by Paula Graves
And maybe she would have, if she hadn’t been killed.
“Here we go.” Mike’s voice jarred her from the past. He set their drinks on the table in front of her and took the seat opposite. Immediately his eyes narrowed. “You look a little spooked.”
“Alice was keeping a secret.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“She didn’t have to. It was written all over her face.” Charlie looked at the small bottle of beer in front of her. Her stomach rebelled at the thought of taking a drink, but her throat was parched. She eyed Mike’s ginger ale with envy before she forced herself to take a small sip of the beer. It was as bitter and unappetizing as she’d feared. She swallowed the sip quickly and pushed the bottle away.
“And you have no idea what that secret was?”
She shook her head. “I remember thinking that Alice would tell me when she was good and ready. But the evening never got that far.”
“How do you think Alice drugged you?”
“She must have done it while I was in the bathroom. She stayed behind with our purses and the drinks.”
“I thought women always went to the bathroom together.” He smiled.
She managed a weak smile in return. “We do. In fact, I remember being a little surprised Alice didn’t offer to go with me.”
“And that was the only time she was alone with your drink?”
Charlie nodded. “I hadn’t even taken a sip yet.”
“And you don’t remember anything after the first few sips of beer?”
She poked her fingernail at the coaster under her beer. “I had a dream the other night. Just a snippet of an image in time. I was lying on the ground, my cheek against the concrete. And across the street from me, Alice was lying there, too. In the street. One of her eyes was open but I knew she wasn’t seeing anything.” Charlie closed her eyes, but the image from her dream lingered in the darkness beneath her eyelids. She shuddered.
“You saw her when she was dead.”
Charlie snapped her eyes open. “I must have. It seems so vivid now, like I was really there. But how?”
Mike drank half his drink before he spoke again. “When you woke up in your backyard, what did you do?”
“Sneaked back inside and crawled under my blankets. I was half frozen to death. I was lucky the weather didn’t turn bitter that night, but it was December. Believe me, it was cold enough.”
He frowned. “You were out in the elements for how long?”
“It had to be a few hours.”
“Amazing you didn’t have hypothermia.”
“I was close. But where I woke was in a sheltered place. Under a juniper bush in the backyard. I guess maybe it was enough to shelter me from the worst of the cold.”
“Still.” Mike’s frown deepened, carving lines in his face. “Whoever dumped you there couldn’t have known you’d wake up before you lost too much of your body heat.”
“You’re saying whoever dumped me in my yard didn’t care if I died.”
“Or maybe thought you would die.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, fighting off a shiver. “Whoever it was must have been surprised when I showed up alive.”
“What did you think when you woke up with no memory of the previous night?”
“I was scared, obviously. And, to be honest, I was pretty embarrassed, too. I was supposed to be the Winters kid who didn’t get drunk and pass out in the backyard.”
“You didn’t wonder how you got there?”
“Of course I wondered. I thought Alice must have delivered me home but forgotten to make sure I made it all the way inside. So I hurried inside, got into my pajamas and settled down in bed so I’d be there when Mama came to wake me up.”
“Nobody was surprised when you didn’t show up until morning?”
“No. I told Mama I’d be out late and not to wait up. She took me at my word.” She rubbed her forehead, where a headache was starting to form. “I was the only kid in the family who never gave her any trouble. Well, not that kind of trouble, anyway.”
The expression on his face suggested she’d piqued his curiosity. “What kind of trouble did you get into?”
“Little stuff. Lying, mostly. Harmless little lies to make my life seem better than it was. Lying so my teachers wouldn’t know that my mom had been out all night drinking and hadn’t had time to wash my jeans. I’d make up some kind of wild story about how I’d fallen in the mud that morning walking to the bus stop and hadn’t had time to change before the bus came. Or make up some exotic ailment that kept me from showing up for school on days when Mama had to go out and couldn’t take my little brother with her.”
“What lie did you tell the morning after Alice’s death?” Mike asked quietly, not sounding surprised by anything she was telling him. Did he already know about her reputation as a story fabricator?
“I told my mother that Alice and I had given each other makeovers, then fell asleep watching a movie.”
“And she believed you?”
“Yes. I didn’t lie to her. I mostly just lied about her.”
She braced herself for the pity she feared she’d see in his eyes, but he merely nodded. “When did you find out what happened to Alice?”
“Around lunchtime. Someone from the high school started making calls to all the students because they were going to be setting up grief counselors on Monday and wanted us to know they’d be available.” She smiled without mirth. “My mother was very surprised to learn that Alice had been killed in a hit-and-run when she was supposedly home in bed, tired out from a night of movie watching.”
Mike took a sip of his ginger ale. “Did you tell her the truth?”
“I had to.” Despite all the memories that had gone missing from that night, the images of the following day were vivid in her mind. She tugged at the collar of her shirt, starting to feel increasingly claustrophobic. “Could we get out of here? I really need to get out of here.”
