by Becky Durfee
Pam chimed in. “What the hell was that about?”
“I have no idea,” Jenny said. “I must be triggering something in him.”
At that moment Jenny heard her phone buzz in her purse. She frantically rooted around her bag until she found it. “It’s Elijah,” she said to Pam before she answered with, “Hello?”
“Are you at the store?” Elijah immediately demanded.
“Yes, Pam and I are both here.”
“I want you to get out of there as fast as you can.”
Jenny was puzzled. “Why? What’s up?”
“I’m afraid you might be in danger. You need to get out of there.”
Watching to make sure that Phillip had rounded the corner into a different aisle, she asked Elijah, “What makes you say that?” She gestured her head in the direction of the registers, letting Pam know they should leave.
“Phillip’s cousin was visiting the weekend Lena was killed. That very same cousin is now serving a sixty year sentence for first degree murder. I think we may have that accomplice we’re looking for.”
Jenny felt too nervous to be upset. “I may have to agree with you there. Lena’s been talking to me since I got here, but when I shook Larry’s hand, I felt nothing. And not only that, but Phillip’s acting really funny. I mean really funny.”
“Funny how?”
“He keeps looking at us.” Jenny swallowed. “Actually, he keeps looking at me. He even approached me but didn’t say anything.”
“I need you to listen to me,” Elijah said very seriously. “I want you and Pam to leave right now. Together. I don’t want either of you to be alone right now, not even for a second. You got that?”
“Got it,” she replied. “I’ll call you in a bit and let you know we’re safe.” Jenny hung up the phone, turning to Pam. “That was Elijah. He wants us to leave right now and stay together. He’s got good evidence that it was Phillip and his cousin, and he thinks we might be in danger by being here.”
Pam’s eyes were wide as saucers as she looked over Jenny’s shoulder. Jenny turned to see that Phillip was coming at them once again, this time walking faster and looking more determined. “Let’s go,” Pam said anxiously. “Now.”
The two women left the cart right where it was and walked quickly out of the store. “Is he following us?” Jenny posed.
Pam didn’t look back. “I don’t know. Let’s get out of here. My car is closer; just come with me.” Pam was parked in one of the closest spaces reserved for expectant mothers. She quickly unlocked the door with her remote and they jumped into the car.
As they pulled out of the parking lot, Jenny looked out the back window to see if anyone was following them. She couldn’t see anybody, but Lena was still buzzing inside her head. Something told Jenny that they weren’t going to be able to shake Phillip quite so easily.
“Does Phillip drive?” Jenny asked, still clutching her phone in her hand by her side.
“I have no idea,” Pam replied as she pulled out onto the main road. Fortunately the store was in a rural area and there were no stoplights to slow them down.
Jenny continued to look out the back window, unable to shake the feeling that they were not out of harm’s way. “Lena keeps talking to me. She seems upset.” She turned to Pam. “Drive faster.”
Pam stepped on the gas as they sped down the road. Jenny kept looking behind her, not seeing any cars tailing them. “I don’t get it,” Jenny said in a panic. “It doesn’t look like he’s following us, but Lena is getting more and more…”
Jenny froze. Suddenly it all made sense. To be sure, Jenny twisted herself around to look further out the back, making sure to allow her hand to brush across Pam’s arm as she did.
Her hand burned.
Holy shit, Jenny thought. It was Pam. Pam had been at the restaurant. She had been at the reunion. Lena had been alerting her to Pam all this time. Once again, despite her best efforts to be careful, Jenny found herself trapped in a car, completely at the mercy of a murderer. How was she going to get out of this? She closed her eyes and thought for a moment, realizing that her brains had gotten her out of her last predicament, and her brains were all she had now.
Glancing subtly down at the phone still in her hand, she used her thumb to dial Elijah. “Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything,” she repeated, praying that Elijah would listen to her this time.
“Who are you talking to?” Pam asked.
