Mind Your Own Beeswax (28 page)

“Think outside the box, Story. Forget what everybody else thought or said, and work with the information I just gave you.”

My shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. Maybe the booze didn’t hit her until then. Come on, Jackson, just tell me what you think.”

He swayed once, then stood tall. “I thought then,” he said, “and I still think . . . that when her car ran down Wayne Jay, Lauren Kerrigan wasn’t the one behind the wheel.”

With that stunning declaration, which I hadn’t even seen coming, Jackson took off back inside. I followed him long enough to snatch his keys when he set them down next to the coffee pot and to ask Grams to see him safely home. She agreed, and I handed over his keys to her.

Grams and Mom were probably the only ones in the bar who would pass a Breathalyzer test. Someone with more foresight than me should have set up designated drivers and a shuttle service. Just as well I hadn’t driven Jackson home myself—I could feel the effects of the Irish wakes kicking in. I planned to walk home.

Later, I’d blame my lack of caution on the cocktails, not on my own impulsiveness, although it was completely in character for me to act first, think later. But, really, what could happen in two short blocks?

And so I set out walking.

And analyzing possibilities.

What the medical examiner had shared with me was mind-boggling. He thought Lauren had been too drunk to operate a car that night? If Jackson was right about a different driver (and in my opinion, that was up for serious debate), who was it?

And what about Hunter’s recent actions? Interrogating Gunnar and Carrie Ann, two of our original group of friends. None of us could have been involved. We’d all been together, right? Weren’t we together the entire time? I thought so. Well, most of the time.

Pure nonsense, I decided. Rubbish, as Mom would say. Jackson might have sounded sober, but he was drunk as a skunk when he came up with that baloney. Or I should say blarney, since we were into Irish tonight. I wasn’t buying the idea that it was a different driver. Lauren Kerrigan went to prison for it.

I had to get my hands on my cousin and make her talk. She’d been acting strange. She knew something.

If I could find her.

Where was Carrie Ann?

I crossed Main Street, not paying too much attention to my surroundings, because I knew the town inside and out. Moraine’s streetlights were bright, and traffic was light, as in next to nonexistent. Businesses along Main Street, including mine, were dark, closed up for the night. Crowd noise drifted over from Stu’s Bar and Grill as people went in and out of the bar. The sidewalk under my flip-flops felt like it was undulating to the heavy bass vibes from the music.

A full moon grinned from the sky, creating tall shadows from short objects.

And right then I paused, remembering unpleasant things through my pleasant alcoholic haze. Johnny Jay was out here somewhere, stalking me, plotting revenge against me for ruining his life. Not to mention the humiliating apology he’d had to endure. Twice.

I hadn’t fallen for his little act and he knew it. He’d even wanted me to understand that. He wasn’t nearly finished with me.

And here I was, alone, in the dark, not paying attention.

Isn’t that exactly how women got in trouble all the time? By not being cautious?

I hadn’t even told Holly or Patti when I left.

Nobody knew where I was, where I had gone.

I picked up speed. No longer lollygagging along, I turned onto my dead-end street, passed by Patti’s dark house. No one was around. Every house was dark and silent, everybody had gone to the wake.

Wouldn’t this be the perfect place and time for an attack? That was, if Story Fischer was actually foolish enough to walk home alone in the dark. Suddenly that short walk seemed like the longest ever.

Just as I talked myself into believing everything was fine, a car started up ahead of me at the end of the street. No lights, but I heard the engine.

It sped out of the darkness, like a bat out of the depths of hell, aiming straight at me.

My reflexes weren’t going to be as sharp as they would have been if I hadn’t been drinking. That was for sure. I glanced around for options. Nothing brilliant popped out.

So I did the only thing I had time for.

I got behind the nearest streetlight, not too close to it, but not too far away, either, and I closed my eyes, waiting for impact. With a bit of luck, the metal pole would stop the car’s forward momentum and save my life.

I backed up a few feet, thinking if I lived through this I would never, ever put myself in this kind of position, ever again.

Tires squealed. My eyes shot open in time to see the car veer off right before hitting the pole. I thought the driver might lose control after that, because the car swerved back and forth several times before it straightened out and sped off into the night.

“What a total moron,” I said, really talking about the driver but I could just as well have called myself that for being utterly stupid. In this case, I was addressing the driver because I’d actually found time in my terror to read the license plate number with my fine but trembling mind.

I even got cocky about it, while repeating the number several times so I wouldn’t forget it. What kind of pathetic attempt on my life was that? A real serious murderer should have planned for possible failure. If that had been me behind the wheel, I would have removed the plates beforehand. Just in case I messed up.

I ran up onto my front porch and collapsed in an Adirondack chair, panting, my heart pounding as the full realization struck. I had come uncomfortably close to dying.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and slouched down out of sight. Then I started second-guessing my first impressions, trying to turn it into something more benign.

Maybe teenagers had been parking at the end of the block, making out. It wouldn’t be the first time or the last. Then along comes me, and they get scared, thinking maybe I’d recognized them or might approach their car. So they rushed to leave, tearing out of there, a little out-of-control like new drivers sometimes are. The driver oversteered before correcting and gunning away.

