I didn’t have anyone now. I shook my head, hard. All I had was me. Come on, Michele. Broken cars aren’t the end of the world. They get fixed. Call the dealership and have them fix it.
The number was in my contacts, and I pressed call. After a few transfers, service picked up.
“Yallow.”
I told the man about the Jetta’s many problems.
His laugh was a loud har har har. “Sounds like you need an exorcism, darlin.’”
My sense of humor wasn’t great, but some of my mother’s lessons took, so I used honey instead of vinegar. “I don’t suppose you offer those?”
“I ain’t a priest.” He har harred again. “Bring it on in, honey.”
“It won’t start.”
“Does your insurance cover a tow?”
“If they won’t, I will. Can you arrange for one to pick me up? I’m on the side of the road. No Yellow Pages.”
We worked out the details, and I moved into the shade of a treed front yard to wait. My next call was to my insurance company. Yes on the tow. And a rental car, if I wanted it. If? Ha.
***
Two hours later, I turned onto my street in a sage green Toyota Camry rental. As I pulled close to my house, an old white Taurus passed it slowly in my direction. Jesús Cristo. Had I spooked Stephanie out of her lair? I craned forward.
“God in heaven, it’s her,” I breathed.
No bumper stickers. The car looked just like the one I remembered from the month before, then the week before. Only it wasn’t Stephanie. It was Rhonda Dale.
I pounded the steering wheel over and over and sped up the street to turn around in a neighbor’s driveway. “Now who’s following who, bitch?” I shouted.
The woman who had made our lives a living hell, who scared my husband by showing up everywhere he went in the last few days of his life, was casing our house. At the first traffic light, I pulled up behind her and snapped a picture of her license plate. I rolled on behind her, invisible in my green Camry and sunglasses. She cruised just below the speed limit along Brays Bayou, where I would have been running at that moment if not for my knee.
Vindication was burbling through my rage. “Take that, Detective Young!” I knew I should go to the police. They could question her. They could take my statement and process my complaint and give me my restraining order. It’s what Adrian would want, and it might get Young and Marchetti to look harder at her.
When I thought about it, though—Nickels’ inexperience, Young’s resistance, and Marchetti’s diffidence, and pictured the pity on Young’s face as he poo-poo’ed my suspicions—anger crashed in waves inside me.
I would do this myself.
Rhonda stopped for gas at the Chevron Detective Young told me about, went through their Burger King drive-through, then headed west on 610 and north on 288. Traffic was horrible, and I struggled to stay within a car’s length behind her. She took the MacGregor exit west, a right on Almeda, a left on Hermann. When she parallel-parked next to some yuppie apartments, I lifted my eyes and my pointer finger toward heaven. “Muchas gracias.”
Then I shook my head and smiled a little, because my papa did the same thing three or four times a day.
I parked behind her and jumped out, triumphant.
Rhonda was wearing her usual hot pink, this time a spandex workout top and black yoga pants. She walked toward an entrance to some interior hallways, and I ran to catch up with her.
“Excuse me.” She turned around. “Are you the slut who was driving by my house half an hour ago?”
She stumbled backwards and whimpered.
I moved closer. “Rhonda, you’re busted. I know you’ve been following my son and me, and before that, Adrian. I’m taking everything I know to the police.”
Her forehead smashed in on itself and she answered in a high, strained voice. “What? No! I mean, yes, I drove by your house today. I shouldn’t have, but—Scarlett told me you found out she was behind the story about Adrian, and I just, I don’t know. I just drove by. But I haven’t been following you—or your kid.”
“You can explain it all to Detective Young when he calls.”
I didn’t wait for her answer, just got in the car and drove away.
Chapter Twenty-three
The next morning, Precious anticipated my four a.m. alarm and walked on my face five minutes early.
“You’re too damn smart,” I muttered, shoving her off. I lay in the dark, knowing I wouldn’t go back to sleep, that it was a miracle I’d slept at all. I had left three messages for Detective Young. When he didn’t call back, I tried Marchetti and Nickels. Voice mail for both. I knew Sam was safe with my parents, but, still, I wanted a little backup.
