
“Where you going?”
“I’m gonna get a shower, then I’m going to see Beth-Ann. If she can work a miracle on this thing, I’ll be heading over to see Detective Paulson afterward.”
“Do you really think you should drive?”
“It’s either drive myself to Beth-Ann’s or stay here and let you drive me crazy. I think I’ll take my chances on the road.”
Earl threw up his hands. “Have it your way.”
“I will. You’ve had it your way long enough.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. “Earl?”
“What?”
“Thanks for lending me Lucky Red.”
He shot me a suspicious look. “Yeah.”
I grabbed the cap from the windowsill and headed down the hallway.
“I hope Windex kills germs,” I hollered back at Earl. “I wouldn’t want to catch a staph infection from this thing.”
“BE CAREFUL OUT THERE,” Earl said as I climbed into my father’s red Mustang. “Don’t go getting yourself lost.”
“Not much chance of that.”
How could any place be more lost than Point Paradise?
I cranked the engine and let the vintage muscle car idle for a minute as I stared at the flashing yellow light that marked the intersection of Norville Street and Obsidian Road. Or, as we locals called it, “Where nowhere and oblivion meet.”
Robert’s Mechanics stood on one corner of the crossroads. Cattycorner from it was an appliance store turned junk shop, which changed renters every six months or so. Next to that dump was another junk shop that gave up the ghost for good when it caught fire this past summer.
The fire had been the latest nail in the coffin of my father’s ambition to put Robert’s Mechanics and Point Paradise on the map. He’d bought both junk places across the street for next to nothing, which was still more than they were worth. I’d tried to sell the properties to keep the garage afloat, but there’d been no takers so far. Not even a nibble.
In a way, I was glad Dad hadn’t lived to see the junk shop across the street burn down. When I’d first come back, I’d been gung-ho on Dad’s dream to reinvigorate the tiny town. But after six months of dealing with renters with no rent and rubber checks from auto repair customers, my feelings had shifted.
More and more, my ambition concerning Point Paradise was to drive away and never look back. I’d even begun to fantasize about torching the place as I fled. To me, Point Paradi
se had become the dreary deathtrap of my dead dad’s dreams.
I sighed, shifted the Mustang into first, and pulled out of the parking lot. I headed east on Obsidian Road toward Waldo, the nearest clump of buildings big enough to be incorporated into an actual town. That’s where my friend Beth-Ann’s beauty shop was, and Dana’s Café, where I was to meet with Detective Terry Paulson later in the afternoon—provided the wig-gig went well.
About half a mile down Obsidian Road, I passed the only other business in Point Paradise. It was an abandoned gas station converted into a drive-thru convenience store.
Owned by some guy from Waldo, the dive was run by Artie Jacobs, who’d lived up to his high school prediction of being least likely to succeed. Considering where we’d all come from, he had every right to be proud. Around here, there’d been a hell of a lot of competition for the title.
I spotted Artie sitting in his chair by the cash register. Per tradition, I honked and waved. Before he could wave back, I gunned the engine and blew past him, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
Pathetic, I know. But in a town this broke, you took your cheap thrills where you could find them.
At the end of the road, I hooked a right and headed south on US 301 toward Waldo. Feeling antsy, I lifted the ball cap and scratched my itchy scalp. Tiny stubbles were already growing in. I wondered how long it would take for my hair to reach ponytail length again.
Beth-Ann would know. She was a good friend and a miracle worker when it came to hair. I hoped she still had one doozy left in her bag of tricks for me. I was sure as hell gonna need it.
Chapter Five
A FEW MILES OUTSIDE of Waldo, I passed a roadside billboard and hit the brakes out of habit. Besides being the butt of innumerable “Where’s Waldo?” jokes, the tiny town had earned itself two national distinctions—neither of which was ever brought up in polite conversation.
Three years ago, Waldo had been designated the nation’s worst speed trap by AAA. After discovering Waldo’s seven police officers had written nearly twelve thousand speeding tickets that year, AAA had paid to erect the billboard I’d just blown past. It used to read, “Speed Trap Waldo 6 Miles” in black and yellow, the most readable color combination to the human eye.
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