by Emmy Grace
“I’ll admit that you have been acting pretty strange. Swooning over Liam, getting nervous over a dead body, noticing someone’s shoes. Did you hit your head? Do you feel dizzy? Do you see spots?” She touches my forehead with the back of her hand.
“Hey, I have an idea.”
I yank the bag free from her protective grasp and drag it quickly and roughly down the walkway toward the curb. The look of pure horror on Regina’s face is enough to make me feel much better.
“If you weren’t my best friend, I’d—”
I interrupt her. “Regina, look!”
I drop down onto my belly in the sliver of grass that rests between the sidewalk and Regina’s car, and I peek around the bumper until I can see the flash of red that caught my attention.
Gavin’s Chevelle.
I can’t see who’s driving, but at this point I’m pretty sure I know. I just don’t want her to know I know.
I glance back to see that Regina is standing right where I left her, gawking in the direction of the car I’m watching. “Get down before she sees you,” I hiss.
She sort of squats down, balancing on the balls of her feet. “Like this?”
“Good Lord, you’re terrible at this. Never mind.”
I clamber up onto my knees and look through the passenger side window to watch the familiar Chevelle disappear down the dead-end street that runs perpendicular to Regina’s.
When it’s out of sight, I spring to my feet. “Get in!” I tell Regina as I fling myself across the hood of her car, Dukes of Hazard style. I make it halfway, but then my momentum stops, which causes me to roll right off the front and land on the asphalt with a muted thud.
I flounder for a second like a turtle on its back before I make my way to my feet and over to the driver’s side door. Regina is watching me over the roof, grinning. “You’re a menace. You know that, right?”
“Grab the shoes and get in before I run you over.”
“Like you’d ever do that,” she snorts as she throws the bag of shoes in the back seat and climbs in.
“Okay, fine. I wouldn’t, but I’m trying to get you to move your butt, woman. That’s what a threat is for.”
“Since when?”
I start the car. “Can we argue about this later? I’m in hot pursuit.”
She narrows her sparkling brown eyes on me. “If you wreck my car, I’ll skin you alive.”
I throw her own words back at her as I peel away from the curb. “Like you’d ever do that.”
“Okay, fine, but I will revoke any and all driving privileges for this car.”
“Deal!” I say, whipping around the corner, completely running a stop sign. “Put your seatbelt on. This could get rough.”
“Lucky…” she warns, but she pulls the strap across her body and snaps it into place anyway.
Now that she’s safe, I’m no longer thinking about Regina, but about the car that just went by.
“It has to be the killer, Regina. It has to be Crazy Eyes driving it.”
“There’s going to be more than one dead body involved in this case if you don’t slow down.”
From the corner of my eye, I can see her wrap both hands around the OH CRAP! handle and hold on tight.
I’m practically drooling in anticipation of confronting Gavin’s murderer. “I’m gonna catch her red-handed. Then I’m gonna march her right into the police station and tell Clive to book her. Just like in the movies.”
“I think this is what they call delusions of grandeur, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Oh, no. No delusions here. Just determination. Plain and simple. She killed Gavin. She tried to blame me. The gloves are coming off, sister.”
“My God, she thinks she’s Dirty Harry,” she mutters from the seat beside me.
I don’t argue.
That’s kind of who I feel like right now.
Dirty Harriet.
Fighter of Crime.
Seeker of Justice.
My phone rings and I fumble to get it out of my pocket as we race toward the end of the lane. “Hello?”
“I have some information for you.”
It’s Felonious.
“It’s not a great time. Can I call you back?”
“Car chase?”
My mouth drops open.
I don’t know how she would know such a thing. Maybe she’s psychic and just doesn’t want to tell anyone.
“How did you know?”
“Sounds like something dumb you’d be involved in.”
Snip snip.
“Too bad you aren’t in the car with us. I’d gladly abandon the chase to stop at a gas station and give you a swirly in the filthiest toilet I can find.”
“Ha!” she barks dryly. “You’d have to catch me first.”
“So, you’re fast, huh? That probably means you’re small. Maybe even ran track in school. Duly noted,” I tell her. I know it will bug her to think she accidentally let slip a clue about her actual identity. It’s the only way I can needle her, and sometimes I need to do that. It’s a moral imperative. It doesn’t matter that she’s a kid.
“I didn’t say th—” She stops herself, as if she suddenly realized that she was going to confirm my suspicion.
Too late, Felonious. You might be smart, but I’m no dummy.
Just then, the road curves right. Sharply. At the exact moment that it turns from pavement to gravel. I brake and jerk the wheel, but that only causes my tires to lose traction. We start to spin.
Regina screams.
I scream.
We’re both braced for impact.
We skid into the ditch and, within half a second, we are stopped. Only now, we are facing the way we came. We did a complete one-eighty.
In a few hours, that will be really cool, but right now…
The only sound in the cabin of the car is our heavy breathing.
“Holy crap,” I pant. My fingers are wound around the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles are white.
“As of today, we’re taking your car everywhere we go together.”
“The car is fine. I think.”
“It’ll be a miracle if it is. But another year with you and it’ll be looking like your Mustang.”
