“Pay it yourself,” said Nappi.
“What? I did this as a favor. The place cost me a lot of money.”
“That’s what friends do. Pay it. You don’t see me handing a bill to her for my evening, do you?”
I could see Jerry wanted to argue, and I was ready to foot his bill, but if I paid for his dinner, I would feel guilty not paying for Nappi’s too. Sure, they were friends, but they had gone out of their way for me. I owed them.
“I …” I began.
“Shut up, Eve,” said Nappi. And that was that.
I’d find some way of returning the favor. Nappi especially seemed to always have my back.
“Let’s go home,” said Sammy. “Grandy will want to know all about the evening.”
“She and Max went around the lake to Clewiston to eat dinner at that catfish place. I doubt they’ll be back until late. And I’m just beat. It’s been a long day.”
“Are you okay to drive yourself home, Eve?” asked Sammy.
“Sure. You can follow me back.”
When I pulled into my drive, Sammy pulled his truck in behind me.
“I’ll walk you to the door. It appears Grandy and Max aren’t home yet because their car isn’t here.”
I knew Sammy wanted to come in, but I also knew I was so tired I probably wouldn’t be able to get to my bedroom before I fell asleep. He took me in his arms and kissed me gently on the lips. What began as a sweet kiss soon erupted into something more passionate. I broke free of his embrace.
“Every time I’m near you my hormones kind of take over,” I said.
“I’m just a roll in the hay for you, is that it?”
I knew he wasn’t serious from the twinkle in his eyes.
“Well, I think you’d have to do most of the rolling tonight. A passionate romp sounds good now, but by the time we reached my bedroom, I’d be asleep.”
“Okay, then how about right here, on your front lawn?”
“Sammy!”
“I’m kidding. You get some sleep, and we’ll paddle out to our favorite place tomorrow if you’re free.”
We hugged again, avoiding a kiss, which we knew would plunge us into trouble. I watched Sammy as he walked to his truck, backed out the driveway, and waved goodbye. I entered the house, leaving the porch light on for Grandy and Max.
Tossing my purse on the couch, I slipped off my shoes and walked across my living room carpet past the front window. I watched Sammy’s taillights as he drove off. Yawning, I opened the door to my bedroom. That’s when the smell hit me.
Chapter 11
Smoke. Heavy, stale, like a burned-out campfire.
I moved out of the doorway and back into the hall. Someone was in the house. I knew it. I stopped and listened, but I heard nothing except my own heart racing in my chest until the compressor in the refrigerator kicked in. Wherever the intruder was, he or she had to have seen the lights of my car and Sammy’s truck. Wouldn’t the person be eager to get out of here to avoid discovery? Unless my unwanted visitor had something else in mind. I tried not to let my imagination provide unpleasant scenarios. I sniffed again. The smell seemed less pronounced. Maybe they had left. Better not to take chances.
I retreated down the hallway toward the living room. I’d turned on the ceiling light when I came in the door, but turned it back off at the switch on the wall by the hallway leading to the bedroom. I flipped the light back on and sighed with relief. No one was in the living room, and I could see across the way into the kitchen. The door to the garage was closed, but was it locked? Had my unwelcome visitor left by that exit and was now hiding in my garage? Or maybe in the bathroom or my guest room? Perhaps they’d gone out through the back door. I glanced at my purse on the couch. Get the hell out of the house, Eve, and call the cops. I moved toward the couch and reached for my purse to get my cellphone on my way out. The overhead light went out. Before I could retrieve my purse and retreat to the door, a hand encircled my throat in a steel grip. I tried to pull it away, but the hold tightened, and I thought I might pass out. I stumbled backward, reaching for the door knob. Another hand grabbed my arm.
“Quiet or you’re dead.” It was a man’s voice I thought I’d heard before, but he hadn’t spoken enough words for me to identify it. I tried to pull back, but he brought both his hands to my throat and tightened them. The pressure around my eyes mounted. I could no longer see the shadowy objects in the room. A red cast like blood flooded my vision.
