The Perfect Coed (Oak Grove Mysteries Book 1) (22 page)

“Yeah, but I’ve thought about it since, wished I’d taken your card. May I have one now?”

Something made Kenny a little cautious. “Sure,” he said, reaching inside his pocket. “But how did you know to find me here?”

“Here?” Ellen looked around the restaurant. Then she shrugged and said, “I didn’t. That’s pure coincidence. But when I saw you come in I decided it must be fate. I was meant to meet up with you again.”

Susan wished she had extrasensory hearing so she’d know what they were saying, but she saw Ellen shrug as she answered a question.

“Friend and I have been to a meeting at the Worthington. Decided to treat ourselves to a drink, and we’d heard The City Restaurant was a pretty toney place. Can’t afford to eat here, but we could at least have a drink.”

Whatever she said, the redhead seemed to accept it. “Well,” he said, “you work for me, you can pretty soon eat dinner here.”

“Sounds great,” Ellen said, pocketing the card. “Nice to see you again.” She held out her hand and they shook, and then she headed back to Susan. She felt pretty proud of herself—she’d actually carried it off, and she had his card in her purse.

Walking the length of the bar, Ellen faced the entrance directly. When she was about halfway back to Susan, the three Oak Grove girls came into the restaurant, Vicky dragging reluctantly behind the other two.

Brandy saw her instantly. “Dr. Peck!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” Her voice carried the length of the room.

Susan cursed, and Ellen walked toward the girl and said softly, “Having a drink, Brandy. What are you girls doing here?” Her eyes took in all three girls, the clothes they were wearing, the carefully applied makeup.
Susan is right
, she decided,
they’re call girls.

Brandy didn’t answer, but in the second it took her to compose her thoughts, she saw Susan at the bar. “Dr. Hogan!” She didn’t hesitate a minute but went right up to Susan. “I told you to stay out of this. You’ll only make things worse.”

“Brandy,” Susan said wearily, “for me they can’t get any worse.” She didn’t feel obliged to give the girl a catalog of her troubles.

“Don’t bet on it,” Brandy said.

“Is that a threat, Brandy?”

“No, a warning.”

Just then the redheaded man walked up to the knot of five women gathered at the front end of the bar. “Hey, what’s goin’ on here. You know these two?” He directed his question to Brandy, and he was distinctly displeased. The good manners his mother had taught him had disappeared.

“They’re faculty from the university,” Brandy said. “That one”—she jerked her head toward Susan—“is the one whose car Missy was in.”

Surprise and panic both showed on his face. He stared at Susan and Ellen, both of whom avoided his look. Finally, he said to the three young girls, “You all go on upstairs and wait for me. I’ll be right there.” Brandy led the way, and the other two followed her, but Susan saw the dark-skinned girl throw a frightened look in her direction. She interpreted it as a plea for help.

“Look, ladies, I don’t know why you’re here or what your game is, but I think you best be moving on now. You’ll just cause trouble here.”

“You don’t own this restaurant, twerp,” Susan said. “You can’t kick us out.” But then she saw that the bartender had quietly collected their drinks. With all the dignity she could muster, she said, “We’re leaving anyway. Tell Brandy…” She started to tell him she’d see Brandy in class Friday, but then she realized that wasn’t true. She wouldn’t be in class. Anger boiled through Susan again, and she resisted an urge to slap this red-haired man whom she felt she knew so well, even if she didn’t yet know his name.

The man had made one serious mistake: he forgot that Ellen had his card. He sauntered back to the other end of the bar, trying to appear casual even though he was thinking fast and furiously. While Susan and Ellen waited for their check, not daring to say anything to each other, they watched the bartender and the redhead whispering together at the far end of the bar. At long last, the bartender came toward them, and said, “Drinks are on the house, ladies, if you’ll please just get out of here.”

So much, Susan thought, for a toney restaurant. We aren’t bringing Aunt Jenny here Saturday.

They waited an extraordinarily long time for their car. The last weekend had seen the time-change from daylight to central time, so even just before seven it was almost dark—and with the dark came the chill of October nights. Both women shivered.

“You think they parked your car in Dallas?” Susan asked, trying to make a joke.

“At least in North Fort Worth,” Ellen replied. “Damn, it’s cold!”