“Of course.” Mike downed the rest of his ginger ale in one long gulp, then stood and pulled money from his wallet. He dropped a twenty on the table and helped her into her jacket. “You want to go home or do you want to look around outside, see if anything triggers your memories?”
She nodded toward the window next to the table. “See that alley out there? It leads down to Peavine Road. That’s where Alice was found. I thought maybe if I went there, it might trigger more of that memory I had of seeing her body.”
“Then let’s go.” He led her to the door, his hand settling against the base of her spine. There was a comforting heat in his touch, a hint of possessiveness, of staking his claim.
Or maybe that was the way it felt because that was how she was starting to think of him.
Her Mike. The stand-up guy who put himself on the line to protect her. Who looked at her with barely veiled desire in his green eyes. Whose fingers played lightly against her spine, sending shivers of answering desire through her body, despite her simmering tension.
She led the way to the alley, trying to focus her mind on the reason they’d come here in the first place. The narrow strip of gravel road was dark after the neon glow of the bar’s front facade, forcing her to pick her way carefully through the broken glass and cigarette butts that littered the alley. Deep shadows, cast by the trees that grew haphazardly on the edge of the empty lot across the alley, shifted and writhed across the pathway.
It was quiet out here, too, the only sound the rattling tree limbs overhead, the muted bass line throbbing from inside the Headhunter Bar and the sound of their own breathing, quickening as they walked.
She found her gaze moving toward the empty lot. It hadn’t been empty that night, she remembered. There had been a building there. One story. Cinder block. Looking closely, she could just see the remains of a foundation
, almost hidden by the high grass.
They were nearing the end of the alley, where it fed into Peavine Road, when Mike’s hand clutched suddenly at the back of her jacket. His weight toppled into her, pushing her down toward the ground. She landed hard on her shoulder and rolled until she lay with her cheek against the gritty dirt. Muddy yellow light bled onto Peavine Road from the streetlamp on the corner, and for a shuddering moment, she fully expected to see Alice’s body lying broken and bleeding on the blacktop in front of her.
But the street remained empty. And the groaning sound that filled the silence came not from her own throat but from somewhere behind her. She rolled up to a sitting position, looking for the source of the noise.
She spotted Mike, lying in the gravel behind her. His eyes were open, but he seemed to have trouble focusing them.
She crawled to his side, ignoring the pain of gravel biting into her palms and knees. “Mike, are you okay?”
Suddenly, his eyes rolled back into his head and his eyelids closed.
Chapter Thirteen
“No, Mike. Please don’t do this to me!” Terrified, Charlie pressed her fingers to Mike’s carotid artery and, with shivering relief, felt his pulse. But it seemed slow to her. His breathing, as well. And he didn’t respond when she gave his shoulder a shake and said his name again.
She pulled her phone from her purse and dialed 911, trying not to panic. He’d been hit on the head earlier in the day. Had he sustained a closed head injury he hadn’t realized?
Damn it, the phone wasn’t ringing. She looked at her phone display and saw, to her dismay, that her battery was nearly dead.
“No no no! Mike?” She patted his cheeks. “Mike, wake up. Talk to me, please!”
His eyes opened briefly, and for a second, she thought he could see her. His mouth opened, a word escaping his lips on a whisper.
“Drug,” he said. Then his eyes fell shut again.
Drug? What the hell? Had he taken something?
Had someone given him something, maybe spiked his drink in the bar? But why?
Look around you, Charlie, a voice murmured in the back of her mind. You’re all alone. Defenseless. No one could hear you if you screamed, not over that noise in the bar.
And Mike wasn’t able to save her this time.
The night air seemed to chill by several degrees, making her shiver uncontrollably. She reached into Mike’s pocket in search of his phone, but it wasn’t in either of his front pockets. She started to roll him over but stopped herself, realizing he might have injured his spine when he fell. If she moved him now, it could make his injuries worse.
But she needed a damn phone! If he was wrong, if his head injury was worse than he’d thought, there could be blood filling his brain and killing him right now.
“I’ve got to go find help, but I’ll be right back,” she told him, reaching out to brush his hair away from his forehead. “I promise.”
She pushed to her feet and started walking unsteadily on the gravel path back to the bar’s well-lit facade. But before she made it halfway, a shadow moved across the rectangle of light slanting across the end of the alley.
It was a man. He was dressed in dark clothes, barely perceptible in the gloom. Dark jeans, a long-sleeved top that seemed to have a hood. His features wouldn’t have been easy to make out in the low light as it was, but the shadows from the hood rendered his face nothing but a black oval, devoid of all light.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t call out to ask if everything was okay. He just stood there, silent and terrifying.
Then he took a step toward her. Then another.
She backpedaled, almost losing her balance as her feet skidded across the loose gravel. She turned and ran, fighting the urge to try to grab Mike’s body and drag him along behind her.
She couldn’t help Mike by getting hurt herself. She needed to get back to the crowded bar, where there would be safety in numbers, and get some of the patrons to help her.
