“I remember how hard it was to give you your Chevelle back when I was done. I’d hate to take the Charger away from him. He’s poured his heart into it.”
Suddenly I felt bad. He’d never told me he was attached to my car. He had treated it like a means to an end. He needed it to enroll in Kravitz’s classes. “You never said anything.”
Dave grinned. “Well, the car was a big reason for me following you around in high school. It wasn’t the only reason, but it was a big one. I kept secretly hoping it’d break down so I’d have a reason to see you after we graduated. I guess I did too good of a job restoring it.” His mischievous grin grew, “Enough about me. Do you want me to order you a new windshield, or what?”
Was he flirting with me? I’d been on two dates in the last six months – both sucked. Remembering why I had come, I stammered, “Um, no. This was a social call.” His smile grew in front of me. Neither of us spoke for a minute, so I answered one of his earlier questions. “I’m not in a sorority. I never pledged.”
“Why not? I thought that was part of the whole college experience.”
“Only for the girls who have more money and time on their hands than I do. My college experience consists of a full class load and three jobs.”
Dave cocked his head to the side, “You aren’t still living with your parents?”
I laughed, “No, they moved away.”
He had the same reaction everyone did when he asked skeptically, “To where?”
“Dad got a job in New Mexico a few days after I graduated. My older sisters were already out of the house, so they didn’t waste time downsizing once they figured I could fend for myself.”
“So, you live in the dorms?”
“No, it was actually cheaper to stay in the house and get a roommate. My parents are my landlords. If rent is late, not only do I get the threat to be evicted, I get the added, ‘We’re so disappointed in you’ speech. You remember Libby?”
Dave scowled, “How could I forget? She coined the name ‘loner guy’ for me. That probably got printed in our yearbook instead of my name. She was never much of a fan.”
My stomach cinched. Could he have been harboring bad feelings toward Libby all this time? Is that why she was in a hospital right now? I was having a tough time wrestling with the two Daves: the quiet one who preferred to be left alone in high school and the successful charismatic one standing before me now.
The fear I had felt outside began ebbing back. He was asking a lot of questions. Too many questions. It was my turn. Glancing at the door, I had a clear shot at it if I needed to bolt. I needed answers. “Look, this has been fun catching up, but I need to ask you about Teddy.”
Confused, Dave answered, “I don’t know a Teddy.”
“The one from last night at Bank Shot?”
His shoulders arched as his perplexed look deepened, “I was here last night.”
“Working?”
“No. The shop closes at five, but I have an apartment upstairs.”
“I talked to you last night at Bank Shot. You stuck up for Libby when Teddy threw his money at her.”
He shot me a wary look, “Candy, I told you, I was here all night.”
Dave was trying to hide it. Did he think I was some bubble-headed girl? Or maybe he was trying to do some mind-control thing on me to try to convince me he hadn’t been there. “Uh, so, you didn’t tear into Teddy for throwing the four hundred dollars on the floor for Libby to pick up instead of handing it to her?”
“Holy shit, Libby won four hundred dollars? Doing what?”
He seemed genuinely surprised. Dave should be living in Hollywood. “Uh, playing pool.”
“I didn’t know she played. If you two want, there’s a great bar a couple blocks from here. It’s a pay by the hour table instead of seventy-five cents per game.”
Dismissing his suggestion, I answered, “Yeah, Deuces Wild. She and I play there every now and again.”
I couldn’t wrap my mind around things. Did he have multiple personalities or something? He had always been so quiet, and this was like a completely different person. Last night he had wanted me to call him Mark. Was it possible he didn’t know he was there?
I never knew much about him other than he was in foster care. It never occurred to me that there might actually be something wrong with him. He reached out a warm hand to my shoulder as concern deepened his tone, “Candy, are you okay? You’re white as a ghost.”
“Um, yeah, I’m fine. Hey, I gotta go. I must have seen someone who looked like you.”
I stood up quickly, his hand remained on my shoulder, “Sit down for a minute. You don’t look so hot. Eat some more of the bagel.”
