Phish NET Stalkings

by Denise Robbins

  “I didn’t know, Mom. I didn’t know the man I went home with was a cop. It won’t happen again.”

  She would never knowingly, willingly, go home with a cop. She despised police, didn’t trust them, and hadn’t since the age of eight when her mother died. That blue wall protected their own and not the people they were sworn to protect and serve. As she bent to collect more joint compound on her knife, tears spilled out of her eyes and landed on her hand, tears she had considered long since dry.

  “What am I doing?” she asked herself, straightening up and swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand. She couldn’t change anything, couldn’t bring her mother back. She glided the wall mud across the seam, scraped the putty knife against a second knife then ran the blade along the mud path again in order to achieve a smooth finish. All she could do is move on. Isn’t that what she had done?

  Jane shut the tub of compound, flipped off the light to the room. She walked back out to the kitchen where she rinsed the putty knives then dried them so they wouldn’t rust and could be used another day. Leaving them on the counter, she killed the kitchen lights. As she made her way back to the entry, she picked up her purse and jacket, and carried them with her as she ascended the stairs to her bedroom.

  Yes, she had moved on. Not because she had wanted to, but because Granny Pearl hadn’t given her any choice in the matter. She grinned at the image of Granny Pearl standing in the doorway to her bedroom, her gray hair tied back in a tight knot on the top of her head, hands fisted on full hips sheathed in a floral, cotton housecoat, and her lips pursed in a don’t mess with me little girl pout. Granny’s words rang in her ears as she crossed the threshold to her room and tossed her coat and purse on the chaise lounge. She followed her belongings and plopped down on the cushion.

  “You listen to me CJ. You will, and I mean will, listen to what me and your mommy have told you since you were a Chiclet. No matter what happens in this life, you will stand on your own two feet, stiffen that skinny spine, lift that dimpled chin, and do whatever it takes to live and be happy. Do you hear me?”

  Jane unzipped and removed her boots. Leaning back on the chaise, she covered her eyes with a forearm. How could she have not heard Granny Pearl? The woman had only stood five feet from her when she began her lecture for the umpteenth time in a week. The week after her mother had died. Been killed. Murdered. From that day forward, Pearl, who was not really her grandmother, but the best friend of her mother, had been the only person who called her CJ. Now, she was Jane. Plain Jane. A wry grin crossed her lips as Jane thought Granny Pearl had a sick sense of humor.

  “Jane C. Smith. Could you have been any plainer than that, Granny?”

  Pushing her jacket up into a tight ball and shoving it under her head, Jane turned onto her side and snuggled in. “I suppose I could have made you Jane Doe,” Pearl had shot back at her. A groan escaped her lips. She would have hated that name even more.

  “You need to be plain, blend in. The simpler, the less you will standout, and the safer you will be.”

  Jane had rolled her eyes, the situation too much to comprehend at the time. When the police paid Granny Pearl a third visit, asking her questions about her mom and if she knew anything that could help in locating the person responsible for her death or the whereabouts of Cassandra’s daughter. While Granny lied to the police, Jane hid in a closet shivering, biting her lower lip, and kept as quiet as a church mouse. The next day, she and Granny Pearl packed up and moved from Granny’s two-bedroom apartment to a house in the sticks. That was when she grasped just how precarious her situation had been. Not just hers, but Granny Pearl’s as well. From that day forward until Granny’s death, she had been Jane C. Smith.

  Curled up on the chaise with her teddy bear tucked in her arms, she yawned. Before her eyelids drifted shut, the dream began.

  Sixteen years old, she walked home at dusk from her job the summer before she started college. As was her habit for nearly eight years, she approached the house from the rear off a side street next to the standalone garage that stood at the back of the property. From the sidewalk on the street one block behind, she checked the driveway for any strange cars. The coast was clear.

  Before her foot hit the back step, a deep, gruff voice stopped her in her tracks. “We’ve got the old lady.”

