by Kristi Rose
I cut through the park and jogged past the fitness center and How Ya Bean. The Hunter Boot Moms were outside warming up, dressed in similar running attire and matching high-end running shoes.
“Hey.” I jogged in place. To Annber I said, “It’s Monday. I thought you had yoga today?” I realized my dates might be wrong. To Carlie I said, “Or was it you that has yoga? No, you’re the swimmer, right?”
She said, “Not anymore, thanks to you.”
Me? What did I do?
“Shut up, Carlie,” Annber said, clearly the leader. “Let’s run, ladies. These thighs won’t slim themselves.” She turned her attention to me. “What direction are you going so we can make sure to avoid that?”
They jogged off toward flatter land.
I jogged off in the opposite direction, through town and toward a more challenging run. Though I run with earbuds in, I keep the music low. To do otherwise would be stupid.
A couple times, I checked over my shoulders just to make sure they weren’t coming up behind me. As a collective, they struck me as organized and vindictive. I didn’t want to bump into them at night or be caught unaware while running.
I crested the first hill, headed toward my parent’s house. To the left of me was a new housing development and to the right the ridge that looked down into the wilderness preserve. Off in the distance, occasional tiny white peaks crested the Windy River’s murky surface. The sun beat down and, without losing stride, I tugged off my long sleeve shirt and tied it around my waist, enjoying the cool breeze pushing against my tank-topped torso.
It was a beautiful day for a run and to soak in some vitamin D. The land flattened, offering a half-mile stretch of easy running. My stride evened out, my thighs happy to no longer be on an incline. It was when I caught my second wind that I caught air.
One moment I was keeping my pace even, and the next a car clipped me on the side, sending me ass over teakettle. I was upside down when I realized a car had hit me. Man, it had appeared from nowhere. I hadn’t even heard it. Stupid electric car with no sound.
As I flew toward the windshield the weirdest thought came to mind. Why didn’t electric cars wear bells? That way they couldn’t sneak up on people.
The contact with the windshield sent me away from the car and toward the ridge. I landed half on my shoulder, half on my back with a loud oomph. And followed that up with a grunt. Pain exploded through my entire body and I dry heaved from its intensity.
Disoriented and dizzy, I tried to stand, but slipped off the edge of the ridge where I’d landed.
Reaching for purchase but coming up short, I tumbled off the side at a quick clip, catching bits of dirt, grass, bush bits, and debris in my mouth and eyes. Each bumped elicited yikes, ows, and hisses.
The plummet seemed endless, but I finally came to a screeching stop in a raspberry bush. I screamed out in pain. The thistles were poking me in what felt like one thousand places. Truth be told, I would have rather kept rolling then stopped this way. I’d take my chances with a rock or something else any day over a prickly raspberry bush.
I laid there in my spandex shorts and my tank top, my T-shirt somewhere in my downward path I suppose, and wished I’d chosen something different to wear.
I was frozen, afraid to move. Stuck on my back with my legs splayed out and my left arm over my chest. Thankfully, my cell phone was strapped to my right arm in a plastic protective sleeve made for joggers. There wasn’t a chance I was getting out of this without help. Unfortunately, digging into my right arm was the raspberry bush. I clamped my teeth together and whimpered as I moved my right arm into a position where my left hand could reach my phone. Thistles tore, snagged, and ripped at my skin.
I cried out again, but moved just enough of my arm that my hand could manipulate the plastic sleeve on my right bicep. Deftly moving my fingers, I unlatched the case and fumbled the phone out. I’d lost my wireless earbuds in the tumble so there was no asking Siri for help. The screen was cracked, perhaps damaged to the point of being unusable. I pressed the home button and said a silent prayer at the same time. When the screen lit up, tears of relief coasted down my temples. Or maybe those were tears of pain. Hard to say. Using my index finger and thumb, I called Leo.
“Samantha,” he said in a rush. It seemed there was never a good time to call Leo. Chatter of several voices filled the background.