He’s got multiple personalities and he wants me to eat a bagel? “I’m fine. I’m just late. It was great seeing you again.” I turned away from him quickly, knocking the mug to the floor where it smashed into slivers. “I’m sorry.” My memory of last night flashed before my eyes of a smashed casserole dish with bits of marinara sauce everywhere. I stumbled away from him.
“Candy, relax. What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine. I’m sorry about the mess.” I continued backing away from him toward the door.
“It’s okay, I’ll get it. You sure you’re all right?”
“Yeah.” I grabbed the door, flung it open and practically flew to my car. I was inside with the ignition turned over pulling away from the curb before he could follow me out. I kept looking in my rearview mirror to see if he was following me, but he wasn’t.
I couldn’t make sense of what he’d said. I knew he was at the bar last night. He made fun of Teddy for being beaten by a girl, and now he pretends he wasn’t there. If he didn’t have multiple personalities, he was the best actor I’d ever seen. He had to have been involved in the attack on Libby and was trying to cover his tracks. Maybe that’s why he had said the stuff about having a crush on me and hoping my car would break down. What did he take me for?
Chapter 9
I couldn’t go back to the hospital – not yet. I didn’t have the strength to see Libby’s lifeless body again so soon. Was it the guilt that I was responsible for what had happened to her, or the knowledge that the same thing could just as easily have happened to me? Or worse, if I hadn’t been working behind bullet-proof glass, I could be lying in the morgue right now.
I didn’t want to go to school. My mind was all over the place, and there was no way I was going to pass a test or sit through a bunch of lectures today. Mr. Sanders had given me the week off, so picking up hours there was a non-starter. I wasn’t scheduled to work at the restaurant again until Saturday. I worked as a housekeeper for a couple bachelors, but I had just cleaned their house last week, so they wouldn’t want me back again until next week. Bank Shot didn’t open for a couple hours, so trying to find Chris wouldn’t be possible, either.
Home. I needed to go home, to take a shower, to attempt to wash some of the fear off of me. Pointing the car in that direction, my mind continued scrolling through several possible scenarios.
The guy who tried to shoot me last night had gotten his money back, courtesy of Mr. Sander’s cash register. He had broken the security cameras, probably betting that they weren’t hooked up to a recorder. Idiot. Even if the picture wasn’t clear enough for facial recognition, I had zoomed in on his license plate, and I was sure he had left his fingerprints on the restroom key. The cops shouldn’t have any problem finding him. What he had done to Libby was grisly – no one inflicts that kind of pain unless they enjoy it. Even if he did have his money back, I needed to be careful until he was apprehended.
The hole in my windshield made driving a nightmare. I leaned as far to the left as I could to keep my face out of the path of the arctic air blowing directly on it. I wished I had a piece of gum to try to stuff into the hole.
After the longest trip across town that I could remember, I parked the car in front of my house. Expecting to see police tape on my front door and neighbors speculating over what had happ
ened, I was surprised to see a typical quiet morning on the street. Based on the number of cars along the curb, most of my neighbors had gone to work. I climbed out of my car and locked my door just in time to look up and see Mrs. Bavcock standing inches away from me. Her proximity startled me – that was twice today I’d been sneaked up on. She urgently pleaded, “Have you seen Henrietta?”
I had learned long ago not to ask which cat was which. She had a slew of them, and one always seemed to escape for a few days. She would comb the neighborhood looking for the escapee with little luck, but eventually it would come back. Dismissively, I answered, “No, sorry, I’ll keep a lookout for her.”
She lowered her voice conspiratorially, “I saw the ambulance last night.”
My heart lurched. I wasn’t ready for questions from nosey neighbors. What could I tell her? How much did she already know? I wanted a few minutes of solitude in a hot shower followed by bundling myself in my comforter and shutting the world out for a little while. I did not want to face the reality of what Libby or I had gone through last night. I couldn’t walk away from Mrs. Bavcock. She wanted an explanation – I didn’t understand the details any better than the police and struggled with what to tell her. “Yeah, Libby’s at Saint Elizabeth’s. I just left a little bit ago.”