Ellen Peck never swore, and Susan, who had under duress been accused by Jake of swearing like a trooper, stared at her. Ellen, she decided, was scared and angry, both at the same time.

At long last Ellen’s Mitsubishi roared up to the curb and a young man jumped out, full of apologies about taking so long. “Got the wrong car the first time, ma’am. Sorry.”

Ellen gave him five dollars and hoped to heaven he’d turned the heat on already. He hadn’t.

They were silent as Ellen maneuvered through Fort Worth’s downtown streets. Instead of heading toward Forest Park, she turned north on Throckmorton.

“Where are you going?” Susan asked.

“I have this strange feeling,” Ellen said. “I just want to be sure no one is following us.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Ellen, this isn’t a grade B melodrama,” Susan said crossly.

“You sure?” Ellen asked. “I’m beginning to think it is.”

Susan was silent for a minute. Then she said, “We don’t know any more than we did before—all we got out of that was a couple free drinks.”

“At those prices, that wasn’t a bad deal. But, Susan, we do know a little bit more. I’ve got that man’s card in my purse. Here, fish it out and see what it says.” She took the purse from the side of her seat, where she always kept it, and handed it to Susan.

Susan pulled out the card and read, “Kenny Thomas. At your pleasure. 817-332-4557.” She sighed. “Well, it’s a downtown Fort Worth phone number. Doesn’t tell you much else. We have no proof he’s running a call-girl ring.”

“We’ve certainly got instincts, though,” Ellen said. “If I ever doubted your story, Susan, I apologize. It’s obvious what he’s doing… and what those girls are doing.”

“Did you see that one?” Susan asked. “She looked terrified. I wanted to run and grab her, save her.”

“Might’ve been the best thing you could have done for her.”

Susan was already blaming herself for not having taken more action. Ellen’s words didn’t help, and she stared out the window, lost in thought.

“Susan?” Ellen’s voice had a real edge to it. “The car behind us is really tailgating. Pushing me hard.” They had turned off Throckmorton and were now on the part of Forest Park that followed the river and was almost like a four-lane country road. The only car around was the one behind them.

Susan turned and saw headlights blazing at them, not inches from the back of their car. “Can you pull off?”

“No place here. And I’m afraid to slow down, afraid he’ll ram us. I’ve picked up the speed some, but so did he.”

“Why doesn’t he just pass us?” Susan asked. “No other cars on the road.”

“That’s what’s worrying me,” Ellen said. “It’s like he wants
us.
”

“We’re about halfway to the freeway,” Susan said. “If we can make that, we’ll be back in traffic.”

“Yeah,” Ellen said grimly, “if we can make that.”

“Ellen, drive as fast as you can.” The car behind them kept pace with them.

“Susan…” It was a wail for help from Ellen, but it was too late.

The car turned as though to pass them, then slowly began to crowd them off the road. Susan was afraid they would tumble down the embankment into the Trinity River, and she began to review everything she’d ever read about escaping from a sunken car. The momentum of speed Ellen had built up carried the car. It flipped once and landed upright, lodged against a small tree, the motor still running. The car that had forced them off the road sped off into the night.

If it weren’t for that tree, Susan thought, we’d be in the river. God must be looking after me, in spite of all.

They sat in total silence in the darkness, too stunned and scared to speak. Susan moved every part of her body just a bit and thought,
It’s like the night the car tried to run me down and the moped wreck, only worse.
This time, nothing new seemed broken—a miracle if she’d ever heard of one. “Thank God for trees,” she said. “Ellen?”

“What?” Ellen’s voice was hoarse and strained.

“You okay?”

“No. I’ve got the most tremendous pain in my side that I’ve ever had in my life. It hurts bad, Susan.”

“Okay, let me think. We’ve got to stay here for a bit, not moving, make sure that whoever it was doesn’t come back to see if he did what he wanted to do. I’ll call Jake.” She fished in her purse for her cell phone.

“I can’t move anyway,” Ellen said and began to sob.

Jake didn’t answer at his house, and no one answered at her house. Susan had a vision of Jake and Aunt Jenny, sitting happily on the deck, ignoring the phone because they couldn’t hear it.

“Don’t even think of getting out and walking. You can’t leave me here.”

“I can’t walk either,” Susan reminded her.

Ellen gave a giggle that verged on hysteria. “We’re a great pair. I can barely breathe, and you can barely walk.”

