by Rose, Kristi
Every day, awesome food trucks lined up around a small business park. Nearly anything could be found from a simple but delicious burger and fries to the fragrant curries of Indian fare. My goal was to work my way through each one. This month I was on truck three of six, Mexican food. I was excited to chow down on my tamales and fish tacos.
The weather was beautiful. The sun was out in full brightness, the temperature was perfect for a good hike or a run. Soon, we would climb into the nineties, and being outside would be pretty but sweltering. Carson had been dead almost two weeks, and I barely recognized my life.
I needed to get back to my routine. As I walked back to my car, I promised myself I’d get back to running tomorrow. Running wasn’t something I did because I got some weird high from the exercise. Running and any other form of cardio was something I did for life balance because come winter with its gray skies and endless rain also came seasonal depression. And as wonderful as doing nothing but lying on the couch eating chips for days on end was, seasonal depression did not pay the bills or keep me in the lifestyle I was accustomed. I enjoyed hot water and flushing toilets. So I exercised to keep the doldrums away, and I did it year-round because stopping and restarting months later was so easy. Said no one ever.
Carson’s pack, hitched over one shoulder, kept slipping down and making food balancing difficult so I slipped it on over both shoulders. I was nearly to my car, not paying attention, my face in the fish taco bag, when I was jerked back off my feet and flung to the side. Bouncing off my car, I smashed my head against the window.
I crumbled in pain, clutching my hip and my head and trying to see past the blinding stars of agony that obscured my vision. I winced and glanced up at the presence looming over me. He cast a long menacing shadow, his face blocked because the sun was at his back.
He reached over me and lifted me up by the backpack. He grabbed me by the front of the shirt.
It was him, the guy who’d knocked me down at Lockett’s office, who sat outside Dad’s newspaper office, and broke into my house.
“Enough of this game,” he said and shook me like a rag doll, causing me to bite my tongue, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.
My teeth rattled and clanged against each other. I flailed my arms trying to make contact with something, anything, but came up with only air between my fingers.
My mind went blank, a sensation so weird it took me out of the moment, albeit briefly. I instantly came back to the present when he slapped me across the face with an open hand. A ringing erupted in my ears.
Something bad was going down, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“Oh, no,” I said, repeating it over and over again like a broken record. I wasn’t telling him no, just acknowledging the inevitable. This was not good.
“Do I have your attention?” he said, spittle going everywhere. Then he tossed me up against my jeep, against the door, the pack digging into my back. My head bounced off the sideview mirror and shattered it, shards of glass digging into my skin. I slid down to the sidewalk, my legs bending awkwardly.
He leaned in close, so close I could tell he’d had curry from the Indian street truck. His presence was all around me, larger than life.
“Oh, no,” I continued to say.
He whipped out a large knife, like one of those you’d see on the hunting channel. It was larger than my hand with jagged edges, but it likely didn’t strike fear in the hearts of wildlife like it did mine. The chances of wetting my pants was high. Tears were running down my face. I swiped at my eyes and came away with water and blood.
“You listen to me,” he said, inches from my face, the knife in my periphery. His features must have been carved from granite. A chiseled, unfriendly face with sharp cheekbones and thin lips. He was dark—dark hair, tanned skin. I gasped. He had two different colored eyes. One was brown, the other blue, like David Bowie, only this guy wasn’t anywhere near as cool as Bowie. Instead, this guy reminded me of one of those husky dogs with the two different colored eyes. A crazed husky who was about to rip off my face. Like a mad dog, worse than Cujo. He was foaming at the mouth, not so much from anger but from some sick pleasure he got from hurting me. I could see it in his twisted smile. I took this as an omen of impending awfulness.
He said, “You tell your dope-smoking friend to stop poking around. You get this one chance”—he touched the cool edge of the blade to my cheek—“but if you and the caffeine-addicted stoner don’t start minding your own business…” He slid the flat side of the blade down my cheek. “If you don’t learn to look away right now, there’s going to be big trouble for you. Heartbreaking trouble.” He pressed the blade into my cheek, the tip pushing into my skin. “You don’t want to know who Carson was. Why do you care so much about a liar and a thief? Or are you really that insecure and dumb? Maybe desperate?” His tactic was both physical and psychological, both equally powerful. They worked.
“Oh, no,” I repeated, stuck in my loop.
Then with a sudden jerk of my arm, he forced my face down toward the ground. One arm was tucked beneath me, the other behind me being held at an awkward angle and making any movement painful. He ripped at my backpack with a knife, the repeated sawing sound echoing in my head. Finally, the strap on the side of my pinned arm dropped away. He let go of my arm then shoved my head down once more so that it banged on the pavement, causing a second explosion of stars. Twice in one day was a record for me.
I flipped to my side, bringing my hands to my head. Mad Dog walked away, my backpack clutched in his hand, looking as small and insignificant as a rag doll.
I lay there for what felt like hours, staring in the direction Mad Dog had disappeared, waiting for him to come back. A random thought penetrated my brain.