I swallowed. “Hey, you busy?”
“I’m at a tribal meeting. What’s up?”
My words rushed out of me faster than Windy River’s fast-paced current. “Oh well, I was just hit by a car and fell down the ridge toward the wildlife preserve, and I was wondering maybe if you could come help me because I’m being held captive by a raspberry shrub and all its thorns.” I was impressed with how composed I sounded.
“You’re kidding me, right?” A door slammed.
“Nope. No jokes. Really in a lot of pain here, Leo. So, think you can help? I hate to take you from your meeting but…”
“Did you call the police?” His words were coming out slightly breathless, like he was jogging.
Watch out for cars, I wanted to warn. “No, just called you. I figured you’d get here faster than DB. I’m not his favorite person.”
“I’m on my way,” he said. A car engine turned over. “Tell me your location again.”
“I’d just passed the houses by Eighth Street, and I was on that open stretch of land where the new development is going in. Before the dog park. About a hundred yards from the turnoff into the wildlife preserve.”
“Before the turnoff?”
“Yep,” I said. This time my voice wobbled. I needed to cry.
“Hang in there, Sam. I’m on my way.”
“Okay, I’m going to hang up now,” I said. “Because I need to cry, and I don’t wanna do that with you on the phone, okay? Okay.” I didn’t give him a chance to respond. I hung up, let the phone drop on my chest, and unleashed my pain through what could be called body-wracking tears, but I was too afraid to move my body. My hip hurt. My head throbbed. My entire body burned from the needle-like thorns.
A cool breeze was coming in off the river. Leo was on his way. I just had to hold on to this tiny thread of calm until he got here. Panic and shock would not do me any favors.
An eternity passed before Leo showed up. He couldn’t find me right away since the sun was going down and I was in the shadows of the raspberry bush.
“Samantha,” he called. The beam of a flashlight swept over the ground.
“Over here,” I cried, but my voice was thin and too airy.
“Samantha?” The sweeping beam paused, pointing forty-five degrees away from me.
I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out to say, “Marco.”
“Polo,” came his reply, his tone terse. The beam turned closer to me.
“Marco.”
“Jeez.” He was getting closer. “Polo.”
“I’m over here, under the bramble.” He might have heard the last part, but I’d run out of energy and had mumbled it.
Leo found me less than a minute later. He called to someone, and Ben Reynolds came to stand next to him.
Leo jerked his thumb in Ben’s direction. “I brought a paramedic.”
“Hey, Ben,” I said. “I didn’t hear the rig.” The rig being a county ambulance.
Ben studied my predicament, hands on his hips. “You got yourself in quite a pickle here, Samantha.”
Leo said, “Ben and I were at the tribal meeting when you called. That’s why you didn’t hear the ambulance.”
Ben said. “I figured it wasn’t worth the time to switch vehicles. You’d refuse an ambulance ride anyway.”
He dropped to one knee and opened up a black duffle bag I’d just now noticed. He handed Leo a pair of gloves and donned a pair himself. From his back pocket, Leo took out a multi-tool. Ben took one out of the duffle then flipped it open to the knife function. He stuck it blade down into the ground.
As if the duffle bag was bottomless
, he withdrew a blanket and shook it out. “As we cut away the cane, I’ll drape the blanket over you to help protect you from more thistle.”
“Sounds heavenly,” I said.
As the guys worked, I tried to be patient. But biting back my cries of pain were increasingly difficult. Some thorns were deeply embedded. Leo tried to distract me by asking for details about the silent and deadly car.
I answered a few questions, then said, “I can’t think about it, Leo. This hurts too much. I need to concentrate on not screaming.”
They worked in silence while I focused on deep breathing and visualizing them getting done, how good I would feel being freed from the thorns.
It was full dark by the time Leo had wrapped me in the blanket. He held my head steady as he gently rolled me away from the bramble.
