“There he goes!” Jimmy yelled.
I gasped and turned back just in time to see the old RV ramble into the clearing. It raced toward the bonfire—the men in robes scrambling around like fat, white mice.
Then a flash of bluish-white light akin to a nuclear blast went off.
I felt a breeze against my cheek, but I didn’t hear a thing.
Instead, I saw a speck of something silver heading toward me.
Then the world went black.
Chapter Sixty-Five
I was swimming in a sea of Reese’s Pieces.
My mouth tasted like a rainbow of dead goldfish.
I needed some mouthwash, bad.
I reached for the Tootsie Pop sticking out of the kitchen drawer.
But when I tried to peel the wrapper off, the paper read Dum-Dum.
I AWOKE TO FIND MYSELF lying in an unfamiliar bed—in an unfamiliar room. Everything was so ... white. And peaceful. And quiet.
Either I’d died, or my last assignment with Grayson had finally ended with me in a psych ward.
I sucked in what felt like my first breath in ages. The place smelled like plastic. And disinfectant. And ....
Fritos?
Slowly, I turned my thumping head to the left. My cousin Earl was passed out on a vinyl recliner beside me. Atop his potbelly, a family-size bag of corn chips rose and fell in rhythm with his breathing.
“Earl?”
My voice sounded strange—like it was underwater. A twinge of concern upped the volume in my throbbing head.
“Earl?”
Earl snorted himself awake, then glanced over at me.
His eyes nearly doubled. He shot up out of his chair as if it were an ejector seat. Fritos flew everywhere.
“Bobbie!” he shouted. “You’re awake!”
“You’ve got a real knack for the obvious,” I cracked.
My words echoed weirdly inside my skull. Déjà vu washed over me. I felt as if I’d been here before—done all this before...
“What happened?” I croaked. “Where am I?”
“In the hospital,” Earl said. “Don’t you remember?”
“I think so,” I said. “There was that guy at the mall—the one in hot-pants...”
Earl eyed me sympathetically, but cautiously, as if I might be contagious. “Uh...yeah. That’s right, Bobbie.”
I tried to sit up, but the IV tube in my arm had me partially pinned down. “Tell me straight,” I said. “How bad off am I?”
Earl winced. “The good news is, you’ll live. The bad news is, you’ve got one hell of a Kentucky waterfall.”
“What?”
I reached for my forehead. My fingers glided across my bald scalp, stopping at the edges of a big bandage on my forehead. “Argh! Gimme a mirror!”
Earl’s lips curled slightly as he handed me the mirror lying on the table beside my hospital bed.
I peered at my reflection. My face went slack. The top of my head all the way to my ears had been shaved bald. I dropped the mirror onto my chest in disgust. “Ugh! Not again!”
Earl gave me a funny look. I recognized it as the same one he used to give Aunt Clara after she got dementia.
“Uh...look, Bobbie,” he said. “You been out a good while. But there’s somebody here who’s been dying to see you. Let me go get him.”
“Who is it?”
“Your boyfriend,” Earl said, then snickered.
My heart pinged.
Grayson!
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Earl said, then disappeared out the door.
A moment later, a familiar face peeked inside the doorframe. I recognized the comb-over in an instant.
It was Carl Blanders.
My slimy, cheating ex slunk into the room waving a box of cheap chocolates at me like a booby prize from the fair.
“I heard you got shot in the head,” he said sheepishly. “I came as soon as I could.”
I scowled. “Where’s Grayson?”
Carl blanched and retracted his box of chocolates. “Who?”
“Grayson!” I hissed. “I want to see Nick Grayson!”
Carl recovered his smarmy smile and patted my hand. “Oh. Is that your nurse? Are you in pain? Should I call for him?”
I was in pain. Agony, actually. But I was beginning to realize it wasn’t the kind even morphine could take the edge off of.
“We’ve all been so worried about you, Bobbie,” Carl simpered. He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “You’ve been in a coma for quite a while, now.”
My gut flopped.
There it was. My fate delivered by my mealy-mouthed nemesis.