How odd that no one else was on the street. Not a single person had walked by. I sat up and looked around in confusion. I’d parked a few blocks away from the food trucks because I hadn’t wanted to get stuck going around the one-way streets. From where I’d parked, I could easily access the interstate and head home. Where I’d parked was also in the opposite direction of where the offices were. Where the majority of people worked.
Stupid mistake.
With one hand pressed to my temple, I dug my phone out of my pocket. The screen had cracked from when I’d hit the car, but it still worked. Anger flushed through me and returned some of my senses. These people, whoever they were, had no right messing with me or my life like this. At this moment, I was so angry with Carson I could scream.
I found Leo’s contact and gave him a call.
“I’m on duty,” he said. His way of answering.
“Great, because I’d like to report a crime,” I said, surprised that my voice held together.
“What kind of crime?” he said as if he thought I was kidding.
“Assault,” I said and started to cry. “I just got my ass kicked by some big guy with two different colored eyes. He said I must be dumb or desperate. He was not nice.”
Leo’s voice softened but had the edge of a cop meaning business. “Where are you? Can you tell me what you see?”
“I went to the Vancouver food trucks. I’m looking at the old Tumwater bank, the one that closed when they opened the larger one closer to the water.” I tried to read the sign in the window, but my brain couldn’t process anything but the image next to the words. “I think it’s going to be a quilt shop. Sign says it’s coming soon. That’ll be nice. I like how artsy downtown Vancouver is getting. I wish Wind River would do the same.” I was babbling.
“Quilts are nice. Where are you? In your car or out?”
“Out, duh! He didn’t beat me up in my car, thankfully.” I gave a sharp laugh. “I hate getting blood out of leather.”
“You’re bleeding?” Leo’s voice dropped lower.
“Yep, and I lost my food. I was really looking forward to that fish taco.” Though the thought of eating made my stomach roil.
“I’ll take you to get tacos. Don’t worry abou
t that.” Leo paused and sucked in a breath. “Sam, is he still there? Tell me about your injury. Are you shot?”
“No, he’s gone. I waited, but he never came back. He had a knife, not a gun.” I leaned back against the car, feeling dizzy.
“Did he use the knife on you?” Through the phone, his sirens wailed.
“He cut the pack from me. So that plan worked. Yay,” I said weakly.
“Sweet mother of God,” Leo said. “Hang on a sec, Sam. I need to call in some help.”
The noise coming through his phone went silent. He must have put me on mute.
I started to hum. Not a tune, just a low humming sound that was in sync with the trembling of my body.
Leo came back on the line, “How ya doing, Sam?”
I hummed to let him know I was still there.
“Stay with me. Paramedics are on the way. They’ll get there before me. I’m ten minutes out.”
“Hmmm,” I said, my knees knocking together.
“You’re doing great, sweetheart. You’re super tough,” he said.
My teeth began to chatter. Leo kept chatting and encouraging me, but I couldn’t process anything he said, my mind stuck on a one-note hum, like a machine indicating someone had coded. A paramedic seemed to come from nowhere and squat before me. He held out his hand for my phone. I didn’t have the strength to give it to him but let it drop.
He gave the cracked screen a glance then filled Leo in as he took my pulse.
I closed my eyes but jerked them open when he commanded me to. The entire process was a blur. Next thing I knew, I’m sitting in the back of the ambulance with a Coke in my hand.
Leo stepped in my line of sight and stared down at me, his mouth a thin line of controlled fury. “Please tell me you got some of his DNA under your nails or something. I want to find this guy.”
I swallowed hard. “I didn’t do a single thing. He was going to hurt me, and I couldn’t stop him.” A fresh set of tears broke free.
Leo climbed in the rig and sat next to me. “What you’ve just experienced is normal. You aren’t trained to handle spontaneous stressful situations like an attack.”
“I couldn’t even think, Leo. I just kept saying ‘oh, no’ and even after he left, I just sat there waiting for him to come back and finish me off.”
“Goofy loop,” Leo said. “It’s not uncommon. Happens to rookie cops, too. We don’t expect these things to happen to us. Only certain people are trained to take themselves out of the situation so they can react. Don’t beat yourself up.”
I grunted with frustration. “I was so helpless. I hated every second of being his victim. Carson did this to me. He’s made me a victim twice now, and I hate him for it.” I buried my head in my hands.
Leo placed a strong hand in the middle of my back. “Maybe once you’ve recovered from this, you can take a self-defense class. Do you think you can identify him?”
“Yeah, I think so. He had two different colored eyes. One blue, one brown.”
“Heterochromia,” said the paramedic sitting behind me over my shoulder.
“Does that affect his strength, too?” I asked. “Because he was freakishly strong.”
“No, sorry,” said paramedic.
“I’m just freakishly weak I guess. Maybe a self-defense class would come in handy.” Getting beat up was not fun. Why people did it for a living was baffling. I told Leo about seeing this same guy at Lockett’s office and outside my dad’s newspaper.
Leo leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He looked badass in his uniform with the eagle tattoo that took up his whole forearm.
He said, “Now they have the pack, maybe this can be over.”
I stared at Leo, incredulous. This was nowhere near over.