No dice. I was, as usual, completely alone.
The last few days had crushed my tension meter like a stinkbug under a boot heel. I needed a pounding run and the presence of my husband. If only I could lace up my shoes and fly across the trails. Aqua jogging didn’t give me quite the same high, and the thought of pedaling in my living room in the dark wasn’t doing it for me, either. I’d missed a workout that week and had to ride twice as long to make up for it. Rhonda Dale be damned, I had to fly.
***
Thirty minutes later, with La Mariposa loaded on the bike rack, I was on my way northwest out of Houston to Waller. I couldn’t get the miles I needed in the city. I had given the police everything I had on Rhonda in my messages, and I could be at the station by ten a.m. if I hurried. I’d brought Adrian’s Old Spice sports wipes and a change of clothes, so I might even have time to stop for a few dozen doughnuts and a gallon of Starbucks on the way.
“I’m coming, my love,” I said to Adrian.
My heartbeat quickened as I exited Highway 290 at Fields Store Road and saw that my timing was perfect. Fog hugs the ground any time the morning temperature out in the Waller area dips below 90 degrees, and it doesn’t roll away until after sunrise. Flying down the highway through the dark fog with Adrian, feeling the wind through my helmet and moisture on my face and glasses, was just what I needed. I parked the Camry, zipped up my yellow reflector vest over my sleeveless white bike shirt and shorts, and prepped my bicycle. Sweat dripped off my forehead. August in Waller, even before first light, is like my un-air-conditioned middle-school gym after boys’ PE. I drank a bottle of 5-Hour Energy from the stash in my console, then clicked the key fob to lock the rented Camry—such luxury. I pushed off at five thirty, just as I’d hoped.
“Adrian?”
No response, but I’d barely started, so I didn’t let it bother me. I had tried to summon him countless times in the last few weeks, but he never came to me on demand, or any time other than when I trained. He would show up when he was ready. I stood in the pedals and coasted. My bicycle seat had absorbed half a bayou of water and it took some getting used to.
“I quit my job, Adrian. Brian let Scarlett get out of control. She really hurt me and the kids. And Rhonda is even worse.”
Nothing from Adrian. In all the times he’d appeared to me while I was training over the past month, we’d never talked about his accident, or the stories in the paper, or anything else except us. It just never came up, never felt right, so I’d avoided the missing money. I hadn’t told him about Annabelle leaving. I just enjoyed him when I had the chance. Maybe we could talk about what happened, what was happening, though, just this once? I could at least try.
“I think she’s the one who hit you and has been following Sam. Maybe sometime when you’re ready, you can tell me what happened. Somehow.” I swallowed, hard. “Adrian, I know she’s lying. I don’t understand about the money, but maybe I don’t have to. I’m trying to believe that.”
La Mariposa flew through the fog as if through clouds, a brilliant flame breaking through with the sunrise. The air rushed beneath me, around me, above me, and my heart soared—with joy that I could protect my son. With hope.
“There’s my Butterfly.” Adrian’s voice came from far, far away. The tips of his fingers touc
hed my nose. “You are the most loved, the most beautiful woman in the world. You know that, don’t you?” And then he did the thing I loved the most, slipping his arms around me from behind and staying there, just holding onto me.
“I do. And you are the most gorgeous, most loved man ever. You know that, too, right?”
But he didn’t answer. I don’t know if he heard me. Did he hear me enough when he was alive? Had I made sure he really knew how much I loved him, what he had done for me? I regretted every second of discord, every grumpy moment. I wished I’d given him nothing but happiness every chance I had. That I had complained less, criticized less, lost my temper less. I streaked through the fog with tears in the corners of my eyes.
The ride passed quickly. The mist started to lift. I checked my Garmin. Eight thirty. I would be back at my car by eight forty-five as planned. I didn’t want to be, though. I didn’t want to let this warmth go, to let the feeling of Adrian’s arms around me end. I had so little of him. I didn’t want to stop.