I’d been shot in the head at the mall—and I had suffered severe brain damage.
I wasn’t a P.I. intern.
I wasn’t chasing monsters with some ridiculous private eye named Nick Grayson.
All of that nonsense had been a dream. The machinations of my mangled cerebral cortex.
I looked into the cheating, hazel eyes of Carl Blanders and felt my heart break.
The Earth was indeed a galactic toilet.
And I was just a turd in the frickin’ punchbowl.
Chapter Sixty-Six
I looked at my fingernails. The grease under them didn’t lie.
All the crazy adventures I’d had with Grayson had all been absurdities. Asinine figments of my comatose imagination.
Brain farts.
The reality was, I was just a deadbeat mechanic stuck in the dead-end town of Point Paradise.
Hot tears trickled down both sides of my face. I closed my eyes, wishing my crummy ex Carl would get the hell out of my room and let me die in peace.
“Cheer up,” he said, opening the chocolates and helping himself. “I went by your dad’s shop and brought you this. I thought it might cheer you up.”
I cracked open a tear-filled eye, then wanted to kick myself for falling for his false charms again.
Carl was leering at me with his horse-toothed smile, holding up the baseball cap he’d given me to commemorate our second anniversary of going together.
I vaguely remembered the cap had been signed by some stupid baseball hero of his. It would’ve made the perfect gift—if I’d happened to have been Carl Blanders.
I’d hated it then. I still hated it now.
“Get out,” I said.
“What was that?” he asked. “Oh. I get it. You need to take a leak or something, right?”
“No,” I hissed. “I need to get a new life. One without you in it.”
“But Bobbie, baby—”
“Don’t Bobbie baby me!” I cried. “What’s the matter? Did Candy finally get wise to your philandering ways? Boo hoo! Now I said get out!”
Carl stared at me, stunned. I’d never shown him that kind of gumption before.
“Uh ... sure,” he said. “I don’t want to upset you, honey. You had major brain surgery. You’re not thinking straight. I’ll come back when—”
“No,” I screamed. “Get out! And don’t ever come back!”
The door to my hospital room flew open. Earl stepped in, his shoulders as broad as a barroom bouncer.
“I believe my cousin just asked you to hit the road,” he said.
Carl shook his head. “She’s suffering from delirium.”
“Well, now, that’s nothin’ a little Kaopectate can’t cure,” Earl said, grabbing Carl by the arm. “Now why don’t you mosey on outta here, like Bobbie said.”
“Fine,” Carl said. “I’ll come back later.”
“Don’t bother!” I yelled.
“Have a nice life,” Earl said, and shoved Carl out the door.
He shut it behind him, then turned and smiled at me. “Bout time you got shed of that rotten ol’ rascal, Bobbie.”
“I know. Thanks, Earl.”
“Just doin’ my cousinly duty. You up for another visitor?”
I winced. “Someone else to pour salt in my wounds? No thanks. Not now. I just want to be alone for a while.”
&n
bsp; “You sure?”
“Yeah.” I felt a crying jag coming on. “I think I need a nap.”
“Okie-dokie, then,” Earl said. “I’m headin’ back to the auto shop.”
“Okay. I’ll be out of here soon and can help you out.”
“Don’t you worry about that. You just get well. I been doin’ all right without you.”
“Oh.”
Despite my best efforts, I sobbed. Tears spilled from my eyes.
Earl rushed over to my side. “You okay?” He took off his prized Redman Chewing Tobacco cap. “Here. Lemme leave Old Red here to keep you company.”
“Thanks,” I said, running my fingers across the tattered old cap. “Do me a favor?”
Earl smiled. “Sure.”
“Take that stupid cap Carl left,” I said. “It’s yours.”
Earl’s lip snarled. “You sure? I don’t want him thinkin’ I stole it, now.”
“Don’t worry. You’re no kleptomaniac.”
“What’s that?” Earl asked.
I sighed. “A mental disorder.”
“Oh.” He winked. “Can you take something for it?”