I gasp in offense. “Just what are you saying? Misty is still beautiful.”
“If a beat-up crack whore is beautiful, then sure. She’s still beautiful.”
I gasp more loudly. “Mean!”
“Come on,” she says, opening her door. “We’ll have to push out of this ditch.”
“No, we won’t. Just hang on.” I push the gas pedal to make sure the engine is still running, which it is, and then I put it into reverse and hit it again. I shift quickly into drive and do the same, then alternate back to reverse. Before long, we’re rocking back and forth. When I get some momentum going, I slam it into drive and punch the accelerator all the way to the floor. We lurch out of the ditch and slide sideways across the gravel road.
I pull the wheel right and we take off like a shot in the direction we were trying to go in the first place. Within two minutes, we reach the end of the road.
And it’s empty.
“What?” I screech, flinging up my hands. “Where did she go?”
“Crazy Eyes must have some crazy skills,” Regina mumbles acerbically.
I look around, baffled at her curious disappearance, and then I ease the car to one corner of the road. I shift into reverse to back up and turn around. It’s as I’m swinging the car around that I see it.
A hint of red.
12
I catch a glimpse of color through the trees, like the glint of sunshine in a mirror from miles and miles away.
I slam on the brakes, slinging Regina forward. She mutters something under her breath. It sounds like the word whiplash followed by something, something “dirty whore.”
“Sorry. I didn’t think I was going fast enough to do that.”
“What do you think you saw now?”
Clearly, one of us
is not as excited about this pursuit as the other.
“Look,” I tell her, pointing to a huge oak tree and beyond, to where several bushes and small trees have been flattened. There, nestled in a thicket, a few feet into the forest, is a red Chevelle.
I push the gearshift into park and jump out to go running into the woods. The way I fly between trees and leap over downed logs make me feel a little like Usain Bolt, so I’m pretty hyped up until I reach the car.
It’s empty, too.
Crazy Eyes got away.
“Dang it!” I say, slapping the door of the car. “She must own some running shoes as well as those goofy boots.”
Regina arrives a little bit after me. She’s winded. “What?”
“She got away.”
“B-but you found the car. Surely she left some DNA behind.”
DNA.
I jerk my hand back. “Oooo. Speaking of…”
I take the tail of my sweater and wipe the place where I smacked the car. No sense making it any easier for Gavin’s nutty fiancée to frame me.
“Maybe you should call Clive.”
“I will. Right after I have a look around inside.”
I pull my sleeve down over my fingers before I touch the door handle. Luckily, it’s unlocked.
“Ha!” I chirp.
“Ha what?”
“Ha, Crazy Eyes left in too much of a hurry to lock the doors, and all because I was giving chase.”
“Giving chase?” Regina asks dubiously.
I shrug. “It’s police slang.”
“So, you’re police now?”
“I didn’t say that,” I tell her as I start to duck into the car. Before I sit, I grin up at her. “But I didn’t not say that either.”
“You need your head examined.”
I ignore that as I look around in the interior of Gavin’s car. It’s much as I remember it. Still messy. Still smells like his cologne. The seat is even still pushed all the way back to accommodate his long legs. The only thing that’s changed that I can see right off is the chain hanging around the rearview mirror. A plain gold ring dangles from the end of it and there’s something inscribed on the inside.
I lean in to get a better look.
“What’s it say?” Regina asks from where she’s standing in the V of the open driver side door. “The ring to end all rings?”
“Lord of the Rings reference for the win! Good job,” I say, absently holding out my left fist for her to bump.
She bumps it, and from the corner of my eye, I can see her smiling proudly.
“What does it actually say?”
“Yours always. Sassy,” I read aloud.
“Sassy?”
I turn toward her, my nose wrinkled. “Could that be the fiancée’s name? Sassy?”
“Surely not. Who’d name their kid ‘Sassy’?”
“I guess it’s no worse than Lucky,” I confess.
“Good point.”
I swat at Regina with the back of my hand. “You weren’t supposed to agree with me.”
She shrugs. “Then you shouldn’t have made such a good point, Frodo.”
At that, I lean toward her. “I am not the Frodo of this group. I am the Aragorn, minimum.”
“No, you’re not. Liam is the Aragorn. You’re the Frodo and I’m the Samwise.”
“Do you even remember what Frodo was like?” I’m indignant. Over a fictional character.
“Yes, I do. And right now, you’re acting like a total Frodo.”
My mouth drops open, but I quickly snap it shut. “We will discuss this later. The mission is the priority. That’s what an Aragorn would say.”
I nod in satisfaction and get back to my search of the car. I reach over to open the glove compartment. There are a bunch of wrinkled fast food restaurant napkins, some paper-wrapped straws, a few months’ worth of insurance and registration cards, a woman’s bra (gross), and a lipstick smeared note wedged in on one side.
Carefully, I pull it out and leave the rest.
I read it aloud. “‘If you go to her, don’t ever come back.’”
“Oh, that sounds ominous. Who’s it from?”
“It isn’t signed, but I think it’s pretty safe to assume it came from Crazy Eyes.”
“Sounds like motive to me.”
