Kill Me If You Can

38

I entered the Watering Hole, the first saloon I’d ever been in, and God willing the last. A woman’s voice twanged over top of the deafening music, creeping a tad sharp on the high notes. I winced to have been lucky enough to land at the Watering Hole on karaoke night.

I searched the myriad of faces sitting at the bar and gathered around tables scattered randomly throughout the building. A smallish dance floor, occupied by the shrill vocalist and a feisty drunk and his date, took up one corner.

Toward the back, a bright red exit sign glowed against the wall. Just in front of it, big letters spelled restrooms. An arrow pointed off to the right. At the table directly beneath the sign, where my parents had sat together years earlier, were Puppa and Jellybean. A black box rested on the table between them.

My instinct was to rush over and embrace both of them and tell them how wonderful it was to see them together again. But I held back, searching the faces nearby at the door. A man locked eyes with me. Fear flashed down my spine. He could be one of the bad guys. He raised his mug of beer and smiled, beckoning to me with lifted eyebrows to join him at his table. I shook my head and turned away, laughing inside at his come-on, despite my paranoia.

A hand grabbed my shoulder. I gave a mini-scream and turned. A huge biker-type dude wearing a black tee, tattoos, and a bandana grunted at me. “Three dollars.”

“Pardon me?” Maybe he was just hoping for a handout. I couldn’t imagine anyone actually paying to get into this place.

“Three dollars cover charge,” he repeated and crossed his arms like an all-powerful genie.

I dug through my pockets and rounded up the required bills. He nodded the okay. I dodged in and out of bodies and chairs as I made my way over to the corner table. I plopped down in a vacant seat. Goose bumps crawled over my skin as if eyes watched secretly from every shadow.

I leaned toward them. “What’s going on? Puppa, what are you doing here?”

Neither Puppa nor Candice made any sign of greeting. They must know which set of eyes behind me posed a threat.

“The box, Tish. Where is it?” Candice asked in a strangled whisper.

“Safe in the car. I didn’t want to bring it in until I knew you were okay.” I reached for the box of photos of me and my mother and pulled it toward me.

“Put it back.” Candice’s eyes grew large as if she’d spotted some threat over my shoulder.

I pushed it back to the middle. “So what’s your big plan? How are we all going to get out of here alive and still make sure your pictures get to the police?”

Puppa blinked in surprise.

“Yes, I peeked.” I stared at them in expectation. Neither rushed to explain the strategy. “Please tell me we’re going to get out of this alive.”

“We are. As soon as you bring the other box inside.” Candice nudged my grandfather.

Puppa nodded at me to comply.

“But if they take your box of photos, how are we going to make sure these guys end up in jail?”

“Things don’t always work out like we expect.” Puppa nodded toward the door. “Let’s worry about getting out of here safely before we worry about what happens to Majestic. He’ll get what he has coming.”

Please God, please God, please God help us, I chanted with silent lips as I worked my way back through the crowd and out to my Explorer. Bip bip. The doors unlocked with a press of the remote. I looked at the box on the front seat, and wavered. Why would the drug runners let us live once they had the box in hand? We’d all seen the pictures. Left alive, we’d all be able to testify against the criminals. So really, in their eyes, we were better off dead.

That meant they probably planned to kill us once they had the photos anyway. So why give them the photos?

I dumped the contents of the box onto the passenger-side floorboards, mashing the prints under the seat. They pushed out the back and sides, but I kept stuffing until they stayed. Then I opened the glove box and took out my SUV owner’s manual, a bunch of renovation shots from the last house, and miscellaneous bills. I layered them in the box with the house photos on top, then pressed the lid over them.

I auto-locked the doors and headed back into the Watering Hole. I stepped through the entrance and began my march to the rear. A hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the bouncer asked with a menacing face.

Busted. How had he known I’d switched out the photos?

“I, uh, I . . .” Only squeaks of fear came out of my mouth.

“It’s three dollars.”

I blinked. Slowly I let out my breath. He was just collecting the cover charge. I gave a smile of relief. “I just paid, remember?”