He surveyed me, the muscle in his cheek working on overdrive. “Please tell me this is over. They have the pack. Not to negate what’s happened here, but the end goal has been achieved. I was hoping you’d just leave it at your house or car and let them break in to get it while you were out.”
“Hm,” I said. “That would have been a much better plan than me walking around with it.” Hindsight twenty/twenty. “I can’t walk away from this Leo. They threatened me.”
“All the more reason to walk away,” Leo pointed out.
“But how do I live with that? How do I not have the answer to these questions?”
He stared at me, long and hard. Probably trying some Native American mind control or something. Finally, he gave up with a heavy sigh. “Oh, no,” Leo groaned with a shake of his head.
I laughed. “That’s what I said.”
23
Tuesday
Leo dropped me off at Dad’s newspaper since my car was being processed as part of the crime scene. Though I’d adamantly proclaimed I was fine to go home, Leo seemed to think otherwise. The entire ride to Wind River, I sat in the cruiser, holding my broken phone and trying to sort out everything in my head. I had a palm-sized bandage on the right side of my temple where several shards of the mirror had cut me, coupled with small cuts along that side of my face. Bruises up and down both sides of my body were blossoming every few minutes, and my head throbbed so hard it could explode at any given moment.
“I need a new phone,” I said.
“Take it to Chucks,” Leo said. He’d grown silent after pumping me for information about the attack. I’d told my story so many times now I was sick of it. I was also aware of how many unanswered questions there were. Lots of black moments I couldn’t fill in. Mostly, those happened when the guy was whipping me around like an empty plastic bag on a windy day.
“Yeah, Chuck’s. Good idea.” Behind Chuck’s market was the used electronics store he ran. Get your Apple fixed while getting your apple fix. That was Dad’s favorite joke.
My stomach growled. “I need a burger,” I said. “And a shake.”
Leo drove through BurgerTown, a locally run chain, and hooked me up. I’d devoured everything and licked the lid of the shake before he pulled alongside the curb outside the newspaper.
“Samantha,” he said, facing me and leaving the cruiser to idle. “I don’t know who Carson was before he came into your life. I never really got to know him.” He shrugged. “Maybe he was running from someone. Maybe he was a con. Maybe a thousand different scenarios, but none of them are good, and you’re stuck in the middle.”
The burger churned in my stomach from his cautionary words. “I know.” The bandage at my temple tugged at my skin. “I also know I’ll never be able to put this behind me if I don’t know why he did this to me.”
“What if you never know?” He arched one brow.
He raised a question that had been niggling at the corners of my mind. The other version of this question was, what if I found the answers but didn’t like any of them?
I shook away the fear. “What do you want me to do? Hand them the routing number and dust off my hands?” I made like I was doing so. “Because I’ve seen enough TV to know that’s not how these things work.”
Leo crossed his arms. “This isn’t TV.”
I crossed mine, too. “Okay, I’ve seen enough true crime TV to know whoever Carson was running from isn’t going to shake my hand, say thanks, and wish me well. And deep down you know it, too. That’s why you put your number in my phone. That’s why you took me to the range.”
Briefly, he closed his eyes then groaned. “That’s why I’ll show you some self-defense moves when you’re feeling better. But I want you to keep that stun gun on you at all times. If you go outside, it’s in your hand. You understand?”
I nodded and beamed at him. “Thanks, Leo, you’re a pal.” I widened my eyes. “Whoever thought I’d say that to you?” I laughed and reached for the door handle.
He reached across me and pushed the door open. “Get out of my car.”
I laughed then followed it with a groan. I’d stiffened up on the ride home, and my muscles were screaming as I stretched them to get out of the car.
“Yeah,�
� Leo said before I closed the door. “I hope you like feeling like you do right now. Because if you think this was bad, try the alternative.”
“Which is what? Kicking their ass?” I joked, but secretly wished I could.
“Getting dead,” he said straight-faced. “I don’t want to work you up as a homicide.”
His words cut right to the heart and sent a bolt of fear up my spine. Not wanting him to see how successful his warning was, I rolled my eyes and said, “Cops, you guys are so dramatic.” Then slammed the door.
He gave a short BLURP of his siren that caused me to nearly jump out of my skin and sent my entire body screaming from the sudden movement. I caught his expression through the window, expecting him to be laughing, but he wasn’t. Instead, his dark eyes bore their cautionary message.
I nodded, taking his warning seriously. I was uneasy, and apprehension was a good thing. Undaunted meant dead.
I brushed at the gooseflesh running up and down my arms and steeled myself for what was about to come next. I wasn’t going to turn away from this situation. I would face it head-on, even though the consequences could be dire. The last two weeks had been effective in knocking me off balance, tipping me upside down. And those feelings of helplessness would eat me alive if I continued to let these outside forces dictate. Good or bad, I needed to grab and hold my own power, or this day and Carson’s lies would forever negatively impact my life.
I waved him off, and just as I was turning toward the paper’s office, I caught sight of Sean’s work truck parked in the center of Riverfront Park. He was working on the giant planters that surround the theater portion of the park. Finally, I was going to get face time with Sean.
I did an awkward shuffle-like-hobble as I made my way into the paper. Stella was at her usual helm, the front desk.
