by Misty Simon
His foot stomped on the gas while I put another phone call in to Jared, and when I couldn’t reach him I tried the police station. I was patched through to Debbie’s voicemail and was leaving a very brief message about seeing Heather when we screeched to a halt in front of Bella’s car.
I took in the scene between one breath and the next, though it will obviously take longer for me to describe it.
Her car was tilted into a ditch on the side of the road, one of her tires deflated and sagging. But she was nowhere to be seen, and there were no other cars on the road at all. Which left me with several questions: Where was Bella? Where was Heather? And where the hell was Ben going as he ran hell bent for leather through the dying grass?
The first questions would have to go unanswered right now as I chased after Ben. Seriously, I was getting more exercise in this last hour than I had in the last six months.
Panting and huffing, I came to a rest with my hands on my knees a few feet from where Ben had come to an abrupt halt. I sucked and blew for a couple of seconds, hoping my heart wasn’t about to pop out of my mouth.
Ben seemed fixed on a spot in the thick woods directly in front of us.
I tried to peer between the trees to see what it was that had him so transfixed. But I didn’t see anything. I opened my mouth to ask what he was looking at, but he shooshed me with a soft sound and his finger on his lips.
Alrighty then.
He crept closer and closer to the woods. I felt like it should have been dark and stormy, with a full moon covered in clouds. Instead it was merely gray, since dark storm clouds had come rolling in from nowhere, which made major chills run up my spine. Thank goodness I had stopped to grab the flashlight in the glove compartment. Once we were swallowed up by the thick trees, it was even darker. It wasn’t until just now that I realized the only sound out here was the crunch of the dying grass under our feet. There should have been birds chirping, the wind blowing, and little animals scurrying to get out of our way as we tramped closer. But nothing. Nothing at all.
It was as if the whole world had died. And I was scaring the bejesus out of myself. But I still hadn’t heard anything except our running feet and huffing breath.
“Where the hell could she be?” I gasped as a side sticker made me nearly stumble.
Ben, heaven love him, stopped and trotted back to me. He helped me back to a full standing position by lifting beneath my elbow. All I wanted to do was lean on him, but we had to find Bella.
And then we did. I heard a mewling sound off to the left, inside the heavily wooded forest, and found a last burst of energy to get over to that all-too-familiar sound. I’d heard it when we had both drunk too much and just wanted to lop our heads off to do away with the hangover.
This one sounded a little more pain-filled, though. I was almost afraid to find her after hearing it.
Without another thought, I waded into the underbrush to valiantly save my friend.
And came face to ass with Officer Jared minus his pants and everything else that should be covering his body.
Now before you think this was all some kind of hoax or something, let me explain that Bella and Jared weren’t having wild, torrid sex out in the wilderness. No, this was much worse.
Ben came up behind me, gasping at the way Jared was tied to a tree with his stomach flat against the trunk of the large oak. That had to hurt.
I waved Ben over to help him while I went deeper, still following the sound of Bella’s pain. I found her, but she was in no better shape than Jared, although at least she was partially clothed. Thank goodness for me and for her. I quickly skirted around the trees, then knelt at her bound feet. Her eyes were closed and her mouth slightly opened. At least I knew she was still alive and breathing by the noises she was making.
Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Ben had made quick work on the ties binding Jared, and had settled him on the ground with Ben’s jacket over his shoulders.
I refocused on Bella in time to see her eyes blink open. She started struggling immediately, panic blossoming in her eyes.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I said, moving toward her with my hand out.
She cringed back away from me, her eyes rolling back. Then she fainted. Which might have actually been a blessing for her.
The first call I made was to the police station down the road. I quickly explained what kind of situation we had on our hands as I cut Bella’s ropes with Ben’s pocketknife.
“And bring some clothes for Jared,” I told Debbie right before she hung up without saying goodbye.
Crouching down, I gently tapped Bella’s flushed cheeks. I didn’t want to slap her, but I wanted her to wake up so I could find out what the hell had happened to them. My little brain was thinking that it had to have been more than one person doing the dirty deeds here. How could one person have been able to take out both Bella and Jared without some assistance?
And that made me think of not messing up the crime scene. It might have been too late at this point, but I promised myself I would be as careful as I could.
“Bella, can you hear me?”
Her eyelids fluttered.
“Bella, honey, I need you to wake up.”
Her head jerked to the side, and she moaned.
I sincerely hoped she wasn’t going to throw up. I didn’t do well with vomit, but I would help her if I absolutely had to.
She coughed instead, then jack-knifed into a sitting position.
She almost took out my nose with the move, but I was very happy to see her alert. I hugged her to me, I was so thankful.
She returned my hug for a second, then scrambled over to Jared to coo and fuss over him.
Ben backed away from Jared to give Bella room and came to my side. “What do you think happened?” I asked as we heard wailing sirens coming down the road.
“I have no idea, but I sure hope they can tell us.” He nodded to the two people on the ground cuddled together. Bella had Jared’s head in her lap and was stroking his brown hair. A tear leaked out of her eye as the sirens grew louder. We had maybe five minutes to get the story firsthand before the police descended on us.
