Pecked to Death

by Vanessa Gray Bartal

  “I don’t know, but I doubt it. We talked just a few short days before she died.”

  “Did she seem worried or afraid?”

  “No, she seemed angry, and justifiably so. If someone had stolen money from me, then I would be out for blood.”

  “Do you think someone stole money from her?” Sadie asked.

  “It’s possible. People prey on the elderly all the time, unfortunately. There are swindlers who specialize in it.”

  “But Abby wasn’t your typical old person. She was sharp as a tack,” Sadie said.

  “That she was. Maybe someone underestimated her, but it appears that, if it was true, then whoever it was got away with it because it’s too late now.”

  Sadie left the meeting depressed but no less confused. If someone stole Abby’s money and she found out about it, then that was the perfect motive for murder. But Doc Jones said Abby had died of natural causes in his sight. Something was wrong, and Sadie couldn’t figure out what it was. She set aside her worries as she adorned herself with feathers. The extreme heat had finally broken, and she was anxious to earn enough to pay for her car insurance. After today, she should have enough to do so, and then she would be safe for another month. Maybe she could earn enough with the chicken job to build up a cushion of savings for wherever she went next. She should have been smarter with her money before, but how could she have predicted that she would get fired for flashing the nation?

  Another line of cars was waiting to hear her cluck. By now the novelty should have worn off, and people should have found something better to do than watch a grown woman flap her arms and cluck like a chicken. But their town was small and far from the big city. Little things were big entertainment, and Sadie had been popular in high school. Lots of people either wanted to stop to say hello or see how the mighty had fallen. She was less enthusiastic about the clucking today. The visit home was beginning to take its toll. She simply wanted everything to be over so she could move on with her life and forget everything that had happened in Virginia.

  Toward the end of her shift, there were more cars instead of less, and Sadie wondered why. Usually people came at the beginning and slowly tapered away. Now the line was building, and so was the feeling of anxiety in Sadie’s stomach. As she caught sight of some of the tags at the end of the line, she began to notice that many were from out of state.

  “A buck, buck, buck for a cluck, cluck, cluck,” she sang to a minivan full of petulant children. But she was distracted by one oddly-shaped van at the end of the line.

  “That wasn’t as funny as last time. Make her do it again,” a child from the back row commanded.

  “He’s right,” the woman behind the wheel said. “That was half-hearted at best. Could you do it again?”

  Sadie looked at her and recognized someone she had gone to school with, a nerdy girl who had a not-so-secret crush on Luke. Cars behind her began to honk. “One cluck per buck, Jenny,” she said. “Move along.”

  “We paid for a good cluck and didn’t get it,” Jenny argued. “I plan to talk with your manager about this.”

  “That sounds like a quality use of your time,” Sadie said. Jenny’s son picked up a plastic sword and began jabbing his mother in the back of the head. “Nice family. Motherhood suits you. I am filled to the brim with jealousy. Move along, please.” She tapped the side of the car and made a shooing motion. Jenny drove off in a huff, her kid screaming bloody murder. As the next car moved up, Sadie had a better view of the oddly-shaped van, and the air rushed out of her lungs. It was a news van and, worse, as she watched, someone got out and began removing a camera. “Uh-oh,” Sadie murmured.

  “Can I have my cluck?” an old man asked. He shoved a dollar out the window, his arthritic hands shaking.

  “Cluck, cluck, cluck,” Sadie said, still staring at the van.

  “You didn’t take your dollar,” the man said. He waved the dollar between them.

  “This one is on the house,” Sadie said. She shooed him away and began searching for an escape. The news guy had his tripod set up. “Please, please, please, no,” Sadie murmured. Just then another car pulled up, cutting off the old man so there was almost a collision.

  The passenger door opened, and Luke stuck his head out. “Hop in,” he said.

  “What time is it?” Sadie asked.

  “Time for a rescue?” he said.

  “No, seriously, what time is it? I can’t leave until four, or my pay is docked.”

  “It’s one minute after four,” he said.

  That was all Sadie needed to hear. She made a run for it, skidded across the hood, and jumped inside the car. “Go,” she said.

  He began to ease away. She grabbed his thigh and squeezed. “Maybe you misunderstood. When I said ‘go,’ I meant go fast.”

  “I’m not going to speed or get us killed,” Luke said.

  She pointed a feathered finger at the line of cars and trucks now following them. “How do the words ‘Local Man Saves Disgraced Chicken’ sound to you? Because unless you get us away from them, your picture is about to be splashed all over the place with mine.”

  Her little pep talk worked, and Luke put the pedal to the metal. The news crews did the same, and soon they were in an honest-to-goodness pursuit. Their county was rural and hilly, and Sadie began to feel like they were filming an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard as she called out turns for Luke to take in an effort to throw off their pursuers. Their maneuvers began to pay off as one after another of the reporters lost heart and gave up the chase. After about a half an hour, only one car remained.