“Let me see your stamp.” He held out his huge, gruff hand, just about the right size to wring my neck.

I cleared my throat. “I just paid to get in a few minutes ago. But then I had to go back to my car. I didn’t realize I needed a stamp.”

“That’ll be three dollars.” The genie-of-the-lamp-look appeared again.

“Okay.” I dug through my pockets and coughed up just enough change and bills to get in for the second time.

“What’s in the box?” he demanded.

“Just, um, pictures.” At his look of doubt, I babbled on. “My aunt is sitting over there and I wanted to show them to her.”

“Open it.”

“What? I’m not going to open it.” I gripped it to my chest.

“We have the right to search all items large enough to conceal a weapon.”

I hesitated, looking around for bad guys. Nobody seemed to take particular interest in the box. I set it on a table and lifted the lid. “See? Just pictures.”

He grabbed the top wad of photos and lifted them. Then he peeled back the bills to reveal the owner’s manual.

“Fine. Go ahead.” He nodded me in.

I scurried to put the lid back in place. I glanced up at my previous admirer, still sitting alone with his beer. He stared at the box and rubbed his chin. Then he looked in my eyes with a squinty glare.

I gasped and stumbled backward with the box in hand. I launched through the crowd and dove into the open seat across from Puppa and Candice.

I slammed the box on the table and switched it for the one with the photos of my mother. “Let’s not hang around. I dumped the other photos out in my car, and that guy by the door figured it out.”

Candice looked as if her eyes were going to pop from their sockets. “Then we’re all dead.”

Puppa jumped up. “Leave now, Patricia. Drive straight home.”

“I can’t just leave you guys. I’m sorry. I thought I was being clever. I’ll go back out and get the photos.”

Candice started toward the emergency exit. “Too late. Leave through the rear. Let’s go!”

She and Puppa bailed toward the back door, as energetic as a pair of oldsters could be. A chair tangled my legs on the way out, bruising my shin.

Outside, darkness blinded me. I stumbled away from the building.

“Get home, Patricia,” my grandfather shouted from the blackness.

I clutched my box of prized photos and sprinted around the back corner of the bar toward my vehicle. In a fog of slow motion, I threaded through parked cars under the glaring spotlight. Just ahead was the Explorer. I fumbled with my keys, hitting buttons at random on the remote. The car alarm sounded, the blaring honk honk honk marking me like an audio target.

I clawed for the door handle.

Disengage security. Insert key. Turn ignition. I talked myself through the process, calming my mind but not my nerves. I threw the car in reverse. The Explorer bucked as I shifted gears and shot onto the main road.

“Get me home, get me home, get me home,” I uttered my desperate plea.

A truck pulled out of the parking lot behind me and hovered on my tail, its brights blinding in my mirrors. I squinted against the glare, accelerating to see if the vehicle would ease off. It stayed glued to my tail.

I pressed the gas to put some distance between us. I couldn’t shake it.

“Back off!” My voice came out in a ragged scream.

I hung a right at the crossroads and picked up speed as I went downhill. The road made tight curves, then straightened out again. I swerved like a racecar driver on drugs, spilling into the opposite lane, overcompensating and hitting the dirt on the shoulder. I jerked back onto the pavement. Tears ran down my face as I hurled through the darkness, two circles of light my only guides.

What had I told myself just before going to bed earlier? That I would accept any circumstances God sent my way? This wasn’t what I had in mind.

Suddenly, the truck behind me connected with my rear bumper. I jerked at the blow.

“Lunatic!”

The guardrail fenced my right side. Headlights came at me up the hill, confining me to my own lane.

Then in front of me, like a scene from a nightmare, loomed Mead Quarry. My headlamps stretched across the big nothingness to the wall of rock on the opposite side, bathing it in creepy half-light. My tormenter pulled into the lane next to me, his pickup crashing into the side of my SUV, thrusting me toward the guardrail.

