It was like a bipolar intimacy.
But Eric’s taunt stuck in the forefront of her attention. It did seem like she was stuck in a bit of a rerun. She had quit her job in Atlanta, but she still frequented a hospital. Junior’s bite, Clay’s accident, Randy’s attack.
As she came back from the mechanical room after she reset a lane, a little boy tripped near the rack of bowling shoes. With the wobbly balance of a toddler, he tumbled down and smacked his head on the wall.
“Aw.” She hurried over to him as he started crying. There would be a lump, but he’d be fine. “You’re okay, buddy.” Crouching, she tried to help him up but he slumped to a sobbing sit. She glanced around for his parents.
“What’d you do to my son?”
Kelly checked over her shoulder as an angry mother bear came for her. She recognized her from the beach. Stella from the lemonade stand.
“He took a tumble,” Kelly said and backed up as the woman snatched her child into her arms.
Shushing the boy, Stella held him tightly and rocked back and forth even though he had stopped crying and flailed his arms to be set down again. She turned to Kelly and pursed her lips. “You stay away from him! Don’t you dare put your hands on him.”
Kelly raised her brows and held her hands out in truce. “What the hell is your problem?”
“Don’t touch my son, you filthy woman.”
Kelly opened her mouth to say something, but had a total loss for words.
Stella patted her son’s hair while he commenced screaming. Probably not from the fall, but to get back on his own feet. “Your mother would be ashamed. You go from man to man and toy with them. Nothing but another whore.”
Kelly set her hands on her hips and pursed her lips, seeing a rational conversation would be useless. “Right.”
“I see you out there.” Stella stood, holding her son’s head to her chest as though she thought Kelly was going to cast a spell on him. “In that teeny bikini, smiling at the men and using them as playthings.”
Kelly shook her head. What was she, a disciple of Delores?
“First you flirt with the young boy. Roger’s boy. Then you were all over the mechanic. The one who chases the women. Then Wanda’s son, that sweetheart Randy. I saw you with a tall one too, in the suit.”
Kelly stared at her and considered the list. Her playthings? Junior swapped SNL jokes with her when they were bored at the hut. Then Clay, he was her buddy. Randy was the shoulder she cried on. The suit? Grant? Her brother wasn’t her plaything.
Kelly pinched the bridge of her nose. Of all days to meet another delusional Churchston woman.
“You don’t even care. You strut out there for everyone to see. You should be ashamed of yourself. And your men should be ashamed, too!” She stomped off.
Kelly stared at her retreating form, too stunned to move. She caught Jaycee watching her with a smile, probably entertained with the drama.
She inhaled deeply to shake it off and resumed working.
That poor little boy.
She returned to the kitchen to pick up a delivery for the record store. Walking down Main, her attention fell on the public beach. The beginning shade of sunset cast over groups of the end-of-the-season tourists playing in the sand and sun. Beach balls, ice cream cones, and too much body fat pudged out from too-small bathing attire. There was a cluster of volleyball players, a mother smearing sunscreen on her impatient kid. Daisy appeared to be flirting with a college guy. Kendra paused checking her reflection in a compact as Kelly caught her eye. The teeny circle quickly showed a scowl.
Typical day at the beach.
Kelly never stopped to think about how public the kayak hut made her. Never had cared. She had impulsively stayed at Churchston with the impression of anonymity and indifference. It had been the beauty of a fresh start. She hadn’t been Kelly the divorced woman. Or the Newlands’ sister. Or the nurse who should have checked Norbert’s medication before the next shift started. Just Kelly. The kayak girl. Alan’s delivery girl.
On the return walk after handing off the sub, she realized her attitude hadn’t changed since she arrived in the town.
Why should I care what any of these locals think of me?
She hadn’t embraced that characteristic of the small-town atmosphere. The biases, the watching eyes, the gossip. It was why she hadn’t hussed and fussed when Will wanted to maintain a private relationship with her. It was their business, not anyone else’s.
