Passerby: A Psychological Thriller

by Britney King

  “You should—”

  “I should what?”

  When I look over, her face has lost all color.

  “Ashley?”

  She’s breathing hard and turning in her seat like she’s in pain. It reminds me of several brides I’ve seen have panic attacks happen hours, sometimes minutes, before the ceremony. “You should be scared,” she chokes out.

  She covers her head and ducks, and I glance in the mirror and see why. There is a truck coming up on my left, a gun pointed out of the passenger window. He fires several rounds, and all I hear is the sound of metal on metal and Ashley’s screams.

  I do the only thing that makes any sense. I slam on the brakes.

  “Call my brother.” She fumbles with her phone. Her hands are shaking too badly to make any progress, so I press the button on the steering wheel and a ringing sound plays throughout the car.

  Davis answers and Ashley is screaming and I’m trying to relay our location and evade bullets at the same time, and it all happens so fast. I spin out and slam into a tree. Airbags deploy and the speakers in the car go silent. I look over at Ashley, who is hyperventilating but alive. I listen for the truck to make a U-turn. “We have to go.”

  She glares at me, her eyes wide, mouth agape. “Go? Where?”

  “The woods. Now!”

  She doesn’t move, so I point. “There.”

  Still nothing. She’s either paralyzed by fear, stupid, or both. “You’re going to have to run. And then, when you can’t run anymore, you hide. Okay?”

  She swallows hard and nods several times fast before attempting to open the passenger door. It doesn’t budge. The realization that she’s trapped makes her freeze up. I fling the driver’s side door open and dash out. My left wrist hurts and I’m dizzy. But at least I am not dead.

  Yet.

  I motion for Ashley to follow me across the console. Then I lean in and reach for her, tugging hard on her forearm. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can. Come on.”

  “We’re going to die,” she cries. “Oh, my God. I’m going to die.”

  “You’re not going to die.”

  “I’m not even thirty.”

  “And you never will be if you don’t move your ass!”

  I take off in a full sprint, and she follows. Slowly, and ridiculously, because she’s in heels. Ashley is right. She’s probably going to die, and it’s all because she made the wrong choice in footwear.

  I take my phone from my pocket and dial Roy. It rings, but then service drops, and the further I move into the woods, the less I can seem to get it back.

  I’m running and I’m listening for the sound of a diesel motor. I’m searching for a signal. All I hear is silence, silence save for my heavy breathing and Ashley’s sniveling. She repeatedly asks the same question. “Are they coming back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  This answer only makes her cry more, and the sound of her whining is making me lose focus, so I say, “I don’t think so.”

  When I can’t run anymore, I stop and rest my hands on my knees. I look at Ashley holding her shoes in her hands. “Who was that? Who was shooting at us?”

  “Probably an ex-boyfriend.”

  Her mouth falls open. “Seriously?”

  “No. Not seriously.” I shrug. “How in the fuck am I supposed to know?”

  “I thought you knew everybody around here.”

  “Well, it would have helped if I’d seen his face.”

  “Did you get the license plate?”

  “No, I was too busy driving evasively and calling for help,” I say through narrowed eyes. I massage my wrist and very seriously contemplate leaving her in the woods to be someone else’s problem. “And you?”

  She shakes her head slowly from side to side.

  “Figures.”

  “Do you think they’re coming back?”

  “No.” I glance toward the road. “At least not at the moment.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because if they truly wanted us dead, we would be.”

  Chapter Nine

  Ruth

  We sit in the woods, crouched down, our backs resting against a fallen tree for a good thirty minutes. I figure this should have given Davis enough time to get on the road and try to track us down. That or to call Roy, who will have called in backup. The car is visible from the road, so I am not concerned as to whether they’ll find us. For now, we just have to stay put and wait.

  Ashley, however, does not agree. She wants to go back for her phone, which she is sure will have service. Her eyes dart back and forth, nervously, no matter how many times I tell her we are safe. “Davey doesn’t know how to find us…”

  My brow furrows. I wonder if she hit her head in the crash. She’s not the brightest to begin with, but now, not only does she sound dumb, she isn’t making any sense. “My brother knows these roads like the back of his hands.”

  “I never told him our location.”

  “He knew I was making a trip to Hillsford.”

  Ashley swallows and shakes her head. “When I left he was asleep. I didn’t want to wake him.”

  “So you lied to me?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a lie…”

  “You acted like I was doing him a favor by bringing you along. And he had no idea.”

  Ashley starts to speak and then closes her mouth. She’s silent for a long time, until finally I say, “Whatever. He’ll figure it out.”

  I don’t believe this, of course, because I could have gone anywhere. We could literally be anywhere right now.

  She hops up and shakes her dress out. “I’m going back for my phone.”

  “They could be waiting for you,” I say, with maximum disapproval. “The men in the truck.” Not because I believe it, but so she’ll listen to reason. There’s no point in putting ourselves unnecessarily at risk when we’re fine where we are. I refuse to leave the woods, while Ashley refuses to stay in them. When I tell her she can go alone, she calls my bluff, and that is how we end up making our way back toward the car.