I laughed and swatted him with Old Red. “Sometimes you’re not as dumb as you look.”
“I appreciate that,” Earl said, trying the Carl’s cap for size.
He leaned over and took my hand in his bear-sized one. “Listen. I know you got to get better and all, Bobbie. But if it makes you feel any better, we got rid of ‘em.”
“Carl? I know. I just saw you do it. I’m not that brain damaged—am I?”
Earl shook his head. “I wasn’t talkin’ about that butthole Carl. I was talkin’ about them.”
I sighed. “Look, Earl. I’m tired. What do you mean, them?”
Earl cocked his head and looked at me funny.
“The aliens, Bobbie. Don’t you remember?”
“What?”
Suddenly, the door to my room flew open. A doctor in a white lab coat entered, studying my chart.
“I see the patient has finally awakened,” he said to Earl.
The doctor’s voice sounded vaguely familiar. Then he glanced over at me.
His green eyes twinkled.
“Grayson!” I gasped. “You’re real!”
He grinned. “As far as you know, yes.”
“Woohoo! She knows you!” Earl hollered.
“Of course I do,” I said, feeling the life rush back into my veins. “What ... what happened?”
Grayson shrugged. “Well, I lost my fedora in the explosion—and my moustache, too.”
“W ... what?” I stuttered. “No. I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Grayson said, taking my hand. “Just lay back and relax. I’ll explain everything when you’re ready.”
Chapter Sixty-Seven
I was so overwhelmed with joy to see Grayson that I could barely concentrate on the words tumbling from his clean-shaven lips.
Without his moustache, Grayson looked like Theo James and George Clooney rolled into one dark-haired, mysterious, green-eyed, spider-fingered, hunk-a-palooza.
Mama-mia!
“‘Operation Mercy Flush’ was a complete success,” Grayson said.
I sighed and shook my head.
And there’s the ying to his yang.
“It dang sure was!” Earl said. “We done sent Queen Witchy Poo back to whatever spaceworm butthole she crawled out of.”
“Wait,” I said. “My memory’s kind of sketchy. Could you start at the beginning?”
“Uh, sure,” Earl said. “You was born a tomboy in the little town a Point Paradise, Florida.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not that far back.”
“Do you remember that I got word on the Mothman scat samples?” Grayson asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
He nodded. “I did. The results were inconclusive. The lab required more samples to test.”
I smiled. “That’s good, right?”
“It would’ve been,” Grayson said, glancing up at Earl.
“What’s the big deal?” I asked. “Just send them the ones in the—”
“I can’t,” Grayson said. “They were ... uh ... ahem ...”
“I ate ‘em, okay?” Earl blurted, his face puckering at the thought.
I grimaced. “You ate them?”
“Yeah. When you locked me up in that blasted RV when I was all crazy-like.” He shuddered. “What’d y’all keep them dookie balls in the fridge for, anyway?”
Grayson shook his head. “It doesn’t matter anyway, Drex. The RV was lost during our last mission.”
A flash of memory twanged my brain. “I think I remember something about that.” I raised my hand to my bandaged head. “Is that what happened to me?”
“Yes and no,” Grayson said. “During the explosion, you were struck in the head by flying debris. A chrome door-handle, to be exact. We brought you to the hospital unconscious.”
“That’s how I ended up here,” I said. “But ... did the handle stab me in the head or something?”
“Nope. Your skull was too thick for that,” Earl said, tapping his knuckles on his shaggy pate. “You and me got Grandma Selma’s genes.”
“You did sustain a head wound,” Grayson said. “But the MRI showed a different complication. It seemed your twin was ready to be born.”
“Twin?” I asked. “You mean my—”
“Yes. The vestigial twin lodged inside your brain.”
My jaw went slack. “They took it out?”
Grayson nodded.
I sat up in bed. “What did it look like?”
Grayson grinned. “I had a feeling you might want to know. I hope you don’t mind, but I had Earl sign a consent form so we could keep it.”