A scream ripped my throat. I fought to keep the wheel straight, but the sheer force of the strike jolted me into the rail. The screech of grinding metal made my heart spasm.

“God help me!” I squeezed my eyes closed.

I felt the pressure leave my side of the vehicle. I snapped my eyes open to realize the truck had pulled behind me, apparently so he wouldn’t get creamed by an oncoming car. I steered back onto the road.

The oncoming headlights passed by.

The truck made another slam into my rear.

I pitched forward against the steering wheel.

“Are you crazy?!”

I jerked the wheel and crossed the yellow line to the opposite lane, now empty. A steep bluff fenced me in. On my right, the pickup pulled even with me. Then, from around the next bend, more headlights appeared, rushing toward us. I gripped the wheel, moving onto what little shoulder there was, and slammed on the brakes. The oncoming vehicle wavered toward the middle of the road, apparently confused by the double set of lights. With nowhere to turn, my pursuer veered away at the last moment, smashing with a sickening squeal through the guardrail. With uncontrollable jittering, I ground to a halt and watched in horror as taillights arced silently to the bottom of the quarry. Then came the stomach-turning crunch of metal on stone.

I hugged the steering wheel.

It could have been me. I could be dead in Mead Quarry right now.

My racing heart gradually slowed. After a minute, I stepped into the stillness and crossed the road toward the breach in the guardrail. The occupants of the other vehicle had beaten me to the edge of the quarry.

A man and woman leaned into each other, lit by the rays of an early summer moon. The man spoke into a cell phone, giving directions to the scene of the accident.

“I’m s-so sorry.” I stumbled toward the couple, my vision blurring as tears threatened. “A-are you okay?”

“We are”—the man pointed into the quarry—“but they weren’t so lucky.”

I recognized that voice.

“Brad?”

The man turned. “Tish? Are you alright? What were you trying to do? You could have been killed.”

Brad held me up as I grabbed onto him, sobbing on his shoulder.

“They tried to kill me. Just like my mother.”

“Shh.” He kissed the top of my head. “It’s going to be okay.”

Samantha scooted over and wrapped us in an embrace.

I leaned into the two of them. “What are you guys doing here? How did you know where to find me?”

I felt Brad’s rumbly voice against my ear. “Your grandfather phoned me after he brought Candice the wrong box. Wanted me to get a hold of the right one and deliver it.” Fingers smoothed my hair. “But I guess Candice insisted on calling you next. Said it would be quicker. He tried to stop her, but she pulled a gun on him.” A kiss to my temple. “In the meantime, I’d driven up to the lodge to intercept you, but you were already gone.” Brad gave a quiet chuckle. “I made Sam come along for the rescue.”

Sam gave a deep sigh. “We almost killed you instead. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

Brad’s serious demeanor returned. “Anyway, your grandfather snuck in a call to Joel from the men’s room a little later. Warned him to be on the lookout for Majestic’s cronies coming to do some intercepting of their own. So Joel headed up to the lodge. Called me on his way.” Brad peered into the quarry at the dimming taillights. “Looks like Joel won’t have anything to worry about now.”

My stomach reeled as I processed all the information. “If Candice has a gun, what’s going to happen to my grandfather?”

Brad aimed my body toward his vehicle and helped me get walking. “Joel seems to think she’s harmless with a gun. Says the only thing she can shoot is a camera.”

I shuddered, picturing the bullet wound dead center on Drake Belmont’s forehead.

“Your grandfather is a professional. He can handle her,” Brad was saying. “And Majestic’s crew too, if it comes to that.”

All I could do was pray for Puppa as Brad and Samantha settled me onto the rear bench seat of Brad’s SUV.

“The police should be here any minute,” Sam said. “Then we can get you back to the house.”

I reached for her arm. “Hey, I need the box from the front seat of my car. And all the pictures I put on the floor, okay?”

Samantha nodded. “We’ll take care of it, hon. It’s okay.”

“Okay.” I laid down across the seat and rested my head on the leather. Within moments I was asleep, safe from my waking nightmare.