Reaching the end of the alley, she twisted to her left to head up the side street to the front of the bar. But the second she rounded the corner, she ran headlong into a solid obstacle.
Hands grabbed at her arms, holding her still when she tried to jerk away. Panic was scrambling her brains, but she somehow remembered to use her weight to her advantage. Dropping her shoulder, she rammed into her captor, hitting him somewhere between his stomach and his upper thighs. He expelled air with a pained growl, twisting aside, a move that sent her sprawling to the pavement.
For a moment, she felt as if she were trapped in one of her dreams about Alice’s death, the one where she was lying on the pavement, looking across the road to where Alice lay bloody and dead.
But there was no Alice tonight. Only the pained panting of the man whose clutches she’d just escaped.
She scrambled up from where she’d fallen and started to run. But a hand snaked out and grabbed her elbow, jerking her backward again.
As she started to struggle again, a familiar voice gasped, “For God’s sake, Charlie, stop it. It’s me.”
She stopped fighting and stared up into the flint-gray eyes of Deputy Archer Trask.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice rising. “Why are you here?”
“I could ask you the same question. Imagine my surprise when I spotted you and Mike Strong walking into the Headhunter Bar. Not exactly a place I ever thought you’d visit again, under the circumstances—”
“Mike!” she said, panic starting to wane enough for her brain to start functioning again. “You’ve got to help me, Trask. Mike’s in the alley. He’s passed out—I don’t know why. He got hit on the head earlier today, but he said he never lost consciousness, and he hasn’t been acting strange, so I don’t know if it’s that or if maybe someone spiked his drink. Wait!” she added as he started to move toward the alley. “There was someone else in the alley. He didn’t say anything, didn’t ask if Mike was okay. I think— I think he was following us. Do you have your gun?”
Trask pulled a pistol from inside his jacket. “Stay here.”
“Be careful!”
She pressed her back against the side wall of the bar, feeling the thud of the music throbbing through the brick behind her. Her heart was tripping along at light speed, making her feel light-headed and queasy.
A moment later, she heard Trask call her name. “It’s clear,” he called.
She hurried back into the alley to find Trask crouched beside Mike’s body, the beam from a small flashlight illuminating part of the scene. “Is he still breathing?” she asked.
“Seems to be. His pulse is pretty slow, though.” Trask flashed the light around the alley. “I didn’t see anyone when I got here.”
“He was there, Trask. I didn’t make him up.”
Trask looked up at her. “I didn’t say you did. He might have heard the commotion we were making and run the other way. Do you think he was after you or Mike?”
“I don’t know. Maybe me. Or maybe I read the whole thing wrong. I’m a little on edge, and when the guy didn’t say anything at all...”
On the ground at her feet, Mike’s head rolled from side to side, as if he were trying to shake off the effect of the drug and return to consciousness. He mumbled something that sounded like her name, then fell still again.
“My phone battery’s dead. We need to call 911.”
Trask pulled out his phone. “I’ll call it in. Don’t move. I have more questions.”
Of course he would, she thought. She knew he’d never really been happy with the official story about what happened to Alice. Trask had always thought it was a little too convenient that Charlie said she couldn’t remember anything that happened that night after her first few sips of beer.
Trask returned to where she crouched beside Mike, stroking his hair. “P
aramedics are on the way.”
“Thank you.”
“What about you? You feeling woozy or anything? How much did you drink?”
“One sip of beer. I’m fine. I think maybe the idea was to get Mike out of the way so I’d be vulnerable.”
“To who?”
“That’s the question.” She rubbed her forehead, where a dull ache had formed above her eyes. “I don’t know. That’s why we came here, to see if I could piece anything together.”
“Piece what together?” Trask asked, his tone wary.
She made herself meet his flinty gaze. “What really happened the night Alice died.”
* * *
AMELIA STRONG PACED the waiting room floor, her pale face creased with worry. Charlie watched her for a few seconds, swamped with guilt, before Archer Trask walked back into the waiting room with two cups of coffee, drawing her attention away from Mike’s mother.
Trask gave Amelia one of the cups, then brought the other to the chair where Charlie sat. He took the seat next to her, inclining his head when she thanked him.
“Still nothing from the doctors?”
She shook her head. “I think they were taking him for a CT scan first, to be sure it’s not a closed head injury. They’re also going to do a tox screen to rule out the usual drugs, but I don’t think they’ll find anything.”
“I asked them to do a urine test for GHB,” Archer said quietly.
She looked up at him. “So you do think he was drugged.”
“I want to rule it in or out,” Trask said carefully.
“I think I was drugged the night Alice died.”
Trask’s eyes narrowed a notch.
“I remember almost nothing from that night. I took three sips of beer that I remember, and then the night is mostly a blank until I woke up in my backyard.”
“Mostly?” Trask turned toward her. “You remember something?”
She wished now that she’d never told Trask what she and Mike had been doing at the Headhunter Bar. She should have known he’d immediately think the worst of her, put the most damning possible spin on what she had been doing.