“What do you want?” I managed to squeak out. He said nothing, but pressed his thumbs into my throat and rammed his body against mine, moving me out of the living room and into the hallway.
If I’d left my stiletto heels on, I might have been able to stomp on his instep and do some damage. They were, miraculously, still in my hand, but I was too weak to take any kind of a swing at him. My shoes had never failed me before. They’d always proven to be an effective weapon. Now they just seemed like silly shoes worn by a woman too vain to consider sturdier footwear.
He relinquished his chokehold and shoved me toward my bedroom. “Get the door,” he said.
I did as ordered, and then lurched toward the wall to the right of the door, hoping I could use my hand to turn on the light. Maybe if I could identify him he’d think twice about doing anything. Or maybe he’d kill me if I saw his face. He caught my move toward the switch, pushed me away from the wall, and threw me onto the bed. I tried to roll away, but he was on me too fast. He was strong. I slapped at his face with my hands then tried to gouge out his eyes. He hit me across the mouth. I felt something warm trickle down my chin. Blood. My blood.
He grabbed my head and held it still. “I got a message for you. Stay out of that hit-and-run. It’s none of your business, ya nosy bitch.” He released my head and delivered another blow to the side of my face.
I tried to cover my head with my arms. I’d dropped one of my shoes when he shoved me into the bedroom, but absurdly I’d held on to the other. Eve and her damn shoes. What was wrong with me? I should toss it on the floor, so I could use both hands to defend myself. Or should I? I still had a move, if I could pull it off, if I had the resolve to do it. My head hurt, but I knew if he punched me again I would be too weak to fight anymore. I didn’t much care for what I was thinking, but I had no choice. As his arm came back to deliver yet another blow to my head, I moved the heel of my shoe upward and shoved it into his eye.
The shoe connected with the side of his nose then slid into his eye socket, not as hard as I’d intended but enough to inflict a lot of pain.
“Bitch!” he yelled and fell off the bed. It was dark enough in the room that I couldn’t tell if he was writhing around on the floor or had gotten up and was about to jump on me again. He was moaning and swearing. “I’ll get you good now.” I felt him throw himself onto the bed, but I rolled to one side and onto the floor. At that moment, I knew I was lost. I hadn’t wounded him seriously enough. He was hurting. And he was furious. Now he was more than a messenger. Now he was going to inflict more damage. Now he was a killer.
Suddenly the room lit up with the lights of a car shining into my bedroom window. My attacker turned toward the window, and I caught a brief glimpse of a bloodied face, one hand covering the side where my heel had done its damage, but I couldn’t identify him before the headlights swung away from the window. He turned and ran out of my bedroom. I heard the back door open and close, and then silence. He was gone.
“We’re home.” It was Grandy.
I curled up in a fetal position and let out a sob. Then everything went black.
“Eve, honey. Can you hear me?” Sammy’s voice came to me from a long distance as if he was on the other side of the dense fog that enveloped me. I struggled to move, to find my way out, to go to him, but my legs would not obey my brain’s instructions. The fog turned black and wiped out the sense of a world beyond me, then moved inward to take away any awareness of myself. This must be what it is like to die was my last thought before I whirled downward into a
vortex of nothingness.
There was someone standing over me, but I couldn’t see them clearly. I blinked my eyes, and the image came into focus. A woman. Someone I didn’t recognize.
“Who are you?” I asked. My voice came out in a raspy whisper.
“My name’s Susan. I’m a nurse. You’ve been hurt and in a coma for several days. There are some people here who’d like to see you if you’re up to speaking with them.”
I blinked again and saw Grandy and Max standing at the foot of my bed.
“Oh, Grandy,” I said, choking back tears. “I hurt all over. What happened to me?”
“Someone attacked you, but you’re going to be fine now. You need rest. We’ll be back later.”
“Where’s Sammy?” I asked.
“I’m right here.” He stepped forward and took my hand.