“Lena. She’s driving me crazy. She won’t shut up.” Jenny looked down at her phone, noticing that Elijah had picked up. She inconspicuously pressed the button to activate speaker. “So,” Jenny began in a very different tone. “I think I’ve just figured out what Lena’s been trying to tell me.”
Pam glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”
Jenny swallowed hard. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Pam snorted. “I wondered how long it was going to take you to figure that out.”
“I-I-I don’t get it,” Jenny went on. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Because,” Pam replied in an increasingly desperate tone. “I needed to be with Jacob. I knew we were destined to be together, but all he could focus on was Lena. It was always Lena this and Lena that. I just knew that if I could get her out of the picture, Jacob would see that I’m the person he really wanted to be with. We were meant to be together. And look.” She rubbed her belly. “I was right.”
“But did you have to kill her?”
“She was a bitch anyway. Who did she think she was, coming here and not talking to anybody? She thought she was so much better than everyone else. She wouldn’t associate with anyone. She just walked around all high-and-mighty, too good to bring herself down to anyone else’s level. Just because she was pretty. She wasn’t that pretty. Nobody’s that pretty.”
“What if I tell you that the reason she didn’t talk to anybody was because she couldn’t?”
Pam seemed agitated. “What are you talking about?”
“Lena fell down the steps as a little girl. She had brain damage, and the part of her brain that was affected was the part that controls speech. She wasn’t conceited; she was self-conscious. She didn’t associate with anyone because she was embarrassed of her condition.”
Pam remained quiet as she digested that information. Her edge left her expression, and Jenny even sensed a bit of regret creeping into Pam’s bones.
Jenny continued. “So how did you know she was going to be there?”
The agitation returned to Pam’s voice. “Debbie and I had gone to a movie that night, and we were driving around afterwards. Our parents were away that weekend, so we didn’t have to be home at any particular time. We drove past her while she was walking, and we started talking about how much we hated her.”
“Why did Debbie hate her?”
“Because Debbie was in love with Archer, and all Archer ever wanted to do was hang out with Lena. I swear to God that girl fucked everything up.”
Jenny glanced down at her phone, noticing the seconds ticking away on the call. Hopefully Elijah was able to hear every word.
“And you had a gun with you?” Jenny posed.
“No, not with us. We had to go home and get it. My father was a collector, and we knew where he kept the key to his gun closet.”
Jenny shook her head. “I still can’t believe you felt strongly enough to kill her.”
“Do you have any idea what it’s like,” Pam posed desperately, “to walk around high school completely invisible? To know that you are a perfect match for someone who doesn’t know you exist? To be in love with someone who is infatuated with someone else? It’s hell.” She started shaking her head frantically. “No. She had to go. It’s that simple.”
Jenny sat back in her seat, frightened by the change in personality she was witnessing. Pam seemed like a totally different person. “So where are you taking me?” Jenny eventually asked.
“Some
place no one will ever find you.”
Pam’s car zipped quickly down the long, country road which didn’t appear to have any stop signs or stop lights. A getaway on foot would have been impossible unless Jenny risked jumping out of a speeding car, which she didn’t think she’d survive. Her only way out of this was to keep talking and pray that Elijah could hear her.
“Do you intend to kill me?”
“You’ve left me no choice,” Pam replied. “I didn’t want it to end up this way. I like you. I really do. But you just wouldn’t leave it alone. And now my choices are to silence you or to end up in jail, and I will not go to jail. I have a baby to think about now.” She once again rubbed her belly. “I have to have this baby—Jacob’s baby. Even if it means we have to get rid of you.”
“We?”
“Me and Debbie. She’s waiting there for you. Her life stands to be ruined by you, too. And we can’t have that.”
“What do you plan to do to me?”
“It won’t be bad,” Pam replied. “Don’t worry. We aren’t going to take pleasure in this. This is strictly out of necessity. One quick shot to the back of the head and it’ll be over. You won’t feel a thing.”