Ben said, “Let me take a look before we move her further. That was some fall you had, Samantha.”
“You’re telling me. You should see what I did to my phone,” I said.
“You should see what the fall did to you,” Leo said.
I glanced over Ben’s shoulder and said to Leo, “Feels like we’ve been here before. Me getting bandaged up and you coming to the rescue. You have the same face now that you did then.”
Ben glanced at Leo. “My mom would call that a dark scowl.”
Leo wiped his hand down his face. “And I don’t like this. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now. Now can you tell me about this car that hit you?”
While Ben shined a light in my eyes and had me track his finger, I told Leo about everything I could remember. Ben felt all around my neck and shoulders, and cleaned the deeper punctures and scrapes. I followed my accounting of the incident with a rant about how electric cars should have bells or some type of wheezing sound so they can’t sneak up on people.
“You’re lucky you didn’t break a hip or leg,” Ben said.
I laughed with disbelief. “Yep, that’s me, lucky.”
Ben smiled. “From what I can tell. Truthfully, I’d like to get you to the hospital and do some x-rays. You’re pretty banged up and scraped up, but nothing a tube of Bacitracin and a couple of pain relievers can’t fix. You’re gonna be sore for a while.”
I nodded. “Bacitracin. I have some of that at home.”
Leo snorted, “You should stockpile that, bandages, and meds. Keep a supply on you at all times. Carry them in a bag. You’re going to need them all the time. I don’t like this, Samantha. Not one bit.”
I said to Ben, “He says that a lot to me. Like he thinks I enjoy being hit by a car.” I rolled my eyes.
But my joke went flat.
Leo shook his head and said, “Come on, let me get you home.” He pulled me up by wrapping his arms under my shoulders, easing me to my feet.
Ben said, “Can you beat weight?”
I tested my balance and my body’s reaction to standing. I nodded.
Leo studied my face, looking for signs of discomfort. I masked as much as I could, but when I looked up at the hill I’d have to traverse, I couldn’t mask the dread.
“Take a deep breath,” Leo said.
Puzzled, I did as he requested.
He swept me up off my feet, one arm under my knees, the other around my back, and carried me up the hill with such ease I don’t think he broke a sweat. Had I not been bleeding and aching, I might have felt something else. Something more akin to the romantic emotions brought on by chivalry. But there wasn’t room for anything else as my embarrassment from needing to be rescued, once again, was taking up all the space.
16
Thursday
Josh didn’t have family or next of kin, and word got out that, once the state released his body, the state would bury Josh in some random, large cemetery with no headstone. The VGS mom squad couldn’t have that. They organized a fundraiser to cover the headstone cost for Principal Josh. And combined it with a celebration of life at How Ya Bean. Maybe the Hunter Boot Moms were afraid if they waited for whenever the state would release him, interest in supporting Josh would die down.
If they only knew.
Mom told me Alice shared with the school board and top city employees about hiring Gillian and Alice’s suspicions regarding Josh. Gillian’s findings showed embezzlement and money laundering well into six digits. Alice was on temporary paid leave while the school board did their own investigation.
Briefly, I considered the possibility that Josh might have done this to himself, taken his own life because he knew he was busted, but that wasn’t his MO.
My presence at the celebration wasn’t welcome, so I planted myself on the rooftop of the fitness center with a listening device provided by Mrs. Wright, and my camera and hoped for a lucky break. This worked for me because I was bruised and achy from being struck by the car. Stretched out on a lawn chair on the roof was the threshold for my pain tolerance.
Two things I noticed. Lots of women attended the celebration, few men did. And none of these women were Laura Danner. I sat back in the lawn chair and eavesdropped with a six-pack of local IPA in a cooler and Mrs. Wright’s headphones clamped over my ears. A giant disc that looked like one of those cones of shame that dogs wore was the receiver and I pointed it in the direction of the get-together.