“Sure does, doesn’t it?” I take my phone out and snap a picture of the note before returning it to where I found it. “It makes perfect sense, too. Jealous fiancée finds out Gavin’s stalking his ex-girlfriend. Fiancée follows Gavin. Fiancée confronts Gavin. The two take a drive, maybe up to a remote spot like the substation. Fiancée gets out. Gavin follows. Fiancée kills Gavin. Drags him to the car. Plants his body at my house. Hides car until she can get rid of it. Gets caught by brilliant amateur sleuth and her witty partner. Bing, bang, boom. Done.”
“Do you really think that woman would be strong enough to drag Gavin’s dead body to his car and stuff him inside?”
“Adrenaline,” I nod. “Makes people do nutty crap all the time. Haven’t you ever heard of, like, demon possessed people throwing pews at priests and stuff like that?”
“Yeah, but I think that has to do more with, oh I don’t know, Satan than adrenaline, don’t you think?”
“No one can say for sure. It’s not like anyone’s ever done studies on possessed people before.”
Regina’s expression is drawn into one of extreme distaste. “Let’s change the subject. This is gonna give me nightmares.”
“Come on then. Help me search the rest of the car before I call Clive then we can go. I have to pee really bad anyway.”
“Eeeeep,” Regina squeals, clapping her hands together. “New toilet! New toilet!”
I shake my head and get back to searching. I’ll never understand how anyone gets so excited over something as lame as a fancy toilet.
The rest of the car turns up a whole lotta nothing. The only place I can’t search is the trunk, and that’s because I can’t get it open.
I’m standing at the rear of the car when we hear the crunch of gravel back at the road. I see the flash of Clive’s official SUV fly by and come to a screeching halt, stirring up a bunch of dust as he pulls to a stop.
“You already called him?” Regina asks, puzzled.
“Nope.”
“Then what’s he doing here?”
“I hope that somehow either Felonious or Liam somehow knew and pointed him in this direction. Otherwise, this isn’t going to look very good for me.”
My palms start to sweat a little.
“I’ve never met someone who can manage to be in the wrong place at the wrong time more than you.”
“I thought I was lucky. I thought I was always in the right place at the right time.”
“Depends on how you look at it. Today…wrong for sure.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I tell her softly as we watch Clive pick his way through the forest like a very old, very wrinkled turtle trying to traverse unfriendly terrain.
I smile when he comes to a winded stop in front of me. “You’re just in time. I need into this trunk.”
I give the car a nod.
“No can do, lucky lady. Someone called in an anonymous tip that you were spotted up here ditching the victim’s car.”
“What?” I can’t keep the incredulous panic out of my voice.
He nods. “Yep. Might want to skedaddle before anyone else sees you.”
I narrow my eyes on him. “You know who called you, right?” He doesn’t answer. “The killer. The killer called after she dumped the car and tipped you off because she saw me coming. She knew I’d be caught, and it would look like I’m doing something a guilty person would do.”
I’m fuming.
I think steam might actually be coming out of my ears.
I’m furious with Crazy Eyes for trying to set me up, of course. I mean, who wouldn’t be? But I’m also furious with myself for walking right into a trap.
Clive reaches out and pats my arm in tha
t “you poor thing” way that old people do. “I know you didn’t do this, Lucky. The one thing this killer didn’t count on is that we’re like family ‘round here in Salty Springs. You’re one of us now. And we protect our own.”
That brings me a tremendous amount of reassurance, even though I realize that all Sassy McButthole (aka Crazy Eyes, aka Sassy the Fiancée) would have to do is convince another law enforcement agency to get involved and I’d be sunk. If Clive’s objectivity were officially questioned and it was believed that he was biased or incapable of overseeing this investigation, that’s all it would take to probably land me in jail. Because right now, the evidence against me is hefty. And mounting by the second.
Especially when I do dumb things, like walk right into traps.
I square my shoulders and jack up my chin. “You know what, Clive? I’m done handing this wench my head on a platter. From here on, it’s Covert Lucky on the case. No one will even know I’m around. Right, Regina?” I look over at my best friend. She nods like she’s agreeing, but I can see in her eyes she’s worried.
I shake that off, too.
I’ve been up against worse circumstances in my life and I’ve always come out on top. My nickname is Lucky for Pete’s sake. I’m destined to win, and I refuse, refuse to think of any other outcomes.
“At’a girl,” Clive coos.
“You’ll let me know what you find in the trunk?”
He nods. “You betcha.”
I nod back at him then grab Regina’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go get your shoes and take ‘em home.”
“I thought we were going to lure Crazy Eyes with them?”
“Not anymore. I’ve got a much better plan. And she’s no longer Crazy Eyes. Sassy McButthole is much more fitting.”
By the time we reach the car, Regina’s antennae are twitching perceptively. We climb in, me behind the wheel again, and we both strap in.
“Just remember that if we both get arrested, there won’t be anyone to post bail.”
I turn a half smile on her. “Is that your subtle way of warning me against getting you into trouble?”
“Was it subtle? I didn’t mean for it to be.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry. You won’t have to do one dangerous or illegal thing. I promise,” I tell her as I start the engine and start back toward her house.