  Jane glanced around. She didn’t see a car, but Granny insisted bad guys didn’t make their efforts obvious, that they wouldn’t park in the driveway as if they were guests. They would park where no one would notice the vehicle. “Always look and listen before entering the house. Always,” Granny Pearl said.

  Her foot dropped noiselessly to the ground, she pivoted and inched her way to the small window beside the closed back door that looked into the kitchen. She crept close to the side of the house so as not to give herself away. Holding her breath, she peeked in the kitchen window. A tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in khakis and a black short-sleeved shirt stood ramrod straight with his back to the window and one hand on a hip while the other held a phone to his ear.

  “Where’s Granny?” Jane murmured. With her head low, she attempted to peer farther into the house, but didn’t see anyone except the hulking figure looming in front of the small oak kitchen table.

  The man turned. Jane gasped and jerked back pressing herself tight against the side of the house. Heart pounding, she shrank down below the windowsill and slapped a hand over her mouth. Had he seen her? Heard her? She squeezed her eyes shut, rested her head against the house and prayed the man had been too occupied with his phone call to have seen her.

  Who is he? Where is Granny Pearl? Is she okay? “Please, please let her be safe,” Jane urged.

  After a few minutes, when no one rushed out of the house after her, Jane pushed to her full height and snuck a look through the clear glass of the kitchen window a second time. A frisson of fear skittered up her spine and punched her between the shoulder blades. “Granny Pearl,” she breathed on a gush of air.

  A second, more beefy man shoved Granny into the kitchen. Jane winced as he shoved Pearl into the hard wooden chair. Granny spit on the mean looking man. The man twisted Granny’s wrist until she cried out then he slapped cuffs to the wrist and secured it to the chair. He did the same to the other arm.

  The sight of Granny Pearl tied to a chair, a purple bruise the size of a fist on her cheek, her lower lip cut and bleeding made Jane’s blood boil in anger and fear. Reflexively she curled her fingers into tight balls ready to pound either of the two men, whichever of the two men harmed her Granny, both of them. Pound them into the ground like moles in the Whack-A-Mole game at an arcade.

  Two men. Jane blinked as it registered. Two men held Pearl captive. Two, relatively young, beefy, men who had to be half Granny’s age. What did they want from her? There wasn’t any money in the house. There was nothing of real value to steal or hock. There wasn’t even a bottle of cold pills in the house, let alone any hard drugs that a junkie might be in search of. Not that the two goons looked like drug addicts. At least not that she could discern from her view of their backsides and profiles.

  Jane’s head whipped back. The shorter man backhanded Granny across the face. Her head whiplashed backward then forward. To her surprise, Granny smiled at the devil who hit her, a wicked gleam in her eyes. She bared her teeth much as an angry wolf would. Her teeth were no longer their shiny white, but a pale pink. He would pay for that, Jane promised. Granny spit the blood onto her glossy oak floor. As she lifted her head, her gaze shifted and Jane could have sworn her eyes fixed straight on her own. The slightest lift of Pearl’s swollen lip and the slow lowering of both eyelids in a kind of blink confirmed for Jane that Granny knew she was standing outside the window. What was she supposed to do?

  “Where’s the girl?” the asshole demanded while his partner continued to talk on the phone.

  Jane’s eyes widened as her heart tried to pummel its way out of her chest. This was about her. After all this time, someone still searched for her. Why? Eight
years had passed since her mother’s death. They couldn’t possibly think she knew anything. If she had—

  The man talking on the phone spun as the other man raised his fist. Her eyes rounded in shock. Hooked to the waistband of his khaki waistband was a badge. A gold, shiny, police badge.

  Panic constricted her chest, a vice-like grip squeezing the breath out of her. The edges of her vision started to blur before she swallowed the lump of terror and forced herself to breathe through her nose. Short, shallow inhales and exhales. When air flowed freely through her lungs again, she blinked and the wavy edges of her vision dissipated. The ground still felt spongy but she knew in another second or two it would harden and the world would have righted again beneath her feet.

  “A cop,” she whispered.