  “This one must be from around here because he’s keeping up,” Sadie said as she eyed the car in her rearview mirror.

  “Any more brilliant ideas? We’ve covered most of the county by now,” Luke said.

  They were getting close to their neighborhood. “Let’s just go home and barricade ourselves in Aunt Abby’s house. Your house,” she amended. “I’ll call the police if the guy doesn’t give up.”

  “Sounds good,” Luke said, and then the back window exploded. “Is he shooting at us?”

  Another shot rang off, and this time there was no mistaking the man’s intent as the passenger-side mirror flew off. “Duck,” Sadie said.

  “I can’t see where I’m going if I duck,” Luke said. “He’s going to kill us.”

  “Pull over,” Sadie said.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No, I know where we are. Just trust me and pull over.”

  He veered to the side of the road and shoved the car into park as Sadie fumbled with both their seatbelts. “Come on,” she said as soon as she had them undone. Luke hopped out of the car and they used it as a shield as she pulled off her chicken head and shoved it over his face.

  “What are you doing?” he asked. The sound was muffled because she had put the head on backwards, but it didn’t matter.

  “Don’t let go of me,” she warned.

  “What? I’m not…” he said, and then she leapt on him, wrapping her arms and legs around him as she pressed her face against the smelly feathers of the chicken neck. They toppled to the ground and started to roll down a steep ravine, bouncing hard over large rocks and small trees. Sadie tried to absorb the impact of the blows with the padded chicken suit, but Luke was taller than she was, and his head stuck out. That was why she had given him the chicken head. He grunted and groaned as his head made contact with the hard ground, but she knew from experience that the costume was well-padded and would keep him from injury. She, on the other hand, was having a hard time keeping her head pressed against the suit. Centrifugal force and gravity wanted to tear her away from Luke. He must have realized because he put his hand up and pressed her protectively closer.

  At last they reached the bottom of the ravine. They lay for a few seconds, stunned and breathing hard, and then another shot rang out. They jumped up, but Sadie couldn’t run into the woods wearing the thick, cumbersome suit. “Unzip me,” she commanded.

  Luke ripped
off the chicken head and unzipped her, grasping her hand when she wobbled. At last she shook free of the suit, and then they were running into the dense forest. Sadie couldn’t be sure, but she thought she caught sight of the blurry form of their attacker picking his way down the ravine.

  “Where are we going?” Luke asked. He was panting; he had never been a runner.

  “Gideon’s deer stand,” Sadie said. She was barefoot, wearing only a skimpy pair of shorts and a sports bra, but there was no time to think about that now. They had to get to safety, and she was thankful that she knew exactly where they were since she had helped Gideon build his stand. The thought occurred to her that it had been a lifetime ago, and it might not still be there, but at last they reached the appropriate tree, and she saw the sketch of the camouflaged stand. It was well hidden by the leaves, and no one who didn’t know about it would be able to find it.

  “What are you doing?” Luke asked when she began herding him up the stand. She didn’t answer. She simply kept shoving until he popped the hatch and clambered through the hole. There was one small stool-like chair. He sat. Sadie scrambled through the opening, closed the hatch, and plopped in his lap.

  Chapter 16

  Sadie Cooper had a six pack. She was petite and curvaceous. For some reason Luke thought that meant she would be soft and sort of doughy. He tried not to picture her at all, but she kept shooting messages to his brain with announcements about her state of undress. Now he was confronted with the reality because she was wearing some sort of bra, a tiny pair of shorts, and nothing else. True, women in bikinis were less covered, but they usually weren’t sitting in his lap. Sadie was, and for the last twenty minutes, he had been sitting on his hands, staring studiously at a spot in the far corner while they sat in silence, listening for the crunch of leaves and twigs.

  “What are you staring at?” Sadie whispered. In order to make herself heard, she had twisted toward him, arching up to reach his ear.

  A bead of sweat gathered on Luke’s temple and rolled down his face. “Spider.” He was glad he was whispering. Otherwise his voice would have cracked.

  “What kind?”

  Since there was no spider, he had to think fast. He said the first thing that popped into his mind. “Orb-weaving death angel.”

  “Hmm, I don’t see it.”

  “You’re not a scientist.”

  “You are, obviously, because you have a scantily-clad woman in your lap, and you’re studying arachnids.”

  “Science demands dedication,” he whispered.

  “Uh, huh. Do you by chance remember who bought you your first spider identification guide and then listened as you read it cover to cover to cover to cover?”

  “You,” he said.

  “Right, so I know that there is no orb-weaving death angel.”

  “My mistake.”

  “What are you so afraid of, Luke? You have a girlfriend, so I assume you’re not frightened of women in general. I’ve sat on you hundreds of times. What gives?”