“We got it in a jar behind the seat in Bessie,” Earl said. “Wanna see it? Gotta warn ya, though. It’s darn near as ugly as you are.”
I laughed, then locked eyes with Grayson. “Yeah. I wanna see it.”
“I’ll bring it by later,” he said. “But right now, you’ve got another visitor waiting to see you.”
My lip snarled. “Please. Not Carl again.”
“Nope,” Earl said. “Me and her done run him off.”
“Her?” I asked. “Beth-Ann?”
“Who else?” she said, peeking her Goth-painted face in the door.
BETH-ANN WATCHED GRAYSON and Earl leave, then turned to me and giggled.
“Hubba hubba! Is it just me, or did the sexy detectsy just get sexier?”
I smirked. “You noticed.”
“Uh ... yeah. Apparently you did, too.”
I sighed. “Yeah. But Grayson doesn’t see me as girlfriend material. I’m nothing but a number to him.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I think I’m the one in his folder. You know. Experiment #5. I’m like his fifth partner or something. I’ve seen the way he looks at me. I’m just a lab rat in jeans.”
Beth-Ann glanced up at my shaved scalp. “Well, that hair of yours sure isn’t helping. I gotta hand it to you, Bobbie. You sure know how to hand a hairdresser a challenge.”
“I’m hopeless,” I said. “But forget about me. Can you do something about Earl’s hair? He looks like a Neanderthal Prince Valiant.”
Beth-Ann stiffened. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve seen it. That guy behind the IGA—”
“I cut his hair, Bobbie.”
I gasped. “You did that to him? Why?”
Beth-Ann shrugged coyly. “I have my reasons.”
“Like what?”
“I like him, okay?” she confessed. “I cut Earl’s hair like that to keep the other women away.”
I stared at her, stunned.
“Don’t look at me like that. Pickings are mighty slim in Point Paradise, my dear. Or do I have to remind you about Carl Blanders?”
I winced. “Fine. You can have him. Just don’t—you know—treat him bad, okay?”
“I won’t,” she said, grabbing
my hand. “Bobbie, I think I’m in love with him.”
I gasped. “Does Earl love you back?”
“I don’t know. But he will.”
I smiled. “How do you know you’re in love?”
Beth-Ann shrugged. “I guess because the thought of Earl with anyone else drives me nuts.”
I snorted. “That’s not love, Beth-Ann. That’s obsession.”
“What’s the difference?”
“About fifteen to life.”
We laughed together for a moment, then I asked her a question that’d been plaguing me since I woke up from my coma.
“Beth-Ann. Have you heard anything from my mother—the newly married Mrs. Applewhite?”
My best friend smiled at me softly and shook her head. “Nope. But let’s face it, Bobbie. Nobody ever resolves their mommy issues.”
Chapter Sixty-Eight
I sat up and fussed with the auburn, shoulder-length bob Beth-Ann had given me from her emergency wig box. Lumpy and a bit square after being stretched over my bandages, I feared I looked about as attractive as ET had when he’d played dress-up in that little girl’s clothes.
Then again, maybe aliens were what Grayson was in to.
A knock sounded on my hospital door. I checked my lipstick in the hand mirror, then tucked it up under my left elbow.
“Come in,” I said.
Grayson appeared carrying a slim, quart-sized pickle jar.
“Hello there,” he said, flashing a fabulous smile.
I couldn’t believe he’d been hiding it all this time beneath that horrid moustache he lost in the explosion.
“I want you to meet Innie,” he said, and held up the jar for my perusal.
“Innie?” I asked.
“Yes. That’s what I named your twin. You know, because it was in your brain.”
“Oh,” I said, staring at the jar. “But aren’t there two things in there?”
“Yes. My Nubbin’s in there with her.”
“Hey. I thought you said that was a Nubian fertility statue.”
Grayson shrugged. “So, I took a little poetic license.”
“But I thought it was in the RV—”
“It was. I got it out when we transferred the phosphorous from BIMBO. It’s the only thing I was able to save, I’m afraid.”
Scatman Dues (Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures Book 6) Page 23