  The bigger man pivoted in her direction. Jane released her white-knuckled grip on the window frame and dropped to her knees. Loud, heavy footsteps pounded against the wooden floor. Oh, shit! Had he heard her? Holding her breath, Jane squatted, pressed herself against the siding and willed herself to become part of the house. Maybe he would—

  “What was that?” a deep voice shouted. “Take care of her while I check it out.”

  “Run!” Granny Pearl yelled from inside the house.

  That was Jane’s cue. She jolted up from her squatting position and, keeping her head low she ran, her backpack slapping against her back as she leapt over shrubs surrounding the perimeter of the house. A loud blast rang out behind her. Jane stiffened in mid-jump over a hedge, she stumbled, her arms wind milled in an attempt to keep her momentum. She fell to a sprawling heap to the ground flat on her face with a thud.

  She lay with her foot tangled in the bush, stars twinkling and dancing in her vision, the wind knocked out of her lungs. “Am I dead?” No. If she were dead, she wouldn’t be talking to herself. Come on. Get up! Get moving! Jane willed her body to move. She lifted her head and thought for certain it would explode.

  “Where’d she go?” one of the thugs hollered.

  Thank goodness Granny never managed to get around to having those motion sensor lights installed. The darkness was her advantage. She knew the yard, the property, every inch of it. Now to move. She had to get away. “Move Jane,” she murmured.

  Forcing the throbbing in her head aside, she shoved herself to her forearms and knees. When she planted her hands on the ground and pushed, sharp pain shot from her wrist to her shoulder to her head. She wanted to cry out in agony, but instead bit down on her lip and whimpered to herself. Get over it. Get up!

  With a will of steel, she thrust aside the pain, put the weight on her right arm and wrist, and heaved herself up to her feet. “Where to go?” Where would be safe? Jane squinted in the dark and glanced around.

  What about Granny? What about the shot she heard? Oh, no! Bile rose in the back of her throat and threatened to spill out. No time, she warned herself, clutching at her stomach. Run! Get the hell out of here and go find… Who? Who would she call? Who would provide help to her and to Granny? Was help even possible?

  It didn’t matter. Run, damn it! Jane followed her brain’s command and ran, her muscles feeling as if she trudged through mud. With her wrist tucked against her body, she sprinted for the back property, avoiding any spot where a light or a distant neighbor’s yard light illuminated her for anyone with a gun. She darted to an old maple tree that was old enough and big enough to hide her form. Carved into the bark were her initials and the first boy she ever kissed in second grade, John West. Leaning her body against the tree, she rested there, her lungs heaving as she sucked in air.

  Owls hooted, peepers peeped. Jane held her breath, tried to slow her heart and silent the loud pounding in her ears. She heard the dull sound of heavy feet pounding against the ground, long grass rustling beneath feet as someone thudded toward the end of the house. They hadn’t seen her. They didn’t know where she was. With a stealthiness she didn’t know she possessed, Jane picked her way past blueberry bushes, raspberry bushes, the stump from an old oak before she reached the single stall garage. “Please, please let the keys be in the car,” Jane implored into the night, her head leaning against the side of the structure.

  Hunching low, she eased the side door to the garage open. She tiptoed her way past power tools and lawn furniture until she reached the 1965 Chevelle Malibu Wagon. She bit down on her lip and hoped the door wouldn’t squeak and give away her location. Easing the driver’s side door open, she slid in behind the wheel and pulled the door shut with a silent snick. In the pitch black of the building and the night, she reached up to the ignition switch. Yes! She shouted in silent triumph. Forehead pressed against the steering wheel, her fingers gripping the key in the ignition, Jane prayed Granny Pearl was still alive, the car would start, and she could get help.

  As she wondered where to go for help, Granny’s words slid into her mind. “If something ever happens, Jane, you run like the fires of Hell are licking at your feet.”

  “Where?” she asked Granny just three weeks ago as they sat on the porch snapping beans.

  Had Granny known something?

