Dead Girl Running

by Christina Dodd

  “I ordered them. You get them from the kitchen. I’ll bring the van around.”

  “Give me thirty minutes. I’ll change and meet you at the kitchen door.” She grabbed an ATV and drove fast toward her cottage at the farthest corner of the resort’s property. She had to hustle; it had been her idea to serve hors d’oeuvres to newly arrived guests. Invariably, the travelers were tired, hungry and crabby, and a prompt application of salmon cakes, tofu bites with chai tea crema, and prosciutto-wrapped artichokes never failed to put them in good humor. Kellen had implemented a successful strategy: a pain in the rear, but successful.

  At her cottage, she jumped into her hospitality costume: like Birdie’s, a starched white button-up shirt and blue scarf, black slacks. Then she did as Xander advised; she looked around and took a moment to breathe.

  She loved her cottage. Its rustic exterior blended well with the wildness of the coastline, its blue door gave it a shocking pop of color and the interior was pure Pacific Northwest: comfortable furniture, an efficiency kitchen and a bedroom loft that had sloped ceilings, gable seats and a bed so comfortable the resort sold them to enamored guests. The decor was a blend of Asian, Native American and local artists. After a day dealing with suppliers, staff and guests, she relished the coziness and the isolation.

  Kellen reached the resort kitchen as Birdie pulled the van under the portico. She nipped into the kitchen. The pizzalike boxes waited for her on the counter; as she picked them up, she realized she’d interrupted a violent scene.

  Chef Reinhart was shaking blood off his hand while Chef Norbert roared with laughter. The kitchen staff continued their work as if this madness was an everyday occurrence.

  Kellen ducked out, placed the boxes in the van on the floor behind the driver’s seat and climbed in behind the wheel. “Chef Reinhart was bleeding, Chef Norbert was laughing and no one seemed to care.” Kellen put the van in gear and drove.

  “I would never date a chef,” Birdie said. Which seemed like an odd thing to say, especially in a voice that ached with loneliness. During four years of deployment, Birdie had never been wounded. Then she came home, got married, and within two months, her husband, a Detroit police officer, was killed in the line of duty, ambushed outside their home. He had died in her arms.

  “How’s it going?” Kellen asked gently. “Parents talking to you yet?”

  “On the phone. My mom and my father-in-law, while my dad and my mother-in-law yell in the background.” Birdie’s parents and in-laws hadn’t wanted the new widow to take a job so far away, but she’d been looking for work when her husband died, job prospects in Detroit hadn’t improved and at Yearning Sands she could do what she’d been trained to do without the constant reminders of what she had lost. “I only remember at night.”

  Kellen wanted to scoff at the idea of an eternal love. But although the welter of bitterness and pain tainted her marital memories, she knew most wives had never lived through hell, and no other woman had watched Gregory murder her cousin in her place…

  * * *

  The gas explosion sent a blast at Cecilia that lifted her, then slammed her into the ground. She lost consciousness, then came back, panicked. She smelled burning cloth. Burning flesh. Sweet Jesus, smoke drifted past her face.

  Someone threw a coat over her head, blinding her, panicking her.

  She fought.

  Suddenly she was free. Her ears were roaring with some…sound.

  A man leaned into her line of vision. He was shouting at her, gesturing toward his own head, then hers. She read his lips. “Lady, your hair was on fire!” She turned her head away from the direction of the house, coughed. Smoke clouded the air. A cab was parked haphazardly at the end of the drive where it met the road.

  He was the cabbie. Not Gregory. The cabbie.

  She lifted her head, looked toward the house.

  Nothing was left but the foundation and burning pieces of wood, charred plaster and singed insulation dancing on the wind.

  Off the cliff. Gone.

  The roaring in Cecilia’s ears diminished. She could hear the cabbie’s voice now; she couldn’t yet distinguish the words, but he had his jacket in his hands, offering it to her, and he was averting his eyes and peeking at the same time.

  She looked down at herself. Her linen slacks and cotton blouse had been shredded by the blast. Her panties and bra still covered her, but barely. Cecilia wrapped his jacket around herself. The arms were too long, and the hem barely reached her thighs.