As I came around a downhill right-hand curve that cut through thick forest, a car careened straight toward me on the wrong side of the road. For a split second, I thought I was dreaming it. I blinked.
The car was really there.
I could veer to the right, like last time. Only we were about to cross Little Fall Creek and a low concrete wall blocked my way.
Adrian’s breath puffed hot against my neck. “You can’t ditch to the right, and you can’t let yourself go under. You have to aim for the car, and jump your bike over it, and fly.”
Oh, how I wanted to stay there with him. I nestled into the sound of his voice and steered straight for the car on the damp road, cranking the pedals as fast and hard as I could. But I didn’t crouch. I didn’t prepare to pull up and jump. I pulled in my wings and wrapped them around myself, and right before I closed my eyes, I saw the driver. Limp mousy hair, squinty eyes.
Tires squealed. Air rushed behind and beside me. Shock waves from an impact to my left crashed into my eardrums. Then, nothing.
Something warm covered my face, and I smelled dirt. Was I dead?
My eyes opened. Seconds later? Minutes later? I didn’t know.
Sun. It was sun I felt on my face. No God. No angels. No Adrian. Just me, sprawled in fog-wet grass, by myself on the side of the road. Alive.
I looked around me. La Mariposa lay crumpled ten yards behind me. I groaned. Not my beautiful bicycle. It was like another piece of Adrian had been ripped from me.
I probed along my body. Grass and gravel on my right, wet dirt on the left. Scrapes. A few sore spots, but that was it. I glanced to my left and saw my butterfly locket on the ground, its chain broken. I rolled over and grabbed it and curled around it, fetal, whimpering.
I heard sounds off to my left and pushed myself up to a sitting position, then rolled forward to my hands and knees and stood up one leg at a time. I kept still until the black spots in front of my eyes went away, then I walked about fifteen yards back to the road. A large truck pulling a horse trailer was stopped there. The car wasn’t. The truck had a badly mangled front fender, but no more damage. A man was talking loudly on his mobile phone, and when he saw me, he kept talking and headed toward me. He put his hand over the mouthpiece.
“You all right?”
I nodded. Sort of, I thought.
He moved his hand and resumed his call. “I slammed on my brakes, but I kinda skidded. I just prayed to God to save us all and kept it straight with the brakes locked down.” He closed his eyes. “The Taurus is upside down in the creek, and ain’t nobody got out yet. I’m looking at the lady on the bike, and she’s scraped up real bad, but she’s walking and she says she’s all right.” He gave the location and got off the phone.
I ran down the embankment to the creek bed behind him, slipping in my bike cleats. We peered inside the car, a white Taurus, and I saw her. Stephanie, on the ceiling with her head trapped between the roof and the steering wheel.
The truck driver felt for a pulse, then shook his head and walked away from the wreckage, talking into his phone. “Looks like the other driver didn’t make it.”
I started shaking. Pain shot through my head. I sank to my knees.
“Miss, you okay?”
“I think so. I—I just realized how lucky I am.”
“You shore are. Somebody upstairs must be looking out for you.”
“Maybe so.”
“I ain’t never seen no dead person before. Plenty’a dead animals . . . I’m feeling a little queasy.” He stared at the horizon. “I’m gonna check on my horses.”
As soon as he was gone, I stuck my head into the Taurus, looking for something, anything, to help me understand. Stephanie’s purse lay on the ceiling of the car by her head. I tried not to look at her as I grabbed it. I sat down on the creek bed and pawed through the contents as quickly as I could. The police would arrive soon. I grabbed her driver’s license first: Stephanie Willis, at the address I followed her to the day before. I pulled out a cracked and soiled ID badge for the Houston Independent School District. I found a package of photographs of Adrian taken over the past few weeks, even months—some with me, some with Sam, some with Annabelle, and some with all of us and even other people. That was it for the purse, but the papers, spattered with Stephanie’s blood and brain tissue, included a sheaf of Adrian’s articles.