Okay, that had lots of potential.

The cell phone in my hand rang.

“Where are you?” Holly shouted into the phone, the background noise not exactly in the background, more like front and center. I could hardly hear her.

“Around,” I hedged. “Why?”

“I can’t hear you. Wait, let me move someplace not quite so loud.”

I waited, hearing the din die away. Then I said, “What do you want?”

“Max came home to surprise me.” Holly sounded happy.

Max the Money Machine, Holly’s workaholic husband. Holly’s attitude always adjusted when Max came home, as brief as his visits usually were. Then he’d get back on the road and she’d start moaning and complaining again. “That’s sweet of him,” I said, concentrating on lowering my blood pressure to somewhere under three hundred over one hundred. The car incident had really affected me. “Does that mean you two are back together?”

“Yup. So I won’t be staying with you tonight. It’s makeup sex time.”

“I didn’t really need to know that,” I said.

“See you tomorrow at the store. I might be a little late.” Holly hung up.

So then, to get this all in perspective: I could understand Holly wanting to spend time with her husband, but it meant that I didn’t have a roommate, and I also didn’t have a bodyguard. Not one. Never again would I take comfort from Patti’s and Holly’s promises. Ever.

I seemed to be full of nevers and evers and planned on sticking to them from now on, as in forever. Patti was just as bad as my sister. Probably snooping too much to remember about me.

Next, I called Hunter. “There’s a strange car parked on my block,” I pretended. “Can you run the plates for me?”

“What color is it?”

“Dark.”

“Like black dark?”

“Sure. I guess.”

“What kind of vehicle is it?”

“A car.”

“You already said that. What kind?”

“Uh, a car-car.” So I hadn’t been as observant as a man might have been. Hunter would have been able to tell me what kind of rims the car had. “You don’t need all that extra stuff. Just run the plate number.”

“Let me get this straight,” Hunter said. “You got close enough to the vehicle to read the license plate number. But you don’t know the make or model and you aren’t even sure of the color.”

“How should I know what kind of car it is? They all look the same. It’s a standard sedan. Do you want the license number or not?” Then I quickly proceeded to give him the number, not about to give him time to answer with a
not
.

“I’ll get back to you,” he said.

 

 

I stayed slumped down in the chair, cloaked in darkness, listening to sounds from Stu’s, which still floated in the air.

The car thing had done a real number on my nerves. I concentrated on relaxing, breathing deep and slow.

When my phone vibrated, I almost shrieked. “Yes?” I said, after checking the caller ID and making sure it was Hunter on the other end.

“The car belongs to Johnny Jay,” he said. “Is anyone inside the car at the moment? Don’t go near it or expose yourself, but if you see anybody, I need to know.”

“It’s gone now.” I didn’t like Hunter’s tone of voice. He sounded upset. As he should be, since my fears about the former police chief were coming true.

“Whew.” Hunter let out a big sigh into the phone. “Because Johnny Jay reported it stolen a few minutes ago. He had parked it down the street from Stu’s. When he left the bar, the car was missing. Good thing it’s gone from your block. I wouldn’t want a car burglar hanging around anywhere near you.”

“Yeah,” I said, with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Good thing.”

“Anyway,” he said, “I passed on the information you gave me to Sally Maylor. She promised to patrol your block.”

“Where’s Johnny right this minute?” I asked.

“At the station. Filling out paperwork.”

We hung up.

A car turned from Main Street and headed my way, so I slunk down even lower in the chair. It came slow, crawling along and still managed to hit the curb on the corner during the turn.

I’d know that car and driver anywhere.

Grams.

She bumped her Cadillac Fleetwood (See, I can identify at least one kind of car, Hunter Wallace!) to the curb in front of my house. I walked out to greet her. I haven’t been so glad to see anybody for a very long time.

The passenger window slid down and Mom said, “We have Jackson in the backseat. He’s practically passed out, thanks to you and those drinks you forced on him.”

Grams leaned across Mom and looked out at me. “We don’t know where he lives, sweetie.”

“I’ll show you,” I offered, relieved to have family surrounding me. Any family!

I got in the back next to Jackson. The smell almost blew me out of the car.

“Jeez,” I said to him, noticing he still had one eye open. “What happened to the coffee?”

“What coffee?”

“He refused to drink any,” Mom said.

“Turn right at Main,” I told Grams, before leaning back in my seat and thinking.

Had Johnny just set up this whole thing? Orchestrated an attempt on my life after calling in his car stolen, planning to run me down? Or was he telling the truth?

I thought of all the years we’d been butting heads. Did he really hate me enough to kill me?

“Johnny Jay isn’t through, either,” I muttered to myself.

“He apologized to you,” Mom said, overhearing. “What more do you want from the poor man?”

“Handcuffs and a nice orange prison outfit?” I said, looking out the back window and noticing one dark vehicle after another.

And that’s when I decided to spend the night at my grandmother’s house with Grams and Mom.