  Kellen was dead. Cecilia felt nothing but shock. Kellen, who had been so alive, so brave… How could she be dead?

  And Gregory…was gone? Dead? Blown to bits? Cecilia felt shamed relief. And guilt. So much guilt.

  The cabbie was still talking.

  She could almost understand him. She stared, watching his lips.

  “Are you hurt? You, uh, you were standing so close. You okay?”

  She nodded. A lie. She wasn’t okay. Her lungs hurt. Her head hurt. She had blisters on her belly and blisters on her shoulders, and they burned like live coals. It didn’t matter. She was alive.

  “I was called to pick up a passenger,” the cabbie said. “Saw the explosion. Was Mrs. Lykke in the house?”

  Cecilia. The cabbie didn’t know she was Cecilia.

  “I’m sorry, wow, what a tragedy, but the Lykkes always were a scary family with lots of ‘accidents.’” He did air quotes. “I should call this in. Right? Call the police?” He looked toward the main house. “Maybe not, though, because his mother and sister are coming to the site.”

  Mother Sylvia Lykke and sister Erin raced toward the place where the house had been, and even from this distance, even with the ringing in her ears, Cecilia could hear them screaming.

  In a panic, she said, “Drive me to the hotel.”

  “But you want to stick around. You saw everything. Even more than me.” The cabbie was agog, thrilled at being on the front line of a breaking story. “The cops will want to talk to you. Get your testimony.”

  “I want to go to the hotel.” Heart pounding in fear, she grabbed his arm, dug her fingers into his skin. “Take me to the hotel.”

  “Right. You’re in shock. Let me help you—” He tried to support her.

  She yanked herself away.

  “Shock. Right. Don’t touch you. I’ll call, tell the cops I’m dropping you at the hotel. You can…do whatever you do for shock.”

  “Lie down. Elevate the feet. Keep warm.” She had been a Girl Scout. She knew this stuff.

  “Hospital!” The thought seemed to startle and thrill him. “Want me to take you to the hospital?”

  “Hotel.”

  “Right.” He hurried toward his vehicle. “I’ll get you down there, come back and give my testimony.”

  Cecilia stumbled away, not from the explosion, but from Gregory’s family. The cabbie beat her to the taxi; he opened the back door. She slid in and huddled down on the seat, hiding from Sylvia and Erin, hiding from the events of the past hour.

  The cabbie leaped into the driver’s seat.

  “Go. Go!”

  “Okay, lady! Hang on.” He started the car, pulled a U-turn and headed down the road.

  She looked out the back window.

  Sylvia stood immobile, staring at the crater where the house had been.

  Erin stared after the taxi with a gaze both intelligent and vengeful.

  The driver glanced at Cecilia in the rearview mirror. “Like I said when I dropped you off earlier, you’re a lot different from young Mrs. Lykke, poor thing. Word was, her in-laws hated her and her husband was out to beat her to death. I would never mistake the two of you.”

  He really did think she was Kellen. Should she correct him?

  She should correct him.

  He kept talking. “I’ll drop you off and head back up there, see if I can do anything,
but that house, it lifted right off the foundation and blew off the edge of the cliff. I’ve never seen anything like that. Knocked you ass-over-teakettle, too, bet you flew ten, fifteen feet. You must have cracked your skull a good one.”

  Her neck ached. Her head hurt. “Yes,” she whispered. What would it hurt if he thought she was Kellen? If she could pretend to be Kellen for a little while, leave Greenleaf in a rush, she could get out without—

  “Here they come. The cops!” The cabbie pulled over to the side of the road.

  Sirens blasting, lights flashing, a fire engine raced past followed by the fire chief and two police cars.

  Cecilia flinched. Yes, if she pretended to be Kellen for a few minutes at the hotel, she could escape without talking to the cops, without having to face Sylvia and Erin, who would tell her the explosion was her fault.

  The cabbie pulled onto the road again, then back onto the shoulder while the county sheriff raced past. “They’re all going up for this one. Prominent family, huge tragedy. Say, are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the hospital? You’re looking sick.”

  “Hotel.” She felt like she’d been saying that for hours. “Faster.”

