Rocky Road & Revenge

by Erin Huss

  We veered to the right. To the left. To the right. Gas. Brake. Gas. Veer. Brake.

  The fizz of excitement was gone. My stomach was not impressed with Tom's driving. I felt around the center console for the mints I was sure were there. My Grandma Ruthie used to say, "There's no ailment a mint can't cure." I grabbed the roll of Certs and popped two into my mouth.

  Blech.

  Grandma Ruthie had never driven with Tom.

  "So how was your day?" Tom asked, attempting to sound breezy, but I could hear the stress in his voice.

  I told him about our trip to Cadaver's Caverns, Amy being framed, and Lance Holstrom, which he'd yet to hear about.

  "I swear this sounds exactly like an episode of Ghost Confidential," he said.

  "Since when did you start watching Ghost Confidential? I thought it was cheesy?" The Tom I knew watched sports, action movies, and television shows where people talked about sports.

  "It is. I don't watch that crap. I'm just guessing." Tom reached for my hand and intertwined his fingers with mine. Tom and I didn't do handholding either. This was all rather confusing, slash exciting, slash nauseating.

  "I'm glad Amy is in a hotel," Tom said. "She needs to keep her distance from you and Lilly. You don't want to get mixed up with a hit man."

  "How do you know it's a hit man?"

  "From everything I've read, and from what you just told me, it sounds like the work of a contracted killer. A hit man gets the job done and gets out. It's bam-bam-bam-bam hit all vital organs, you're dead."

  Blech. "That's a lovely visual."

  "It's not a pretty subject. I've spent the last six weeks researching it."

  "How'd it go today?"

  "Jury is still out."

  Blink-bloop

  Swerve.

  Brake.

  Gas.

  Blech.

  Enjoy the ride, Cambria. Enjoy the ride.

  "Are you OK?" Tom asked.

  "Mmmmhmmm." I stifled a burp and cleared my throat. "I have a question for you. Why did you tell our daughter you were taking me out and that you had a big surprise for me?"

  "Because I knew she'd tell you."

  Wait…what? "Why did you want her to ruin it?"

  "I didn't want her to ruin it. I…it doesn't matter."

  Blink-bloop.

  Swerve.

  Brake.

  Belch.

  "It matters to me," I said.

  "I didn't want to chicken out," he said, barely above a whisper. "I was going to ask you last night, but he was there. What's with you two anyway? Are you really that into him?"

  "Yes," I said without having to think. I was into Chase. Very much so.

  I wished I could see Tom's expression.

  "He seems like a pansy," he said. "I don't like him."

  "Chase is a detective for the LAPD. I hardly think that qualifies him as a pansy."

  Swerve.

  Brake.

  Gas.

  Blech.

  Clank.

  The clank was new and followed by a clunk and a thud. Not that I was a mechanic, but even my car didn't make those noises. Nor did it have the metal-on-metal scent.

  Suddenly a centrifugal force pushed the back of my head against the seat. We spun until we flipped. I held tight to the seat belt. We went upside down, right side up, upside down, right side up until we flipped one last time to an upright position.

  Pretty sure this wasn't part of the surprise.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  See also: Ouch

  I appeared to be in a parallel universe where hearts raced, bodies moved slowly, lights flashed, police waved traffic along, and no one made sense.

  Why am I on the side of the freeway?

  Why is there so much traffic?

  Why are there flares on the road?

  Why is Tom in my face talking to me?

  "Cansh lue blandesh aaap," Tom said and stared at me as if I too were fluent in gibberish.

  "Huh?" I asked.

  "Can you stand up?" he repeated in English.

  I don't know. Can I?

  I went to my knees first, then to my feet.

  I guess I can.

  I clutched on to Tom's arm for support when it hit me like a fast pitch to the face. We were in a car accident!

  A bad car accident! After we'd tumbled, and tumbled, and tumbled, the car came to an absolute stop. Silence. An eerie stillness that seemed to stretch on for hours but, in reality, was seconds. The roof had been an inch from my head. Smoke had hissed from the front hood. The airbags had deployed, and I had smelled the suffocating stench of gunpowder.