  Thankfully, when I reach the tree line just off the road, I spot a truck that has stopped. An older man climbs out of the cab and appears to be inspecting the scene. I watch as he walks to his pickup and radios for help. “I didn’t think people used radios for that anymore,” Ashley says, and I’ve never wanted to punch anyone in the throat more. This is not the first time I ask myself why I saved her, and it won’t be the last.

  “Cell service hardly exists out here,” I tell her. “As we found out. Hence the radio.”

  “Do you think it’s safe?” she asks with doe eyes.

  “How should I know?” I have to admit at this point that I’m deliberately being difficult. I know the man, and I also know that his truck isn’t the dark green pickup that forced us off the road in the first place.

  Ashley starts immediately bawling. This catches the attention of Rusty Chamberlain, the old farmer who has a place on the other side of Hillford. He stands there for a moment, taking us in as we make our way toward him. When we reach the car, he takes his hanky from his shirt and hands it to Ashley.

  “Lord as my witness, I sure wasn’t expecting to see you tangled up in this, Ruthie Channing.”

  Mr. Chamberlin went to school with my parents. That puts him in his seventies. He walks hunched over, and he’s thinner than he was just six months ago, but he’s sharper than ever. He’s also one of the few people that I still allow to call me Ruthie.

  “That’s funny. Because I sure as hell wasn’t expecting it either,” I say, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my hand. “I appreciate you stopping.”

  “It’s no trouble at all.” He glances toward my car and nods. “Did you get any off on him?”

  “No. Sadly.”

  He looks at me like he’s almost ashamed. All I can do is shrug in response. “This isn’t an action movie, Mr. Chamberlin.” I motion with my thumb toward Ashley. “Plus, city girl here was hy
perventilating as it was. That certainly would have put her over the edge.”

  “I see.” He says like he doesn’t see. Mr. Chamberlin was not born in a generation that sits and waits for the police to come and clean up the mess. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, he’d be waiting a long time. “Well, I know for sure your daddy taught you to be a good shot.”

  “Driving and shooting is a little different.”

  “Just takes a little practice,” he tells me, opening the truck door. “What are you thinking? One of those road rage things or something else?”

  “Oh, definitely something else.”

  Mr. Chamberlin wags a finger at me. “I was just testing you, Ruthie Channing. Honesty’s always the best policy, isn’t it?”

  I don’t answer, mostly because I’m watching the road. That, and I’m not sure I agree. I’d hate to lie to Mr. Chamberlin.

  “I radioed Roy,” he says. “He can get you towed in. I’d do it myself, but I’ve got an issue with a mare that needs tending to.”

  “Is Dr. Erichs coming out?”

  “I don’t know. We’ll just have to see.” He looks at my car and then back at me and furrows his brow. “Any idea who it was that did this?”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t recognize the truck.”

  “Didn’t get the plates? Assuming there were plates.”

  Again, I shake my head.

  “I see.”

  “I wish I knew who it was,” I tell him, which is a half-truth. I don’t know for sure, but I have a damn good idea.

  “Oh, well. I have a feeling you’ll find out soon enough.”

  Nothing further is said because Roy arrives then with his lights flashing and his siren blaring. He asks all the same questions Mr. Chamberlin already has, plus a few more. Roy calls out for a tow truck and then he drives us into Hillford, where Davis is set to meet us. I’m grateful he offers. I can skip the rest of the errands, but not the hardware store.

  By the time we arrive, half the county has heard what happened. News travels fast in small towns and this news is especially salacious.

  Ashley recants the story to one person and then a crowd gathers outside the store and it swells from two people to twenty.

  Even I have to admit, she’s aces at storytelling. You would have thought we were in a Bonnie and Clyde shootout, the way she tells it, rather than some asshole emptying his clip into my car, to prove a point or to send a message, which I suppose are sort of one and the same. I even say this at one point but she shushes me and says I couldn’t have experienced it like she did because I was driving and I was on the phone. Of course, that’s what it was.

  Davis arrives and the two hug and embrace and she cries on his shoulder and sobs into his chest, it’s like a Cinderella story, like he’s her knight in shining armor and the entire town is here to bear witness.

  And that is how Ashley Parker becomes the IT girl.

  It is how the whole town falls in love with her at once, and I come to hate her just a little more.

  Chapter Ten

  Ruth

  By mid-afternoon I’m home and things have settled enough that I fret about, unsure what to do with myself. I feel antsy, like I’m waiting for something bad to happen. I try to predict what that thing might be. A drive-by shooting? A sudden house fire? One thing is for sure, nothing is off-limits when it comes to the Holts. That family is capable of just about anything, so to say that I am on edge would be an understatement.

  I do my best to keep busy. I try to keep both my hands and my mind occupied, but it isn’t easy. There’s not much left to do by the time the weekend of the festival rolls around. It’s actually the opposite of what most people think. Everything that needs to be done has already been taken care of, plans made months ago, tiny details worked out.

  Typically, by the time the Saturday of the festival arrives, there’s a certain caliber of lightness in the air, a sense of freedom, the feeling that everyone’s hard work has paid off. It’s the start of summer, officially, and it’s when the seasonal workers sort of take the reins and the rest of us locals sit back and enjoy the fruits of our labors.