The conversation below me was mind-numbing. Endless accolades about Josh and his character. He was great. So kind and helpful, always thinking of others. There were several remarks about me that were not as kind.
Leo startled me, coming from behind, and sat on the edge of my lawn chair.
I slid the headphones off. “Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Some of those women down there are vicious. They’re ready for me to be thrown in prison and the key tossed in the Pacific Ocean.”
“Crime and fear bring out the ugliness in humanity.” He wasn’t in uniform. Black jeans and a light blue fleece pullover that hugged his body in all the right places. Of course, Leo didn’t have any wrong places. With his sleeves pushed up, the eagle tattoo on his arm stared at me, as if trying to read my thoughts.
I looked away. “And what? Me running free makes them think I’m on some killing spree? That any of them could be next?” The comment gave me pause because the truth was the killer was still out there and not knowing why or how Josh was killed was unsettling. Essentially, anyone could be next.
“You’re an easy target.” He took a beer from the cooler and twisted off the top.
“Help yourself,” I said sarcastically.
He gave an incredulous look. “You’re not going to drink six beers. You’re on pain medication and shouldn’t be drinking one.”
“I’m not taking the medication. It makes me loopy. Who can function that like?” I took a swig from my beer.
Leo nodded to the people below us. “Anything interesting?”
I shook my head.
“I’ve got something interesting.” He rolled the beer bottle between his hands.
“And? Keep going.”
He was toying with me. Butthead, but I refused to be baited.
“Consider this beer a thank you for what I’m about to tell you,” he said with a smirk.
“If it’s half as good as the buildup, I’ll give you more of those beers.”
Leo wagged his brows. “Oh, it is.”
I clamped my teeth together to keep from yelling, “Just tell me already!”
Leo liked to push my buttons. He’d been doing it since we were in high school. If I didn’t like his kid brother so much—and he wasn’t half bad either—I’d kick Leo off my lawn chair and club him over the head with the cooler for being a brat.
“You’re getting better at this patience thing,” he said.
I raised my camera and snapped a close-up of him. “So many things I can do with that image.” I snapped a few more. “If you don’t start talking soon, I’m going to do something heinous with this picture.”
“Like what?”
“Open a matchmaking account for you. Make a wanted poster. The
possibilities are endless.”
Leo chuckled. “There she is. That’s the girl I know. Miss. Impatient.” He tapped his beer against mine. “One of the houses on Eighth has a Ring camera and caught a picture of the Prius that hit you.”
I sat up with a jolt but regretted it instantly, my hip aching something fierce. “Please tell me you got a plate.”
“We got a plate.”
I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not. “For real?”
He nodded then pulled out two more beers from the cooler. “You’re going to need this for the next part, though.”
I discarded my empty in the cooler and twisted off the top to the new one. “Okay, I’m ready. Hit me.”
“The Prius was a rental car.”
“Aaaannd?”
“And it was rented by Josh Chapman.”
I gasped. “How is that possible?”
“We looked at the video footage. The person who picked up the car is slight. Likely a woman but could be a slim male. The rental information says a woman, but I never want to assume. They wore a ball cap, never looked at the camera. We searched for the driver’s license number and no match. It was bogus. They picked up the car in Seattle, and the attendant doesn’t remember anyone unusual at all. Dropped it off in Portland, and nothing stands out to anyone. Both times the pickup and drop off were at busy times.”
Josh Chapman?
“How could a woman pick up the car if it’s in his name?” I was trying to sort through the pieces.
“Could have had a card with the same number in her name. ID was in Josh’s name. It’s not out of the ordinary to have a woman named Josh. As a woman who married a man who conned a town of people, this shouldn’t surprise you.” He gave me a pointed look.
“Because I still expect mankind to be upstanding, conning people will always surprise me, and when it ceases to, that’s when I’ll do something else.” Not that I was a superstar PI or anything, but I dug this gig. Fighting for the underdog provided a power boost to my sense of self. Like I was making a difference.