  Yes, she had sat on him hundreds of times, preferring to use his body as a pillow whenever the need arose, but then they had been kids. Then there hadn’t been the potent chemistry between them unless—what if she didn’t feel it? What if it was only one sided? The scientist in him did take over then because he was curious. Did Sadie feel the attraction bouncing between them, or was it only him and his imagination? He put up a hand to swipe at the sweat now covering most of his face, and let it rest on her back when he was finished. She sucked in a breath and sat up straighter, and he smiled. There, not just one-sided, then.

  “I think I have a cut,” she whispered. She twisted so he could see the large gash beneath his hand.

  So much for her undying attraction to him. “Let me see,” he said. He leaned over and inspected the cut. It was jagged but not deep, as if she had been snagged by a briar. “Doesn’t look too bad. We’ll clean it with some antibiotic stuff when we get home. I don’t even think it will need a bandage.” He sat back, but Sadie remained frozen.

  “You smell good,” she whispered.

  Zing! Just like that, the chemistry was back and bubbling between them again. “So do you,” he said, his tone rueful.

  “Why do you sound mad about it?”

  “Because you spent four hours in a chicken suit that smells like mushrooms, and yet you come out smelling like gardenias and honeysuckle. And you’re beautiful. Why did you have to grow up beautiful, Sadie? Was it to torture me?”

  “You think I’m beautiful?” she whispered, her delph-blue eyes luminous, even in the darkness of the hideout.

  “You know you are,” he said.

  “Well, yes, but it’s still nice to hear it once in a while. You’ve certainly never said it.”

  “Of course I have.”

  “Not to me. Do you know the last time you commented to me on my looks? It was when we were thirteen and I wore makeup near you for the first time. You said I looked like a clown.”

  “You did. You never needed that junk.”

  “I had just come home from a pageant. You had to wear makeup at pageants.”

  “I hated the pageants,” he said. His tone was petulant and full of the old bitterness.

  “Really? If only you had made your opinion known,” she said, heavy on the sarcasm.

  “They were beneath you.”

  “They helped me pay for college, and they made my mom happy,” she said.

  “They made you someone you’re not,” he said.

  “They made me confident,” she argued.

  “They took you away from me,” he hissed.

  She had no answer for that, at least not for a while. “Why would you care? You don’t like me,” she said at last. “You think I’m shallow, selfish, brainless, and a heartless man-eating user.” She dropped her head and stared at her hands.

  “Sadie, that’s not true,” Luke said.

  “I took those words from you; they’re direct quotes.”

  “Okay, I said them, but try to see it from my perspective. I had this amazing best friend who was the most fun, special, and wonderful person on the planet. She could make me laugh at anything, and she had a tender heart as big as the moon. And then one day she was gone, replaced by some girl who made out with football players under the bleachers and cared more about mascara than she did about anything else, including me.”

  “I’m still the person I was; that’s what you never understood, and what hurt the most. A woman can care that her nail polish coordinates with her lip gloss and still have a workable brain and functioning heart. I can be both a gawky tomboy and a cheerleader.”

  “I don’t want the cheerleader; I just want the tomboy.”

  “Then you don’t want me because you can’t pick and choose the traits and flaws that you want your friends to have. I can accept that you would rather dig for tourmaline than go to a new release on a Friday night. Why can’t you accept that I care what Vogue has to say about next season’s shoes?”

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly. He had never realized that he was trying to pigeonhole Sadie into the person he thought she should be instead of accepting who she was. Was it possible that she was still the same girl he knew and someone new, too? And was it possible that he could like the person she was instead of resenting the loss of who she had been? Now was probably a good time to talk about what else had passed between them, but he couldn’t bring it up when they were finally getting along and having a real conversation.

  She rested her head on his chest before drawing a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “I’m so tired, Luke.”

  He resettled his hands on her waist, being careful not to touch the scratch. “Adrenaline takes a lot out of you.”

  Sadie didn’t bother to correct him. It wasn’t just that she was physically exhausted, though she was, but she was emotionally drained from keeping a stiff upper lip and happy smile all the time. Now that Abby was gone, she had no soft place to fall, no system of support.

 
Absently, his thumb traced over her stomach, outlining the ridges in her abdomen. He didn’t realize what he was doing until Sadie sucked in a breath and clutched his shirt, and then awareness came, along with bubbling, broiling tension. She eased away from his touch and looked up at him, her hand now resting on his shoulder. She was trying to give him an out, but to Luke it felt like she was weaving a spell, casting a net and reeling him in. The tiny part of him that was still rational screamed at him to stop, but he ignored it.

  Sadie eased farther away. “This seems like a bad idea.”

  “The worst,” he agreed, but he didn’t stop advancing.

  “You have a girlfriend,” she reminded him.

  “Duly noted.” His face reached hers, and she moved her palm from his shoulder to his cheek.