  As he entered Greenleaf, he slowed to a crawl, complained about the twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit, stopped in front of the hotel and opened the door for her. “You look bad, burned all over. Want me to get you in there?”

  She shook her head. Which hurt. “Go back up to the Lykke estate and give your report.” Her lips felt cracked. The heat, she supposed.

  “That’ll be eleven dollars…” He seemed to realize she didn’t have any money on her. “I’ll stop by and collect it later.”

  “Yes.” She moved as fast as she could into the lobby empty of everyone except for two desk clerks talking excitedly. At the sight of her, their heads swiveled and they openly gawked.

  Cecilia groped for Kellen’s key.

  It was gone. Her whole pocket was gone, burned away.

  7

  Cecilia had to talk to the Greenleaf Hotel desk staff and hope they, like the cabbie, identified her as Kellen. She approached, kept her voice low, avoided eye contact. “Can you tell me my room number? I hit my head and can’t remember.”

  The desk clerk went into a flurry of activity, clicked keys on the computer. “Of course, Miss Adams. I’m sorry about your… That is, I heard that… Mr. and Mrs. Lykke…”

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  “You were there? You saw it?”

  She lifted her gaze and stared him in the face. “Yes.”

  She didn’t know what was in her eyes, but he shrank back and offered the key card. “Room 323. Let us know if we can do anything to assist you.”

  “No.” She took it, turned away, turned back. “Yes. Can you tell me where I parked my car?”

  “Of course.” He clicked more keys. “You’re in space eighteen in the parking garage. Below the hotel. Garage level on the elevator.” He scanned the screen. “You’re valet parked. When you’re ready, they’ll bring the car around.”

  Realization hit her. “I need the car keys.” Of course she did. In the past couple years, she had had so little real experience with the trivia of life, she had forgotten she needed keys to drive a car. God. What had she become?

  The desk clerk took her comment as a command, lifted the phone and called the valet. “Miss Adams wants her keys.” He hung up and spoke to her with a combination of avid curiosity and real concern. “He’s bringing them now, but you shouldn’t be driving in your condition. Let me call a doctor.”

  “I’ll see a doctor as soon as possible.” The valet appeared at her side and handed her a key ring. She stared stupidly at it. Five keys. So…car keys, keys to Kellen’s apartment, and…she didn’t know what else. “Thank you.” She limped toward the elevator, pushed the button, and when the doors opened, she entered. She pushed the button, faced front. The doors closed. She collapsed against the railing and clung there until the doors opened on her floor. She pushed herself upright and walked out, studied the signs and moved toward room 323. She stopped at the door. She swiped the card, walked into a narrow, old-fashioned room. She wanted to crumple onto the chair, sleep on the bed, hide…

  In the distance, she heard the wail of another siren, spurring her to movement. She staggered to the closet, pulled Kellen’s clothes off the hangers, threw them into the open suitcase on the luggage rack. She shrugged out of the cabbie’s jacket and stripped.

  The blast’s heat had branded and blistered her shoulders where her metal bra adjustments rested. And why? She wasn’t busty enough to worry about a bra. Gregory had insisted she wear one. For decency, he said. So men wouldn’t stare at her. What men? He never allowed her around other men. To hell with him.

  She eased her wedding ring off her finger, his grandmother’s wedding ring, and stared at the blisters raised by the heated platinum. Even his family wedding ring had burned her. Yes! To hell with Gregory. She flung the ring into the trash can.

  Willy-nilly, she chose an outfit from Kellen’s wardrobe. She sat on the bed to pull on the jeans. When she stood, they slipped off her skinny hips. She had to notch Kellen’s belt on the last hole and it was barely enough to keep the pants up.

  More sirens.

  Panicked, she ran into the bathroom for the toiletries. She flipped on the light and—No wonder everyone stared and wanted her to go to the hospital. She put her hands to her head. Strands of hair cracked off in her hands. She rubbed her face. Her eyebrows…gone, burned off by the blast. Her skin looked thin, mottled, as if the explosion had slapped her. Her blue eyes…were haunted.

  Leaning over the sink, she used Kellen’s brush and gingerly brushed what was left of her hair. In Kellen’s overnight bag, she found a pair of scissors and cut off the random long strands. Now she looked like a Halloween monster in June. But not so wounded, more like a fashion statement gone bad.