For every time someone seemed to judge Will, she had wanted to scream, ‘get a life’! But Stella’s ranting had struck a nerve she couldn’t calm.
“‘My men’.” She scoffed and counted the cracks of the sidewalk as she returned to the alley.
She had one man. And he was too scared to let the world know he was hers. Junior. Clay. Randy. Grant. For God’s sake, he’s my brother! And the rest were the next best things to real siblings. Well, Junior was a kid, but he wasn’t so bad after he must have finally realized she was too old for him.
Her men. She passed the garage and peeked through the windows for her man. Will stood under a car pointing things out to an older man, no doubt busy, impatient and too blunt.
Clay waved at her with a grin. His cast was coming off the next week. Will would be happy about that too. It was childish, Clay teasing Randy he still had to wait to have his leg cast taken off. Boys will be boys.
Kelly stopped to tie her shoe outside the bowling alley.
Clay in a cast. Randy in a cast. Her fingers stopped moving.
Clay. Randy. Her men. Junior. Clay. Randy. Grant.
She gasped.
Jr. had been bitten by a snake. Clay’s brakes had been cut. Randy, beaten senseless. Grant. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. He didn’t fit in Stella’s list.
“His ankle,” she whispered. Grant had twisted his ankle. Her men. All of them hurt in one way or another.
In a daze, she returned to the bowling alley. Bypassing the counter in case another delivery was waiting for her, she went to hide in the mechanical room to think.
‘My men’ have all been hurt.
Coincidences were crap. There had to be explanations.
It wasn’t impossible for a snake to crawl into the cab of the Burns’ kayak truck and bite Junior. It could happen to anyone.
Clay had angered the wrong husband. It was a nasty write-off, but she had to think he had that coming.
Randy. She chewed on her lip. There was no answer for his attack. It seemed no one knew he was gay. She dismissed the possibility of a deranged homophobe.
Grant. It had to have been an accidental trip. One night Will walked Eddie on the beach with her and had shown her where Grant took his spill. He looked for some old fishing line he guessed Grant had tripped over, but there wasn’t any in sight. Line, no line, people tripped all the time.
But what happened to Randy?
She paced among the lane bins, pins clacking and crashing into the chutes. Kelly couldn’t stop coming back to Randy. There was no answer.
Panting faster, she paced accordingly. She had a habit of worrying and a pastime of rambling. Always accused of a runaway imagination, she felt as though paranoia was getting to her.
“Kelly—”
She screamed and whipped around in a defensive pose. “Shit, Mick, you scared me.”
He was cowered down with his arm over his head in a block. Slowly, he lowered his arm to show wide eyes. “Uh, Alan was looking for you. Delivery to the lifeguard post and the garage.”
She nodded. Mick gave her a lingering look of disbelief before he left her in the mechanical hallway.
“Churchston was a quiet little town before you came here.”
She had tuned out Eric’s whine, attributing it to his lack of desire to do his job. He didn’t seem intelligent enough to make a significant observation of the pattern of activity in town. And Gannon’s presence probably excited him, having a real lawman, the FBI, on his sleepy territory.
But was there a
connection? How? What could possibly connect Junior, Clay, Randy, and Grant to her?
She went to the counter and sorted the sub boxes. “Hey, Alan, you want anyone to pay for these or are the tabs up to date?” She flipped through the receipts in the pile under the cash register drawer. She typically collected payments on tabs at the end of the month.
“Eh, some of them paid up yesterday. Rest of them can wait,” Alan called out. “You’re all set.”
Frowning at the stack of papers, she stilled her finger at the name on a receipt on the top of the pile.
Denner.
She tugged it free and peered at it.
A credit card receipt from a Denner. Wasn’t that the name they found in Betsy’s car?
“Alan, who paid this last one?”
He came to the counter, wiping his hands in his apron. “Kelly? Are you okay? You’re awfully pale.”
The receipt shook as she showed it to him. “Who paid this?”