  “Remember the small place my first husband left me? Go there. Don’t worry about me. You’ll be safe.”

  Jane nodded and snapped more beans, tossed them in the stainless steel bowl on Granny Pearl’s lap. She told Pearl she would not leave her behind. She had saved her once. She wouldn’t let her save her again.

  Granny reached down, took her chin in her older, arthritic hands, and forced Jane to look her in her pale blue eyes. “Listen to me child. You do this and you don’t look back. You go there. There’s a small safe under the floorboards in the back of the master bedroom closet.”

  Jane shivered then and now.

  “I understand your fear, but there are no monsters in the closet. There will never be monsters in the closet again.”

  Tears stung the back of Jane’s eyes as she turned the key and the V8 engine of the teal-colored Malibu Wagon roared to life. She gunned the engine, shifted the car into reverse, depressed the garage door switch with her thumb, and smashed her foot against the gas pedal. The behemoth jerked hard, slammed her chest against the steering wheel, then sailed backward out of the garage and onto the side street, mindless of small children, pets, or bad guys not smart enough to get out of the way.

  When the rear tires hit the curb and went airborne, she shot up and out of the seat as if in the drop zone on a roller coaster.

  “Shit!” Slamming her foot on the brake, her head made impact with a hard surface for the second time that night. Pain shot through her face and straight into her brain as her nose made contact with the leather wrapped steering wheel with a definite cracking sound. Tears stung her eyes as she squinted past the pain and into the dark street.

  Her heart jumped into her throat, blocking any possibility of air. Jane scratched at her throat. She couldn’t breathe. Beneath the yellow haze of the garage lamp stood a hulking figure. A pistol aimed directly at her.

  “No, no, no.”

  Jane swiped at her face, pushed tears aside. With slow, measured movements, she shifted the car into drive and grasped the steering wheel in a death grip. The man’s mouth moved. He’d yelled something, but she couldn’t hear him over the roar of the engine. Letting her foot up off the gas, she reached down, took hold of the window crank, and rolled the window a crack. And waited.

  “The old lady is dead!”

  The heart lodged in her throat dropped to her stomach, bottomed out and sent bile rising in a tide of anguish. Anger, white hot and explosive shoved back the urge to heave. When her gaze met the killer’s she no longer saw a man, she saw a monster.

  “The monster is out of the closet.”

  Her eyes locked on the killer, she flipped the high beams on, watched the man react by lifting his arm to shield his eyes. Ramming her foot against the gas pedal, mashing it to the floor, Jane let out a wailing scream of a banshee and jerked awake.

  EIGHT

  Cooper awoke with a bitch of
a headache. “That’s what you get for booking some numb nuts at one in the morning instead of being curled up in bed with a beautiful brunette.” Just the thought of Jane had his body reacting and made his short walk to the bathroom for ibuprofen uncomfortable. He had to adjust himself in the loose-fitting boxers. “At least they’re not pink ladies’ panties,” he mumbled as he popped three pills in his mouth and dry-swallowed the capsules.

  How could he have not realized he still wore the damn chick underwear before he went out? “Does that make me gay?” he wondered aloud as he relieved himself then gave a bark of laughter when he flushed the toilet and washed his hands.

  He shook his head. “Would a gay man do the things he did with Jane last night?” Not that it mattered considering Jane thought he was a fruitcake.

  “Great,” he muttered and turned the knob on the shower, letting the water heat up before he jumped in.

  “What a dumb ass,” he cursed himself when the hot spray hit him full in the face. He would never, ever, wear female clothing again. And he would not be so dumb as to place a bet on it. Once was enough. “Too much!”

  Up until the time of the pink reveal, Jane responded to his every touch. Sure, she had been a little klutzy, but that was a sign that she didn’t go home with every strange man in a bar. He grinned to himself thinking of that first kiss. He not only surprised himself, but he would bet by her reaction that she had never been so thoroughly kissed. The stunned look on her face and the slack-jawed speechlessness told him Jane had been just as staggered by that first lip-lock as he.