“He’s been here since you were admitted,” said the nurse. “We couldn’t get rid of him.”
“Sammy,” I whispered and reached up to touch his face. It was wet. “Is it raining outside?” I asked.
“No,” Sammy replied in a choked voice. My Sammy was crying.
“Don’t be sad. I’m going to be fine.” I wanted to reassure him further, to say I’d be back to my old self in a few days, but I was too tired to get the words out, and the medication I’d been given must have taken me off to the fog, which settled on me once more. And I was wrong about being back to the usual Eve. That would take some time and a change in my life to accomplish.
I was still in the hospital. They had weaned me off the heavier pain meds, but now I had trouble sleeping. I was twitchy, jittery. Maybe it’s a drug reaction, I thought. I jumped at the slightest noise, and I worried someone would come into my room at night and finish the job the intruder had begun at my house. I was torn between wanting to go home and not wanting to stay in the bedroom where the attacker had almost killed me. It wasn’t only fear for myself. I fretted about the safety of my friends and my family, and felt anxious when they were out of my sight. I wanted them near me to protect them and for them to protect me. This was no way to live, but I couldn’t seem to pull myself out of it. The old sassy up-for-an-adventure Eve was gone, and I didn’t know how to get her back.
Frida came to interview me the evening of the day I woke up. While describing the details of my attack brought back much of the horror, I felt a sense of hopefulness as I tried to detail what I knew of my attacker.
“I know he was shorter than I, slight of build, but muscular. And there was a smell about him that made me think of smoke.”
“Cigarette smoke?” asked Frida.
“Maybe some of that, but stronger. As if he’d lived for years in a place where people smoked and his clothes were permeated with the smell of it.”
“You said his voice was familiar?”
“I think he was disguising it, and he didn’t say much—only threats and the message about the hit-and-run—but I’ve heard that voice before. I just can’t think of where.”
“That’s good then,” said Frida.
“How can that be good, if I can’t place the voice?”
“If he disguised it, it meant he didn’t intend to kill you.”
“Maybe not to begin with, but once I stabbed him with heel of my shoe, he went ballistic. The guy should have a really black eye and a sour attitude toward footwear, if you run across anyone fitting that description.”
Frida laughed. “I guess the old Eve is back. That’s great.”
No, I was not really my old self. As soon as Frida left, I got out of bed and went to the door. There was no way to lock it, but I shivered as if a cold wind was blowing down the hallway and into my room.
The nurse found me later on the floor of the bathroom, shaking and crying. No. The old Eve was gone. I wondered if she was gone for good.
The next morning a woman dressed in a charcoal pantsuit tapped on the door frame. “May I come in?”
“That depends. Who are you?”
“My name is Dr. Alice Halsey. I’m a psychologist on staff here. I understand you could use my services.”
“Can you help me get control of my life again?” I asked.
“Well, maybe the two of us can work on that together.”
I was skeptical, but when I perused her from her cap of short brown curls down to her shoes, I decided to give it a try. She was wearing stiletto heels, after all.
We talked for an hour, and she agreed that I shouldn’t go back to my house just yet. She suggested I stay with Sammy and Grandfather Egret, in a house so far removed in structure and amenities from my own that I couldn’t mistake it for the place where I was attacked.
“Will I ever be able to go back?” I asked.
“Of course, but these things take time, Eve. You must be patient.”
“Patience is something I’ve never had much of.”
“So I guess that’s a part of you that hasn’t changed.” She made it sound as if that was a good thing.
“I don’t seem to be able to be alone,” I said to Sammy and Grandfather as I settled into the small bedroom that was Sammy’s at the house by the airboat business.
“You’ll have Grandfather here when I’m working at David’s ranch or piloting folks on airboat rides,” Sammy said. “And Grandfather is taking care of Walter’s three boys several afternoons a week.”
“Children? I don’t know. I’m not really good with children.” Well, I didn’t know if I was good with them or not, did I? I’d never been around any, except for briefly holding Madeleine’s twins, and I wasn’t good at that.