Mrs. Bavcock took my hand in hers, her voice an urgent whisper, “I didn’t want to get involved. Those types of men prey on women alone.”
My eyes widened as I pulled her hand toward me, “Did you see something? Did you see the guy?”
She looked to her right, then her left. She answered in a sweet grandmotherly voice, “Why don’t you come over for some tea?”
Tea? What the hell? Did she see something or not? “Mrs. Bavcock, if you saw something, you need to tell the cops. Libby’s still unconscious.”
Her voice was louder as she pried her hand away from my grip. “No, of course not, dear. I go to bed too early. The lights from the emergency vehicles woke me up last night.”
Frustrated, I turned my back on her, and stomped off toward my front steps. I didn’t need a grandmother or a prying neighbor right now – what I did need was my loofah sponge and enough hot water to cloud the bathroom in a blanket of steam.
“Oh, say, Candy,” her voice echoed toward me, “I need you to help me move a box.”
I stopped before my foot could climb the first step toward my front door. Blowing out an exasperated breath, I couldn’t tell her “no” outright, but I was far too wound up to be polite. “I’ll stop by later, Mrs. Bavcock. I need a shower.”
She nearly shrieked, “Candy, please! It’s very important. The box is leaking on my carpet.”
A box is leaking on her carpet? Why wouldn’t she just empty out the contents of the box or slide a rug under it? I turned around not even attempting to hide my incredulous look, but saw pure fear staring back at me through her aged eyes. Before I could turn her down a second time, a voice inside me told me I needed to help her. She was old; for all I knew, she was recycling motor oil or something dumb, and I’d never hear the end of it if I didn’t save her carpet today.
Reluctantly I answered, “Okay, lead the way.”
She smiled warmly and wrapped both her hands around my elbow, I assumed to use me for support crossing the packed ice on our street. She let me in the side door of her home, closed the door behind us and secured the deadbolt. I wandered into her living room to find the offending box, but nothing seemed out of place. One thing I could say for her, she knew how to clean. Her house always smelled like warm cookies with a hint of vanilla, despite the number of cats that shared her home.
As I turned back toward her to ask where the box was she needed help with, her feeble hands were gripping an ornate wooden chair from her dining room set. Confused, I asked, “Mrs. Bavcock, are you all right?”
“Help me with this, Candy, quickly,” she demanded.
I took the beautifully handcrafted chair from her as she pointed to the door we had just come in. Unable to make sense of her request, I asked, “I don’t understand. I thought you needed help with a box?”
“For God’s sake, Candy, there is a man in your house! He’s been there for hours. Secure the door and call the police.”
A shot of adrenaline ripped through my body as my hand dropped the chair. “What? Who?”
I stood paralyzed with fear as she rushed in front of me, scooped the fallen chair up off of the floor and rushed to the door to wedge it under the door knob. She answered me urgently, “I don’t know. I couldn’t see his face. He’s been looking through the curtains most of the morning. I don’t think he saw me watching him. What are you waiting for? Call the police!”
Still in shock I challenged, “Why didn’t you already call them?”
“I’m an old woman, Candy. Until you came home I wasn’t sure what to do, but I couldn’t let you go in there with him waiting.” She shoved an old-time rotary phone at me.
Instead of using hers, I fished my cell out of my pocket. Just as I was dialing 911, a throaty rumble reverberated down our street. My thumb hovered over the send button as I looked through her front window at the unfamiliar car crawling down the narrow road. The car was sleek, a black matte finish and all muscle – it pulled in directly behind my car. The car’s finish reminded me of the Nova from last night. I couldn’t see the driver through the tinted windows, but I recognized the car: not the Nova from last night, but one of the show cars partially snow covered at Dave Brewer’s garage. My heart began picking up speed in my chest as all the worst possible scenarios started playing at warp speed through my mind.