He got his glasses out and studied the receipt. “Can’t tell ya. I think Jaycee cashed it out.”
Chapter 42
Armed with the subs as she walked onto Main moments later, Kelly tried to hide the worry on her face. Fumbling the boxes in one hand, she called Gannon on her cell.
No answer. She left a hasty message asking him how the name was spelled.
Lifeguards first. Daisy manned the stand. “What’s with you? You pregnant or something?”
“Pregnant?” Kendra sauntered up to them in her perfect little bikini.
Kelly willed herself not to look at the stupid tramp stamp on her back.
Kendra crossed her arms. “I didn’t know you were even getting laid.”
Kelly faked a smile and walked away. My life isn’t any of your goddamn business. Wrapped up in her thoughts, she dismissed the women’s cattiness.
Denner? Denman. Dennison. Den-something?
She shook her head, walking away from the lifeguard stand. I must have misread it. No one could have followed me down here because of what happened to Norbert. Denner was in Atlanta. Not Churchston. It had to be a fluke similarity of someone else’s name. The string of events, those times when she’d been in the ‘thick of it all’, as Eric had said, those events had nothing to do with Atlanta. Her men had nothing to do with Atlanta…
As she passed the kayak hut, Junior waved her down. “Hey, you busy?”
“Making some deliveries.”
“Can you take a break and watch the hut for a minute? My phone’s dying and I left my charger at home.”
“Yeah, yeah, go ahead.” She waved him off and took the bar stool in the hut.
Checking her phone for a reply from Gannon, she jumped when a customer cleared his throat.
“Mr. Nikki. Medusa.” She raised her brows at the unlikely couple.
He sneered at her. “I divorced that bitch. Nikki was a cheating cunt.” He tightened his arm around Medusa, and she boosted a smug smile.
“Congrats,” Kelly muttered and scribbled on the receipt for them. “Kayak?”
“Nah, we’ll go for a canoe.”
“Alrighty then.” Kelly flipped for a different form and eyed them. Seems like everything worked out for them. “You moved on fast.”
Mr. Nikki and Medusa. Weirder things happened.
“She wasn’t worth the headache,” he said.
“So you slashed his tires for nothing?”
“I didn’t slash no fucking tires.” He slanted his lips at her. “She wants to sleep with that fleabag, she can go right ahead. She ain’t mine anymore.”
Kelly stilled the pen. “You didn’t slash his tires?”
“No. I gotta watch it. Probation.”
“You didn’t slash his tires.” She half-asked and half-stated it.
“Jus’ said no. You hard of hearing? We want a damn boat.”
Then who did? What were the odds of someone else being out there that night?
“Probably the asswipe in the Buick,” he said as though he had read her mind.
“What?”
“The Buick. It was parked way up at the end of the drive. Some asswipe was sitting in there.”
She swallowed. “Who was it?”
“Fuck if I know. Are you going to give us a canoe or what?”
Kelly picked up the pen, still riled. “Was it an older man or a younger guy?”
“I told you. I don’t know. Little punk gave me a dirty look.”
“So it was a man?”
“I don’t know! It was dark. I had a few drinks. I didn’t give a shit about who the hell was out there. I was looking for my woman!”
“What?” Medusa edged from his hold.
“My old woman. Baby, she doesn’t matter no more. I chose you.”
Medusa seemed placated and Kelly told them their boat number.
Doubts left her mind as fear cemented.
Someone was watching her at the kayak hut. Someone watched her at the townhouse.
This is real.
Adrenaline twisted her guts in knots.
Someone really was watching her. Threatening her. Playing with her. She cracked her knuckles, eying the people on the beach. Denner? Was that the name?
Is Denner stalking me?
Chapter 43
When Junior returned to the hut, Kelly continued to the garage, her thoughts scrambling like bouncy balls pinging off her skull.
Her friends, who could seem like lovers, had been hurt. Her men were hurt. Someone was watching her. What did Denner want? Denner’s name was associated to all the recent death in her life. In Betsy’s car. John’s condo. What did it mean that Denner had followed her to Churchston?