“Bella.”
She snarled at me like a lioness.
I took a step back but steeled my spine. I had to know. “What in the hell happened?” And why did I have such a bad feeling in my stomach when she lifted tear-drenched eyes and sucked in a harsh breath?
Chapter Sixteen
“You had to find that bitch Heather,” Bella said low in her throat, so low I almost didn’t hear her, but Ben did, loud and clear.
“Heather? What does Heather have to do with this?” He crouched down by Bella, resting a hand on Jared’s arm to steady himself.
Jared stiffened, and Ben backed off. But then Jared opened his eyes and gave a weak smile. “It’s okay, man. I think I got a scratch there, though. I think I got a whole lot of scratches, actually, and a few of them feel like they are in completely uncomfortable places.”
Now it was Ben’s turn to give a weak smile. “Ivy, why don’t you run to the car and get a pair of pants out of the trunk? Maybe Jared would feel better.”
I gave him the eye. “You go get the pants. I’m staying to hear the story, and I’ll relay it to you when you get back.” Not only did I want it firsthand, I also did not run if I didn’t absolutely have to. That wasn’t news, or it shouldn’t have been to Ben.
He tried to give me the eye back, but I wasn’t leaving.
He huffed out a sigh. “Fine, I’ll be right back.” With that, he jogged away, and I returned my attention to Bella and Jared.
“Tell me quick.”
“I’m not sure how exactly it all happened. It’s a muddle in my mind,” she said, still looking at Jared.
I made a “go-on” motion with my hands.
She must have seen it because she hurried up. “We were talking outside my car, and Jared leaned to get a kiss from me. I’d gotten out after you left.”
“Okay.”
>
“Then a loud bang broke up the making out.” She petted Jared, who looked up at her adoringly. I have to say here that I was trying very hard not to look down his length. I will also say, though, that it was obvious why Bella was such a very happy and horny person. Lordy, lordy!
But back to what Bella was saying.
“A car had hit Jared’s car, and it came within feet of hitting the rear end of my car.”
And yet there was no squad car out there now. Where on earth had it gone? And how had they or she or he moved it?
More and more it was looking like it had to have been at least two people.
“When we looked over to see what had happened, one person jumped out of the driver’s seat, and another jumped from the passenger’s side, and then another out of the back seat. Jared tried to shove me behind him, since all of the people had blood-red masks on. But I recognized the T-shirt Heather had on—no one else would wear something that said ‘slut-o-licious.’ ”
I suppressed a giggle. That was not funny at all.
Bella blew out a breath that ruffled her bangs as Ben came chugging back with a pair of black sweatpants. I was pretty sure they might have been mine, but I didn’t think Jared was going to care if they kept him warm against the chill biting the air on this cold October afternoon.
Jared stood up and put the pants on, then held his head in his hands. “Oh.” It was only one word, but held a wealth of pain.
“One of the other people hit Jared in the head with something heavy. He dropped to my feet a moment before Heather punched me in the face and I blacked out.”
Holy cow!
“Holy cow!” Ben said. That was only one of the reasons I loved him.
The sounds of screeching tires came through the trees, and I shooed Ben out to the edge of the forest to direct the police in.
“What can we do now?” I asked, though I already had an idea brewing in the back of my brain.
“Right now, Jared and I are going to go home and change, get warmed up, and then we’re going to go after that bitch with a vengeance.”
Not quite what I had in mind, but I could see where the clothes thing would be important, especially for Jared. Poor guy was looking a little blue around the lips, even though Bella was chafing his arms. It didn’t look like it was doing much for him.
“And where exactly do you think you’re going to find Heather, when we haven’t been able to find her yet?” It was a legitimate question.
Bella stared me down like I had asked her to cut off her own arm with a dull spoon. “I’ll find her, and then she’s mine.” She snarled the words as Debbie stepped into our area.
“Who are we finding, and what are you going to do when she’s yours?” Debbie asked with her hands on her hips.
I shook my head at Bella, trying to make as little movement as possible while still conveying my message. Apparently she didn’t get my hint.
“I’m going to find Heather. And when I find her, I’m going to strip her naked and stake her out in the cold so a bear can come and eat her dirty heart.”
Wow. I knew not to get on Bella’s bad side, but this was more fierce than I had seen her ever before. Yikes.
Debbie just laughed. “You might have to get in line.”
“What?” I said but got ignored.
Debbie took out her notepad. “Now tell me what happened. Ben explained a little of it, but I need to take both of your statements, and then we’ll be looking into it. Not you, Bella. And not you, Ivy. Me.” With that she turned away and started looking around.
Jared put a restraining hand on Bella’s arm. She got his slight shake of the head this time, but didn’t look as if she liked his directive.
At least she listened this time, though. Thank goodness.
“I’m going to take Jared home,” Bella said in a very fair imitation of her usual voice. If you weren’t paying attention, it would be easy to miss the tension vibrating in her tone. But Debbie apparently wasn’t paying attention as she jotted down what they told her of the incident.
“Yeah, I’ll call you when I need more from the two of you.” Debbie stalked around the small area, poking at things with the tip of her pen.