The car door opened and a shiny black motorcycle boot eased out onto the icy pavement. A second later I watched Dave pull himself out of the beasty car. I had gotten out of his shop before he could pounce, but he knew where I lived. My stomach sank to my toes. He had followed me here. He might have even told the creep in my house to wait for me to return, and Dave was going to finish me off. What had I ever done to him? I had been one of the few people who was nice to him back in school. If it weren’t for me, he might not even have the auto repair place he has now. Why would he be involved, and why all the fuss over a few hundred dollars?
Mrs. Bavcock grabbed my arm, squeezing far harder than was necessary to pull me out of my daze, “Who is that? Do you know him?”
I didn’t answer, but she must have read the fear on my face. She demanded, “Call the police. Now. Call them.”
I watched Dave climb my front steps. He stood at my front door, using the glare from the storm door to check out his reflection and smooth his hair, then he pressed the doorbell. I wanted to shriek. I crouched down on the floor close to the ledge of Mrs. Bavcock’s front window. This gave me a great vantage point, but the sheer floral curtains hanging in front of my face precluded any prying eyes from seeing me. I watched him press the doorbell a second time.
Dave shoved his hands deep into his pockets. He still didn’t own any gloves? He eased himself a few feet to the left where an enormous picture window looked out onto the street. He tried to look in between the gap in the curtain, holding his hand over his brows in an attempt to cancel the glare. Walking back in front of the door, he rang the doorbell a third time, then proceeded to pound on the front door. I could see he was shouting something.
Mrs. Bavcock was crouched beside me on the floor, “What’d he say?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I couldn’t hear.”
Dave bounded off the front porch, landing hard on the pristine snow surrounding the house. Dave walked around to each window on the first floor, desperate to see inside. What was he doing?
The third window he approached, he must have seen something that startled him, because he had been leaning in close to the glass then took three rapid steps away from it. Dave shouted at the window. It sounded like, “Hey!! What’s going on?” But I couldn’t be sure.
We were still peering like a couple of peeping Toms. Several things happened at once: Dave righted himself and s
tood tall, as if challenging whoever was inside. He cupped his ear as if to tell the person inside he couldn’t hear him, then Dave nodded and strolled back around to the front porch again. Before his feet touched the first step, I felt the weight of the cell phone in my shaky hand. I pressed “send.”
A nasally voice answered my call, “911 dispatch. What is your emergency?”
“This is Candy Kane. I live at 420 Elm Drive. There are two intruders in my house. Please send the police.”
“Are you in the residence now?”
“No. I’m across the street with a neighbor. My roommate was attacked last night. Please send someone right away.”
The dispatcher stayed on the line. Mrs. Bavcock and I didn’t flinch, our eyes honed in on my childhood home. A gray and black tiger striped cat launched himself onto the window sill in front of us trying to get some attention. She reached up and pulled the curious cat to her for comfort. Several minutes passed with nothing to see, then a muffled bang sounded, as a man darted out the front door. He ran full-speed down the steps and up the street, passing directly in front of Mrs. Bavcock’s window. My rapidly beating heart stopped completely as I saw the face that was already burned in my memory for all time. The man who had tried to shoot me last night was now fleeing up the street with Dave in hot pursuit. Dave looked like he was on fire, rage etched on his face.
The man who had tried to shoot me last night had a gun in his hand and was firing wildly behind him as he sprinted up the street, desperately trying to outpace Dave. His bullets were hitting everywhere but Dave, lodging into trees and cars lining the sleepy street. Dave seemed to pay no attention at all to the bullets whizzing around him. He was running full throttle, and as he passed Mrs. Bavcock’s house, I heard his menacing warning, “If I catch you, I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands.”
Mrs. Bavcock said, “He’s going to get shot. Is that boy a friend of yours?”
“Dave Brewer. I went to high school with him.” The events made no sense. Was Dave mad because the guy hadn’t killed me last night? Was I a loose end? A calico cat jumped onto the window sill to get a better view of what we were looking at. I reached up and moved her to the floor.
His Frozen Heart Page 10