Was Denner the one who hurt her men? Why? It made no connection to Betsy’s suicide. Or John’s death.
She gasped.
Not Betsy’s suicide. But Norbert’s death. Norbert hadn’t been her friend, her man, her lover. Sure, he had been a charismatic older man, flirting with her like all the elderly men tried to. But Norbert hadn’t been anything past a patient to her.
“John was my man,” she whispered and covered her mouth.
John had been her man.
John was in Atlanta, not Churchston. Junior. Clay. Randy. Grant. John?
Okay, this is crazy exaggeration. She shook her head.
Fantasizing. Daydreaming what-ifs. John had always said she was paranoid. She still didn’t think there was anything sinister to washing her hands constantly all day. Germs, people. There were germs everywhere. But she had never been the conspiracy-believing doomsday everyone’s-out-to-get-me kind of paranoid.
Germs, those were real. Elvis, no, he’s really dead.
“Whoa! Kelly!” Clay said as she stumbled into him.
She had walked into the garage absentmindedly and nearly slammed into the workbench behind him.
“Gotta look where you’re going.” He took the subs and she managed something of a smile.
“What’s wrong?” His expression mirrored the one Mick had given her in the mechanical room.
With her thoughts racing, she barely heard him. “Huh? Oh, nothing.”
She scratched her hair as itches tickled all over her skin. It reminded her of the time in fifth grade when she had taken a dare to steal a piece of candy from the corner store. Through her child’s eyes those cameras had been looming large, all over, watching.
“Will!” Keeping a brow raised at her, Clay called, “Food’s here!”
“About time,” Will muttered and came towards the computer. As soon as he saw her he frowned and hastened his step. “What happened?”
She grimaced. I can’t be that transparent. “Nothing. Been thinking.”
He was her man. The one who mattered the most. Sure, she loved Dad and her brothers, but Will really was her man.
He came closer and the grim line of his lips had her expecting another protective act.
“I’ll catch you guys later.” She left before he came close enough for her to be tempted to hug him.
Back
at the bowling alley, Alan asked again if she was okay. She acknowledged him with a nod and went to the bathroom to lock herself in. She needed peace and quiet to think. Sitting on the counter, she focused.
Will was her man but he hadn’t been on Stella’s list. He couldn’t have been because Stella only witnessed what the rest of the world saw. No one could have seen how Will was the man she was in love with. The only man who was her plaything and everything else she’d ever want and need from a man. Stella never saw Will hugging her at the kayak stand, kissing her, holding her hand.
The rest of them had been out there with her. Kelly envisioned it from Stella’s perspective. Junior watching her with puppy eyes as they worked. Clay goofing off with her on his way to flirt with the lifeguards. Randy comforting her when she was upset about Will. Grant sitting on the beach with her while he gave her brotherly support.
She hugged her knees to her chest.
Someone is stalking me.
The timing of injuries made more sense. Randy had held her while she cried, something anyone could have mistaken for romance. Then he was attacked. Grant had been there hugging and teasing her. Then he tripped.
They were all connected to her. Her men.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” she whispered a mantra of fear.
John had been her man and even though she hadn’t known it, he wanted her back. He had wanted to be her man again.
“Is Will next?”
Her fingers shook as she pulled her phone from her pocket and called Gannon again. Still no answer.
“Ah!” She dropped the phone as it buzzed in her hand and it plopped into the toilet.
“Oh, son of a bitch.” She got to her feet. With a wince, she retrieved it from the toilet.
Good thing it was empty.
She wiped the water off with toilet paper. At Junior’s advice, she had gotten a waterproof case for it the first week she worked at the hut.
She narrowed her eyes at the phone, too riled to stress about the gazillion nasty things which resided in the toilet.
Missed call from Will.
He had to be concerned. Due to some kind of freakish phenomenon, he seemed to always know when she was worrying.
Better Than the Best Page 28