  Tom and I had shared a look. A small stream of blood had dribbled down the side of his cheek. The shock on his face had mirrored my own. In one swift motion, he'd unbuckled his seat belt and reached for me. He'd been talking—saying what? I'd had no idea. There'd been unfamiliar faces. Sirens. Then, somehow, I'd ended up outside.

  Holy crap.

  An ambulance was parked behind the pile of metal that was once Tom's 4Runner. Traffic was at a standstill. Tom's little SUV had landed on an embankment near a chain-link fence and a homeless man's tent, but everyone had to stop and stare.

  Two minivans and a Porsche were pulled along the side of the freeway with their emergency lights on. All three vehicles were unscathed. The blue van belonged to a labor and delivery nurse who was on her way home when she'd seen us rolling across the freeway. I listened to her recount the event to the police officer.

  "It happened so fast. All of a sudden the car swerved and then rolled. It's a miracle they didn't hit anyone else."

  The woman from the Porsche, and the man from the other minivan, gave the same account: all of a sudden…swerved…rolled…miracle.

  Tom, too, was speaking to a cop, a CHP with a handlebar mustache. "My check engine light flashed. Then I lost control." He wrapped his hand around his neck and winced.

  "Do you recall how fast you were going?" the CHP asked Tom.

  "No more than sixty-five," he said.

  The CHP's eyes cut to me. "Do you remember?"

  "I was blindfolded. I don't know how fast we were going," I answered.

  The officer blinked. "You were blindfolded?"

  "It's her birthday, and I was surprising her," Tom quickly added. "We were on our way to see Wicked." He pointed to the billboard ten yards ahead of us advertising Wicked now playing at the Pantages Theater.

  My heart skipped a beat. Wicked!

  Seeing Wicked had been a dream of mine for years. Lilly and I listened to the soundtrack, and I knew every word. Tickets were over a hundred dollars for nosebleed seats. I couldn't justify the expense. But Tom could. He could justify the cost for me. And he didn't part with money easily. I was touched.

  This explained the "evil" and the "people to play with."

  The sparkle? Not so much.

  Tom's broken front window did sparkle under the freeway lights. Unless our daughter had psychic abilities, I guessed the sparkle came after the evil.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  See also: Conspiracy Theorist

  I sat, squished between the tow truck driver and Tom. The cabin smelled like mustard. My legs were ankle-deep in McDonald's Big Mac wrappers. The tow truck driver's name was Rick. He was a nice fellow—had a goatee that nearly touched his navel and holes the size of quarters in each ear.

  Tom and I sat, stiff as a board. Being in a car again was unnerving.

  "Looked like your pistons blew right through your cylinder." Rick had one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding a 32-ounce McDonald's cup. I'd have felt a lot better if he'd had both hands on the wheel. "When was the last time you changed your oil, man?"

  "Last week," Tom said without taking his eyes off the road.

  Rick snorted. "Then you must've been leakin', or someone hates ya. The steering pump busted too. You're lucky to be sittin' here. Shoot."

  Rick pulled over in front of the apartment building. The streets were lined with cars park
ed for the night. "Thanks for the ride home," Tom said and extended a hand to help me out of the cab.

  "Not a problem, man," Rick said. "You guys get some rest. You got the information for the junkyard. Just give us a call after you talk to your insurance."

  Tom swung the door shut, and we waved goodbye to Rick as he drove away with what was left of Tom's car strapped to the bed. What a sad piece of green metal. It was hard to believe we were standing there without injury. The paramedic had advised us to go to the hospital. We declined. An emergency room bill would hurt more than any pain I was currently experiencing.

  We managed to transfer Lilly from the Nguyen's apartment to her bed without waking her. Once she was safely relocated and tucked in, Tom walked to the living room and flopped onto the couch. His long body took up the entire length, leaving his feet hanging off the side. "I imagined this day going a lot differently," he muffled into the fake leather cushion.

  I sat on the floor beside him, crisscrossed my legs, and leaned back on the palms of my hands. "It's the thought that counts?"

  Tom reached out and cupped my face. "I'll see if I can get us tickets next week."

  I leaned into his touch. "Don't worry about it. Save your money. We'll catch it next year."

  Tom dropped his hand with a loud thump. "I'm going to have to get a new phone and a new car." He flipped to his back and draped his arm over his eyes. "I thought I had another solid hundred thousand miles left on that car."