Susan was more concerned about Ellen’s pain and raspy breath than she wanted her friend to know. She dialed 911 and in as businesslike tones as she could muster told them where they were and what Ellen’s condition was.

It seemed hours that they sat there, Ellen breathing hard and Susan shaking from cold and fear, but it was probably only minutes until they saw the flashing lights of a police car. Then an officer waving a flashlight made his way down the embankment to the car. “Anybody in there?” he called.

“Yes,” Susan answered in a loud, strong voice. “Two of us. The driver’s hurt.”

He jerked open the driver’s door and knelt beside Ellen. “How’re you hurt?”

“Pain right here,” Ellen panted, pointing to her rib cage, “and it hurts to breathe.”

“I’ll call an ambulance, but it sounds to me like a broken rib. You okay, lady?”

“Yeah, didn’t even rebreak my broken ankle,” Susan said. She had gotten in the habit of telling people it was her ankle rather than the lower part of whatever bone it was. It required less explanation that way.

The officer asked where they were headed and what had happened. When they told him a car deliberately ran them off the road, he shook his head. “Lot of kooks on the road these days. No telling what you did to make him mad.”

Susan knew exactly what they’d done and who it was, but she didn’t want to go into it with this officer. What she wanted, she realized with a lurch, was Jake.

“How’d you know to look for us?” she asked.

“Funny thing,” the officer said. “’Bout the time your call came in, we also got an anonymous call about a car run off the road on Forest Park.”

Susan shuddered. Whoever did this hoped they were dead. “Would you radio security at Oak Grove University and have them tell Jake Phillips what happened? Ask him to meet us at the hospital.”

“Jake? Sure, I know Jake. Went to police academy with him. You a friend of his?” The officer’s face was lit with a smile.

“I may not be for long,” Susan muttered.

* * *

Jake got to the hospital about an hour later, having broken every speed limit. The ambulance had transported Ellen, who was in the emergency room. Susan sat in the ER waiting room doing just that… waiting. She felt like she was waiting for her fate. Jake’s mood was neither comforting nor loving. “What in the hell have you been doing?” he demanded.

“Ellen and I just went for a drink…”

“Come on, Susan, I’m not stupid. You went to The City Restaurant… and you went to check on that red-haired stranger. And you lied to me.”

“He has a name. Kenny Thomas. And, Jake, I know I’m right. Brandy came in with two other coeds from Oak Grove. That’s how he found out about us, who we were. And that’s why he ran us off the road.” The words tumbled out as Susan tried desperately to convince Jake that she had not been merely willful and foolish.

“He ran you off the road? Did you see him? Can you testify against him?”

“Well… no. It was dark. I don’t know that it was actually him. But, Jake, it was deliberate. That car tailgated us, kept forcing Ellen to go faster, when it had every opportunity to pass us… It’s a wonder we weren’t killed.”

“I’ve thought of that, Susan,” Jake said dryly. “Don’t try to play violins for me now. I’m glad you’re all right, and it sounds like Ellen has a broken rib and maybe a collapsed lung. Painful but not serious.”

Susan hung her head. “Okay, so I put Ellen in danger, and we didn’t get anything for it.”

“Sounds that way to me,” he said. “Could easily have just been some drunk ran you off the road.”

Susan noticed that he had deliberately kept his distance from her. Where, she wondered, was that protestation of love she’d heard—what? not twenty-four hours earlier? “Aunt Jenny?”

“I was at your house when the call came in. She called and invited me to supper. When I got there, she said you’d gone for a drink with Ellen, which sounded uncharacteristic to me—the two of you drink at your house if you want to share confidences.”

“I’ve caused her all kinds of worry, haven’t I?”

“Yeah, you have. Not to mention me. You made me a promise, you know—nothing risky.” For a minute, he thought she’d tell him she was sorry, but she didn’t. “And I never thought you’d lie to me. I guess that’s the worst of it.”

Susan couldn’t look him in the eye. Finally she tried to turn the conversation in another direction. “There is one bit of good news,” Susan said, fishing in her purse. “Ellen got that Kenny Thomas’ card. We have a phone number.”

“But not proof he’s doing anything illegal, from running a call-girl service to running cars off the road,” Jake said. “It’s probably all coincidence, but I’ll give this to Jordan. With the police finding you tonight, this thing’s public.”