Elijah’s broke his silence through the phone, his voice reflecting his sadness. “That’s enough, Pam.”
Pam looked frantically in the direction of Jenny’s phone. “Elijah?”
In a tone more sullen than Jenny had ever heard him use, Elijah replied, “Yes, Pam, it’s me.”
Pam’s jaw dropped as she looked at Jenny. As much as it appeared that Pam had considered every last detail of her plan, she’d forgotten something as simple as a cell phone.
“You need to come down to the station and turn yourself in,” Elijah said solemnly.
“Never,” Pam replied. “I will never go to jail. I’m about to have a baby.”
“You were a freshman in high school when you killed Lena,” Elijah reasoned. “You were a minor. The courts should have some leniency because of that. But if you hurt Jenny now, you would be doing so as an adult, and you could be eligible for the death penalty.”
Jenny glanced at the mortified Pam as she gripped the steering wheel so tightly the blood drained from her fingers. “I’d rather die than go to jail,” she proclaimed. “I swear to God, I’ll crash this car into a tree right now.”
“And kill your baby?” Jenny asked softly. “Jacob’s baby?”
Tears streamed down Pam’s cheeks and her breathing became labored. “I can’t go to jail. My baby needs his mother.”
“Like I said,” Elijah reiterated, “you were a minor when this happened. Your sentence might be very short as a result.”
“But what about Debbie?” Pam protested. “Debbie’s was a senior. She’ll spend the rest of her life in jail.”
“Was she eighteen?” Elijah posed.
Pam calmed down slightly when she whispered, “No. She didn’t turn eighteen until a few months later.”
“Then she was a minor, too. Come on, Pam, you need to do the right thing. You will only make things ten times worse for yourself if you do anything to hurt Jenny.”
With a wince and a groan Pam clutched her belly.
“Are you okay?” Jenny asked.
Pam let out a deep breath. “I’m not sure.”
“You need to take it easy,” Jenny said. “You haven’t done anything to me yet. All we’ve done is go on a car ride. If you just turn the car around, no one needs to know you ever planned to kill me. You can go back and get some rest before something happens to that baby.”
Pam still looked like she was in a good deal of pain. The car slowed as she eased her foot off the gas pedal.
“I can drive you to a hospital,” Jenny offered.
Pam didn’t respond.
“Think of that baby,” Jenny said calmly. “This may be the only child you and Jacob have together. Remember how long it took you to conceive this child? Don’t let anything happen to little Owen Elijah here at the end.”
“Owen Elijah,” Pam whispered.
“Tell me where you are,” Elijah insisted. “I’ll send an ambulance out to meet you.”
Pam’s tears fell freely as she hung her head. “Route 943 west,” she muttered, still clutching her stomach. “About twenty minutes past the store.” She looked defeated as she pulled the car over to the side of the road.
While Jenny felt some relief at that point, she didn’t fully exhale until the ambulance door shut with Pam securely inside. She watched them pull away and drive out of sight, choosing to stay on the side of the road until Elijah arrived. He appeared a short time later, rushing out of his car with a concerned look on his face.
“Are you okay?” he asked Jenny as he approached her.
Jenny ran her hands up and down her folded arms. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
Elijah looked as if he still couldn’t wrap his head around what was happening. “I called Jacob,” he said, seemingly in a fog. “He’s on his way to the hospital to meet Pam. He asked me to bring the car back to his place.”
Jenny squinted one eye as she looked up at Elijah with the sun behind him. “Did you tell him everything?”
She couldn’t see his expression when he replied, “No. I didn’t have the heart to. I just told him the baby might be on the way.”
Jenny nodded with understanding.
“Do you feel well enough to drive?” Elijah posed.
“Yeah, I’ll be okay.”
Elijah held out his keys. “Here. You take my car. I’ll drive Pam’s car back to Jacob’s. Can you follow me?”