  "Did your landlord say anything about you leaking oil in your carport?" I asked.

  Tom shook his head.

  "Did the car give you any trouble this morning?"

  He shook his head.

  "Was your oil light on?"

  He shook his head.

  I brought my elbows to my knees. "Rick said your piston went through your cylinder. Is that why we flipped?" I wasn't proficient in car.

  "When there's not enough oil, the metals rub up against each other and the engine seizes. Which is why the pistons blew through the cylinder. I felt the car sputter, but I didn't lose control until I went to pull over and the wheel locked. Debris must have got stuck in the power steering pump. Just a bad coincidence, that's all."

  Coincidence? Grandma Ruthie used to say, "Coincidence is an explanation used by fools and liars."

  I thought of an episode of If Only, where Bobbie Dart's husband's new girlfriend had drained the oil in Bobbie's vehicle. Bobbie had crashed and had been in a coma for three weeks before she regained consciousness. Yikes.

  "What if someone did this so we would get into a car accident?" I said, thinking out loud. "You got your oil changed last week. And I know your landlord would tell you if you were leaking in the carport. And what are the odds that your steering pump valve thing would get jammed? Rick said either you were leaking oil or someone hates you. I'm sure someone hates you."

  Tom peered at me from under his arm. "Like who?"

  "Someone you went up against in court?"

  "I doubt it. No DA is going to go through the hassle of draining my oil on the chance I'd get into a wreck," he said.

  "A client you lost the case for?"

  "If I lost the case, they'd be in jail. Also, I don't lose."

  I bit at my lip until another idea trotted into my head. "Then it's probably one of the many women you've slept with and didn't call back. Let me get a paper. We'll make a list of the names you can remember and start from there."

  "Don't bother. It's been months."

  "Months?" I repeated to be sure I heard him right. Tom had at least one new fling a week.

  "Yes, months."

  "Dry spell?"

  "Something like that."

  "That's a bummer."

  "You're telling me."

  "No sex and no oil."

  "And no phone, and no car, and no briefcase," he said.

  Typically I could count on Tom to be the Pollyanna in any situation. Poor guy looked defeated, lying there on my couch. He needs sugar, I thought. I grabbed what was left of the rocky road from the freezer and retrieved the bag of Halloween candy hidden in the cabinet. Pretty sure that stuff never expires.

  I padded back to my spot on the floor and handed Tom a spoon. "Dig in. This will help."

  Tom sat up and patted the spot beside him on the couch. I slid beside him and tucked my legs under my butt. He took a scoopful of ice cream, and I started with a bite-sized Butterfinger.

  "Feel better?" I asked.

  "No."

  "Keep eating. It takes a while for the calories to kick in." I unwrapped a Milky Way. "Maybe Amy was right and this is all the urn's fault."

  Tom gave me a sideways glance. "Care to explain?"

  "Apartment 17 moved out, and I found an urn in her carport cabinet yesterday morning and put it on my desk."

  "Why would you put it on your desk?"

  "It felt disrespectful to put her in the storage closet. There are spiders in there. "

  "Her?"

  "Mom. And Amy said harboring an urn that doesn't belong to you disturbs the deceased and causes bad luck. Not that I believe in all that. It's getting harder to discredit her theory. But what I don't understand is why I would get cursed. It's not like I'm the one who forgot her."

  "You hang around Amy too much."

  "Trust me. I thought she was full of crap when she told me, but since I've had the urn, the lobby burned down, Jessica Wilders was killed, Lance Holstrom was killed, someone tried to frame Amy, there was a giant spider in here this morning, we got into a car accident, your phone was stolen…" I nearly inhaled the Pixie Stick I was working on.

  "What's wrong now?"

  I turned to face Tom. "Do you think whoever killed Jessica and Lance is the one who messed with your car?"

  This got a laugh out of Tom.

  "I'm serious," I said. "There's a killer on the loose, and we were just in a horrible car accident. We could have died."

  "If someone really wanted us dead, there are better ways than draining my oil."

  "What if they wanted it to look like an accident," I said. "They were mad that I was snooping around, trying to exonerate Amy."