  In the bedroom, she tossed the toiletries into the suitcase. She swooped down to get two pairs of shoes off the closet floor—and came face-to-face with the locked room safe. She froze. She had no money. Like the key, the money had disappeared with her pocket. She sank to her knees. She needed what was in that safe. But she had no way in. She couldn’t break into a safe…

  Wait. Maybe she didn’t have to break in. Aunt Cora Rae and Uncle Earle had always used the same password for everything—ECKC. Earle, Cora, Kellen, Cecilia. 3, 2, 5, 3. The family knew the code. Maybe Kellen had used the code.

  With shaking fingers, Cecilia pressed 3, 2, 5, 3.

  Nothing happened.

  She dropped her head into her hands. What other code would Kellen use? Maybe her girlfriend’s name…but she didn’t know it. If Cecilia and Kellen had been able to drive away from Greenleaf, roll down the windows, let the wind blow their hair…then she would have known. She would have rejoiced in their relationship. Instead, Cecilia was grief-stricken, and Kellen’s girlfriend remained a mystery.

  Desperate, Cecilia punched in the same code. 3, 2, 5…2.

  The safe sang a little song and the door opened.

  She’d done it wrong the first time.

  Gregory’s voice sang in her head. You’re incompetent. You’re not fit to be out on your own.

  “Shut up.” Inside, she found Kellen’s credit card, five neatly folded twenties, a black velvet box with a blue enamel wedding band inside… Cecilia stared at that band. Kellen had wanted to marry her girlfriend, and…the young woman Kellen loved would suffer a loss she would never comprehend. With a snap, Cecilia shut the box and placed it in a side pocket of the suitcase.

  At the bottom of the safe, she found Kellen’s computer. She smoothed her hand across the black matte finish. She hadn’t been allowed to touch a computer for so long, to communicate, to discover, to learn. A tear dropped onto the lid. She wiped it off. She was glad to be alive, glad that Gregory was dead. That didn’
t mean that she was glad Kellen was dead, but…she was grateful. Kellen had sacrificed her life to give Cecilia her life back.

  Cecilia placed the computer on the bed. She emptied the dresser drawers into the suitcase. The underwear and bras would never fit; she and Kellen had looked alike, but they had never worn the same size. Not the point. Somehow, it was important not to leave a trace of Kellen in this room, in this town.

  The suitcase bulged; Cecilia sat on it to close the zipper. She slid the computer into the side pocket, did a last, rushed search of the room and dragged the wheeled suitcase down the corridor to the elevators. In the elevator, she pushed the button for P1 three times. When the doors opened, she entered a concrete cavern filled with cars, vans and freedom.

  Kellen’s car surprised her. Kellen had always liked fast cars; a Mini sat in the spot. Cecilia hadn’t driven for two years, yet she remembered how to unlock the door, stow a suitcase, start the car. Everything in her screamed, Hurry! Hurry! But she needed out of this town without incident, so she would be cool…

  In the rearview mirror, she saw someone walk out of the hotel elevator. Panic clutched at her. She backed out too fast, squealed the tires, took too long to figure out where Drive was located, found it, put the car in gear and ripped out of the garage without looking. She drove out of town and onto the highway, heading south. She didn’t know where she was going. But she knew where she’d been, and she swore she would never return to Greenleaf.

  * * *

  The van’s steering wheel jerked in Kellen’s hands.

  With far too much acuity, Birdie said, “Whatever it is, it’s not worth all that.”

  Kellen was here, now driving through Washington. But… “Sometimes it is.”

  The woman who had been Cecilia had kept her promise to herself. Greenleaf was nothing but a nightmare she visited when sleep came hard and darkness held reign.

  Birdie sighed, a soft breath of sadness. “Yes. Sometimes it is.”

  8

  At the airstrip, Kellen parked the van and she and Birdie got out their ponchos—every Yearning Sands vehicle was always equipped with dry ponchos—and donned them. They turned on the runway lights and prepped to receive the plane, then climbed back into the van to wait. “It’s good to be busy,” Kellen said. “When the memories hover like bat wings.”