  At least in theory.

  Small towns love nothing more than the keeping up of appearances, and Jester Falls is no different. This means it’s never really entirely possible to let go. It means one is never truly off the clock. There’s always some dark undercurrent that needs handling, something not seen with the naked eye. But that’s business. That’s business in this town.

  Eventually, after circling each room at least twice, looking for things that need tidying or fixing, I wander out to the enclosed patio off the back of the house where boxes of champagne glasses are stacked neatly against the wall. I plop down into one of the white wicker rockers and count them out, just to be sure. Inevitably, the rental company shorts us a box every couple of weddings. The devil’s in the details, so I count a second time for good measure. There’s nothing like having to explain to a frazzled bride’s mother that you don’t have enough champagne flutes for the toast.

  When I finish counting, I look out into the garden and contemplate taking out the ladder. I need a set of string lights replaced before the sun goes down, and I’m just restless enough that I consider doing it myself.

  Outside, it has turned out to be a gorgeous day. Hot, but not too hot, thanks to a surprise morning rain. The sun plays peekaboo through the clouds, coming and going. Although, any minute now, I expect the clouds will clear out, giving way to mostly sunny skies.

  The perfect day for a wedding, I say to myself, and I sound like the goddamned weatherman. That or my mother. It makes sense. The old radio in the corner has been left on and the actual weatherman is exuberantly relaying the weekend forecast in a way that feels like déjà vu.

  I sweep my legs underneath me and lean back in the chair, nervously tapping my fingers on the arm of the chair as I stare out at the garden. My mother’s wildflowers have perked up on account of the rain, and it makes me smile. It’s been years since her passing, and yet it never fails that they come up each year. I have them tended to, but no matter how many gardeners I hire or fire, no one cares for them the way she did.

  A cardinal lands on the bird feeder, the one Daddy put up the summer before he got sick. It’s weathered now, and while I’m keenly aware that it may not hold out another season, I can’t bear to replace it. I don’t consider myself a sentimental person by nature, although I can effortlessly pretend. You have to in this business. That is the business to a large extent.

  It’s not just about the memories, though. At least not for me. To replace the bird feeder, string a new set of lights, or to redo the flowerbeds feels like moving on. It serves as a reminder that time really is marching forward. It’s like a bullet train you know is coming before you’ve finished laying the track. My parents are dead and gone. Obviously. But that doesn’t mean I am ready to admit that I, too, am aging, that everything eventually breaks down and has to be made new.

  Breaking down is exactly what I fear is happening when something in the garden catches my eye. The cardinal flies away. But it’s not that.

  It’s the flash of pink followed by the blonde curls. Leaning forward, I scan the rose bushes and the lilacs. Nothing.

  Then I look over at the daffodils and exhale a sigh of relief. My mind is not playing tricks on me. I am not having an episode, at least not at the moment. The shooter has not decided to show up and take aim. What has caught my eye is only going to kill me on the inside.

  A little girl has wandered into my mother’s garden, although I know with certainty that there are no children on the guest roster this weekend. We hardly get children at Magnolia House; this is not what you’d consider an attractive venue for children, though we do not outright mandate against it. Luckily, most parents are smart enough to read between the lines. We run a bed and breakfast with an old staircase and creaky floors. The house is full of antiques. There are no free lunches, no crib rental, no cookies and milk at sundown. Magnol
ia House is not exactly a child-friendly destination. We keep it this way on purpose.

  And yet, that is exactly what is picking petals off my mother’s flowers like it’s nothing. She can’t be more than four years old or so, although knowledge about children is not my strong suit. I wait, and leaning off the edge of my seat, I continue to scan the yard for the adult that has surely accompanied her. Sometimes people do that. They wander into the garden to take photos, to satisfy their curiosity, or both. It’s safe to say, they do not build homes like this anymore. Magnolia House is really something to see.

  But, no, I do not spot a parent. Just a little girl in a pink swim cover up, wreaking havoc on my mother’s garden.

  Without a second thought, I leap out of the rocker and fling the door open. This is so typical, someone destroying what isn’t theirs to destroy for the simple fact that they can. “Hey!” I shout. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  The little girl turns slightly, her curls flying in the wind, dancing in place. She eyes me up and down, ultimately deciding that I am not worth listening to. I can tell by the way she goes on plucking the black-eyed Susans. “Where’s Ashley?” she calls over her shoulder.

  “Where are your parents?”

  She spins on her heel, rotating a full circle and giggling all the while. If something is funny, I am not sure what it is. Then she says, “You’re not Ashley.”

  I take several strides in her direction, but she’s quick. “Hey! Did you hear me? I said—where are your parents?”

  She reaches the rose bushes, where she tries to pluck a rose, and suddenly her little face freezes. She goes from all smiles to sheer terror in an instant. “Serves you right,” I say.

  She looks at me and then at the blood streaming down her finger and that does it. I have no doubt her wails can be heard for miles.

  “Jesus, Ruth,” Johnny says, flinging the porch door open. He strides across the lawn in a rather comical way. “What the hell?”