  "The murderer is using a gun and targeting celebrities. I'm a lawyer. You're an apartment manager. There's no connection."

  "Amy," I reminded him.

  Tom smacked his forehead. "You kill me."

  "No, but someone else might."

  He reached into the Halloween bag and grabbed a Three Musketeer bar. "You're attempting to make something out of nothing."

  I nearly choked on my Reese's. "Out of nothing? We almost died. How is that nothing? Did you hit your head?"

  "Don't take this the wrong way, Cam. But you tend to plug farfetched theories into innocuous circumstances to turn them into Law & Order–worthy criminal cases."

  "How can I not take that personally?" I said. "And also, no I don't."

  "All those crime shows you watch skew your perception of reality."

  "I don't watch that many."

  As exhibit A, Tom turned on the television and clicked to my DVR. "We have Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Law & Order SVU, Criminal Minds, Chicago PD, New York PD, Dallas PD, Seattle PD, Miami PD, If Only, and…WWE Monday Night Raw?"

  I yanked the remote away from him. "I got sucked in to a fight the other night."

  Tom ran a hand down his face. "All I'm saying is, you don't have anything to worry about. My car was old, it broke, and we had an accident. This has nothing to do with an urn or Lola and Frank Darling."

  "Lola and Frank Darling?" I rose to my knees and pointed at him. "You do watch Ghost Confidential!"

  "I may have caught an episode here and there."

  "Liar. You watch it, and you like it."

  "Fine." He put his palms up. "I watch it, and I like it. Gives me something to do at night."

  "Dry spell?"

  "Yep."

  "Welcome to my life."

  We cheered our spoons.

  "By the way, I'm spending the night," he said.


  "What?" Ice cream dribbled down my chin.

  "I don't have a car."

  "You can Uber."

  "I don't have my phone."

  "You can Uber."

  "It's best I stay here."

  "You can Uber."

  "I'll sleep on the couch. Come here." Tom shoved Einstein to the side and massaged my shoulders. At first, I resisted. But slowly, the tightness melted as his thumbs worked out the knots, and eventually I went limp. "Feel good?"

  "Mmmmhmmmm. But I'm not breaking your dry spell."

  Note to self: try really, really hard not to break Tom's dry spell.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  See also: Oops

  I woke the next morning to the wind whistling through the cracks in the windowsill and the sunlight warm against my eyelids. I buried my throbbing head into the pillow, trying for another few minutes of sleep, but couldn't get there. Then came my upstairs neighbor Mickey—swoosh, slam, psshhhh, thud!

  Moaning, I flipped my sore body to the side, careful not to wake Tom. He was sprawled out like he fell asleep mid-snow angel. I couldn't let him sleep on the uncomfortable couch, not after we'd just been in a car accident. He deserved the marshmallow bed. Tom still had on his day-old coffee clothing (I guess it would be two days now). I was in my maternity funeral dress. We were both too exhausted for personal hygiene, which decreased the temptation by 50 percent.

  I'd fallen into a fitful slumber within minutes of landing on my bed and had dreamt of zombies, urns, severed feet, and Jessica Wilders. This time she beat me on the back of the head with a piston. Lance Holstrom, Chase, Rick the tow truck driver, and Tom were all watching from the sidelines, wearing McDonald's uniforms.

  I should have skipped the Halloween candy.

  Tom's arm curled around me and pulled me closer. His body was warm, familiar, strong, and safe. I thought about how good he felt next to me. Then I thought about how wrong that thought was. Then I tried to recall why it was so wrong. Then I remembered Chase. But then I couldn't remember if we'd ever agreed not to sleep with other fully clothed people. Then I remembered the years I'd spent pining over Tom only to be sent to Alcatraz. Then I thought about the multiple lifeboats he'd thrown me over the last six months and how I still was neither on the mainland nor on Alcatraz, but floating somewhere in-between, seasick, sunburned, dehydrated, and tired. Then I thought about the number of times he'd been there for me when I needed legal help. I thought about what an amazing father he was. The tears in his eyes when he held our little girl for the first time. The look on his face when she took her first steps. He loved her, and deep down, I think he loved me too. And that scared him. That scared the hell out of him. With me, there was no casual dating. It was all or nothing.