I barely resisted rolling my eyes. Especially when I had thought she was the smart one, smarter than Jameson at least. Unfortunately, she wasn’t proving to be savvy at the moment.
Her wandering wasn’t doing anything for the crime scene, either, if this was indeed the crime scene. Shouldn’t she also have someone out looking for Jared’s car?
I asked that very question, but didn’t get much respect with the answer.
“What, Ivy, you think I’m stupid? I was going to tell Dale to go do that now. I do know what I’m doing, I’ll have you know.” And then she turned away from me.
It certainly didn’t look to me like she knew what she was doing. But then, who was I? Only the person who had solved the other recent crimes in the area. And probably the one who would solve this one, too. Yay, me.
Since Bella’s car was unharmed other than the flat tire, which Ben fixed in a jiffy, she was able to take it home. She drove herself and Jared to their house across town, while I went to my own house with Ben in tow to do some investigating.
What I really needed to do, besides have wild monkey sex with Ben, was check in with everyone to see how things were progressing. Monkey sex would be nice first, though, because Ben was totally hot when he was in detective mode like he had been this afternoon. And how awesome was it, too, when a man actually listened to you and didn’t argue with you when you asked him to do something just on principle? But I digress. I needed progress reports. I thought I had given Mark enough time, too, for him to figure out what he wanted to say to me about his brother. I thought I could even maybe finesse out his whereabouts the other night, so we could check him off the list as a suspect.
I made a list of phone calls and checked it twice, knowing there was a potential with several of the people to get stuck on the phone for the next little while. I shuffled a few things around and began.
1. “Hey, Dad, howzit?”
“Fine, fine, I have nothing to report, though. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but my spidey senses are tingling.”
Jeez. I hung up quickly with that one. I did not and will never want to know about his spidey senses.
2. “Hey, Mr. Winnet.”
“I’ve got nothing just yet, Ivy, but I am still working diligently on putting some information together. You know I can only tell you so much, but I didn’t realize what a mess this all was.”
Sigh.
3. “Charlie.”
“Ivy, honey, what in the world is going on around here? Debbie called me a little while ago and was having a conniption, and I’m stacked to my balls with customers.”
Yeah, I didn’t need that visual, either.
“I’ll be there soon. Hold down the fort for me for a little longer, and I promise to explain everything when I get there.” I didn’t really know anything, so that was an empty promise, but I wanted to get him off the phone to make my other calls.
“Hurry!” he said, and in the background I heard Mr. Hanks ask if there were any blue ones he could try on.
Oy!
4. “Don’t bother me right now.”
I didn’t even get to say hello to Bella.
“All I want to know is if Jared is okay. That’s it.”
“Yes, he’ll be fine. But I’m warming him up right now, if you know what I mean.” She snickered, and I heard a low mumbling behind her.
“Okay, got to go.” And I hung up on her, because, Ew!
And finally…
5. “Jerry! Hey, big guy. Things working out okay? Anything new?” I obviously hadn’t received anything new in all my phone calls, so I was at a loss where to go from here.
“I have had it with the incompetence of these proceedings.”
Uh-oh. That didn’t sound encouraging.
“I finally arrive back into my beloved kitch
en, and I’m told the imbeciles were only able to find a charred portion of my recipes. Charred! Portion!”
“Oh! No!”
“Do not mock me, my lush pear.”
“I’m not mocking—”
“Yes, you are, and I will not tolerate it. Do you ever want to have my extremely divine Alfredo sauce again?”
That stopped me in my tracks. I choked back a sob. “But surely you have all that in your head. Can’t you recreate them? Can’t you just whip them up? I mean, you don’t rely solely on the recipe book, right?” I thought I might hyperventilate at any moment.
“Oh, calm yourself,” he scoffed.
“I…I…I…” Can’t breathe!
“Fine, fine! Yes, yes, I have catalogued in my head all the recipes I use most frequently, but I had creations in there that I had planned on experimenting with. It is really inconvenient to have to go back online and download them and print them again. You have no idea how much time it takes.”
“You almost gave me a heart attack! Never do that again!”
That got a little laugh out of him, but I was on the verge of finding him and throttling him.
“So not funny.”
“So much a brightener of my day. I’m going to whip up a chocolate chip cheesecake for you. I’ll bring it by the shop in about an hour, my dumpling.”
I couldn’t fight the smile as it broke out on my face. “Better make it two, and hurry, because we’ll be closing in about an hour and a half.” Maybe sooner, if I could swing it.
This time I was the one who hung up as Ben’s name popped up on my cell phone. My ear hurt from the receiver being glued to my ear, but I couldn’t ignore my honey-bunny-buggy-bear.
Ick. I didn’t like that one either.
“Hey,” I answered, but was a little distracted by a car zooming by outside my front window. Who the hell was driving so fast? The speed limit on my street was a whopping twenty-five miles per hour, not Mach 1.
“Have you checked in with Bella?”
“Hmmm.” Another car went whizzing by the front of the house and barely missed clipping my car parked at the curb.
“Ivy?”