They exchanged keys and silently got into their cars. As Jenny followed Elijah to Jacob’s house, a route he’d undoubtedly driven a million times before, she couldn’t imagine what was running through his head. His entire world had just been turned upside down.
Once they drove to Jacob’s house, Elijah left the keys under the bumper of Pam’s car and approached Jenny. She exited the car, walking around to the passenger side. Elijah took the driver’s seat and backed out of the driveway without a word.
Jenny felt the need to say something, although she wasn’t sure what. “Are you okay?” she eventually asked.
Elijah shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Jenny looked out the window as she searched for something else to say. “You saved my life back there, you know. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
He simply grunted.
Glancing at Elijah, Jenny whispered, “I’m really sorry things turned out this way.”
“Not half as sorry as I am,” he replied. “Jacob’s been my best friend since grade school. I just ruined everything for him.”
“You didn’t ruin anything. Pam did,” Jenny insisted.
“I can’t believe Pam is responsible for this. She’s like a sister to me.” He looked on the verge of tears.
“Well, clearly she had a side that nobody knew about. Don’t lose sight of the fact that she was ready to kill again.”
Elijah didn’t respond, making Jenny wonder if she was actually offending him instead of making him feel better.
For a few minutes Jenny just watched the world go by out her car window. Eventually she added, “I know this isn’t the pot of gold you were looking for, but you still get to call the Christova family and tell them you’ve found justice for Lena after all these years.”
He didn’t look appeased. “I also have to tell my best friend that I’m responsible for locking up his wife and making sure his son grows up without a mother.”
Jenny could see there would be no consoling Elijah. For the remainder of the car ride, she decided to remain silent. Once they walked through Elijah’s front door, she allowed logistical matters to take over. “Well, thank you so much for letting me stay here,” she stated in an unemotional tone. “I appreciate the hospitality.”
He nodded in acknowledgement.
“Well,” she added uncomfortably, “I don’t want to intrude any longer than I need to. I guess I�
��ll just pack up my things and get going.”
“Let me know when you’re done,” he said in a monotonous voice. “I’ll carry your bags out for you.”
Jenny retreated to the bedroom and gathered her things. Once she was all packed, a realization struck. She walked back into the living room where Elijah sat with his head in his hands. Clearing her throat, she awkwardly said, “Um…my car is still at the store. I’ll need a ride there. Do you mind?”
“No, I don’t mind.” He stood up and retrieved his keys. Grabbing Jenny’s suitcase, he headed sullenly out to his car.
The ride to the store was excruciating; Jenny had no idea what to say. She wanted to apologize for her role in incriminating his friend, but she wasn’t sorry. She didn’t feel the same allegiance to Pam that Elijah did, and she was actually glad to see justice served—especially considering she was the next intended victim.
After what seemed like an eternity, they pulled into the store parking lot. Jenny directed him to her car, and he pulled up alongside it. “Well,” Jenny began as she opened her door. “I do appreciate you looking out for me. Thanks again for letting me stay with you. I’ll be sure to let my brother know you took good care of me.”
“Yep,” he said sadly. “Brad will like that.”
Jenny grabbed her things out of the back seat of Elijah’s car and put them in her own trunk. Poking her head back in the open passenger door of Elijah’s car she added, “Take care of yourself, Elijah.”
He didn’t look at her. “You too.”
She closed the door and watched him pull away.
Jenny found herself on the same highway she had taken to the Archway Grill a few days earlier. The last time she’d driven this stretch of road she was dealing with pangs of jealousy that her life didn’t look more like Pam’s. With a dismayed shake of her head she acknowledged how misplaced her envy had been. Despite its perfect-looking exterior, Pam’s life had been far more dysfunctional than Jenny’s. She imagined that was true for many of the people who seemed to have it all. Perhaps the life that Jenny so desperately sought didn’t really exist. While she had to admit things could have definitely been better than they were with Greg, she also recognized the perfection she was seeking appeared to be nothing more than a mirage.