“Let’s give it a try, and if it’s too much, you can accompany me to David’s ranch while I work there.”
Sammy had been so accommodating, giving me his single bed and sleeping on the couch, that I couldn’t say no. Three little boys? Well, some days I’d be back in the shop, so perhaps an afternoon or two of them would be bearable. Grandfather carefully explained that it was part of Miccosukee and Seminole matrilineal heritage that, if children lost their father, their mother’s brother would take responsibility for them. Walter’s boys had no mother, and she had had no brother, so Grandfather and Sammy had stepped in to help with their care. I understood family responsibilities. Grandy has taken care of me when my parents died. I certainly would make no fuss about the boys being here.
Madeleine and David had visited me in the hospital, and Madeleine arranged to pick me up and take me out to lunch the day I moved into the Egrets’ place. I’d meet the three boys later in the afternoon.
“So … any preference as to where we eat?” asked Madeleine when I got in the car.
“Any place other than the Biscuit. I don’t want to run into anyone I know.”
Madeleine’s soft lips drooped with concern gave me a concerned look. “Your face doesn’t look that bad, you know.”
“That’s not it. I just … I don’t know. I’m not ready to explain anything to friends yet.”
“They know an intruder broke into your house. Your friends won’t expect any explanations. They’ll just want to know how you’re doing.”
“Not well. Not yet.”
A shot rang out behind us. I jumped and grabbed for Madeleine’s arm. Sweat poured down my face. “Get down!” I yelled.
“Eve, it’s okay. It was a car backfiring.”
I relaxed a bit. “That’s how I’m doing. Oh, Madeleine, what’s happening to me?”
“What does Dr. Halsey say?”
“She says this will take time. But I feel like my life is so out of control now.”
Madeleine pulled over to the side of the road. “Don’t push yourself so hard. You’re your own worst enemy, thinking you should be able to simply slough off this attack like it was nothing. That guy tried to kill you.”
“And I couldn’t do a thing to save myself.”
“I heard you did some damage by plunging your heel into his eyeball. That’s a lot.”
I gave a bitter laugh. “It only made him madder. So stupid to think I cou
ld take care of myself ….”
“You’ve always taken care of yourself, even when others wanted to help. Could you just let us help you now? A little? Please?” Madeleine leaned across the seat and put her arms around me. “Please forgive yourself for not being able to kill someone.”
She was right. I knew I was being too hard on myself, but I wanted the old in-your-face Eve back again. Maybe Alex was wrong about my becoming a PI. I might have the curiosity and the intelligence necessary for the job, but did I have the right attitude? It wasn’t only that I felt I couldn’t fight well enough. I also worried that from now on my first impulse would be to flee any encounter with personal violence. Who would hire a PI who bolted in the face of danger?
We ate at a new little café in town, a place too upscale for all my cowboy buddies, but I did see some of our clients there. As Madeleine predicted, they asked after my welfare and told me to get well soon.
I looked at my watch.
“Got an appointment?” asked Madeleine.
“Not until later. Dr. Halsey and I set up appointments three times a week. I feel like some kind of emotional cripple. I never thought I’d need a therapist. But I like her, and I trust her. I was wondering if we could drop by the shop. I haven’t been there since—”
“Great idea. I told Grandy and Shelley I’d be there after lunch anyway.”
“You’re working afternoons, according to Grandy. Are you certain you want to take that on right now?”
Madeleine waved at the waitress for our bill. “It’s good for me. Gets me away from talking only baby talk and gives David the chance to do daddy stuff. He likes it. His ex-wife didn’t let him get too involved in raising his daughter, so he’s excited to be a hands-on parent. And I bring the babies in some afternoons.”
“You got yourself a good man there,” I said.
Madeleine smiled. “And two wonderful babies, even if they do keep me up most of the night. That’s the issue with twins. They take turns crying.”
Old Bones Never Die Page 11