I slid one out and a sob caught in my throat: “My Personal Best.” It was highlighted in yellow and underlined in black pen so hard the paper had ripped. This time I read past where I’d stopped last time.
I was married before, and I’ve been a triathlete for years, but now I have a partner, a partner in life and a partner in sport. This makes all the difference to me. My life has purpose, and triathlon is a joy again. Training is a time we can spend together, achieving shared goals and attaining dual victories. Becoming her coach has rounded me out as an athlete. From the first race we trained for and competed in together, I set personal-best times. Yes, I got faster in my mid-forties, thanks to my partner—but best of all, I became whole, even though I never knew I was incomplete.
I was so proud of him when that article came out. It really touched his readers, and even now, it made my tears roll. What had it meant to this woman, though, that she had carried it in her car, marked to bits? I stared at the documents in front of me, no closer to understanding why she had ruined my life, until I heard sirens approaching.
I needed to get out of this woman’s things before the police drove up, so I shoved the purse and papers back into the Taurus with what was left of my husband’s killer.
Chapter Twenty-four
I perched gingerly on the seat of the squad car, trying to keep my bare thighs off of the sticky vinyl seat that bounced under me. The car smelled of sweat and cigarettes. I fought nausea. The officer pulled away from the accident and I felt a visceral tug at my heart—I turned back and saw La Mariposa. I wanted to jump out of the car and run back, to throw myself over the bicycle and weep.
“You okay back there?”
“I’m good.” I had popped two Aleve at the scene and declined medical attention. The pain settled into me, worse than I’d expected.
“Your car’s parked by the old stadium?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I called that HPD detective. Just wanted you to know.”
My phone rang: Robert. As tempted as I was to put him off, I’d have to tell him what happened sooner or later. “Hello?”
“Sam’s missing, Michele. He stayed in the barn apartment at your parents’ place last night, and we couldn’t find him this morning. We searched the whole property. Please tell me you’ve heard from him.”
“What? No! I’m in a police car, riding away from an accident. I haven’t heard from him, or anyone at all.” I scrolled through my missed calls and messages. Nothing.
“Shit! I can’t believe he would take off.”
“He wouldn’t, Robert. Sam wouldn’t do that.”
I stared down at the bloodstains on my clenched fists, trying to figure out where I was bleeding, then realized it was Stephanie’s blood. I wanted to scrub my skin with a wire brush, scrub myself clean of her, the crash, that damn Taurus.
The Taurus.
I screamed at the officer. “Turn the car around!”
I heard “What?” in one ear from Robert and “What?” in the other from the officer.
I was screaming and sobbing, “My son is in that car. I think my son is in that car. Please turn around!”
Firing questions at me, the officer turned on his flashers, wheeled the car around, and radioed ahead all at the same time. Robert’s voice rang out from the phone in my lap.
I hit speaker and leaned as close as I could to the front seat, holding my phone where the officer could hear it. “Officer, I have you on speaker. My son’s father is on the phone, and he said our son Sam is missing. This woman, the dead woman from the accident, has been following Sam for a few weeks, maybe longer. I told you earlier but I’ll repeat it for my ex-husband now—I believe she killed my husband a month ago, after stalking him. I just didn’t figure out her identity until yesterday when I confronted her. Sam was visiting his grandparents in Seguin. I told her he was far away and safe from her. Twelve hours later, she tried to kill me, and my son is missing.”
“Did you see your son in the car, Mrs. Hanson?”
“No, but I know he’s there somewhere. He didn’t have a car in Seguin. He wouldn’t have run off. He had nowhere to go. Stephanie took him. I know it.”
“Houston is a long way from Seguin, let alone from Waller.”
“Two hours to my parents’ place, and the same back to Houston. One hour to kidnap my son. She had more than enough time.”
“Well, ma’am, the fellas on the scene didn’t see a kid.”
Going for Kona Page 19
