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Sandra felt like a million bucks. She also felt like she might drop dead from exhaustion, or heat stroke, or both, before getting to her minivan.
But she didn’t. Though her legs felt like jello, she made it to her van and climbed inside. She took off her hat, started the van, and blasted the air conditioning at her face. The air was as hot as a furnace, but the promise of the iciness to come was enough to comfort her. She took a long drink from the water bottle she’d brought from home and kept in the locked van, and then sat there panting.
She couldn’t believe how much fun she’d just had. Whether or not she ever figured out who killed Frank Fenton, she thought she’d continue being a soccer official. She just didn’t want to give it up. She hadn’t received her first paycheck yet, but she thought she’d do this for free if she had to.
She eased her van out into the slow trickle of traffic. No one was in a hurry, as the driveway to the Lisbon Middle School fields was a mile-long dirt road that sported even more potholes than their soccer field did.
But Sandra was in no hurry. She turned up the Casting Crowns and sipped on her water bottle, and by the time she reached the tar road, the air-conditioning was actually cold.
Only five minutes later, she turned it down because she caught a chill. Her wet clothes grew more uncomfortable with each mile. And with each mile, she grew more excited about getting home and stepping into a hot shower. As she was daydreaming about this hot shower and the cozy flannel pajamas that would follow, she realized with dismay that she had to go to the bathroom. She’d gotten a little carried away with the hydration. Really, going to the bathroom wasn’t such a formidable task, but she hated to go anywhere in her fluorescent yellow costume, especially when it was dripping wet and plastered to her body. She drove by two gas stations that probably would have worked, but they appeared too busy. She was hoping to find one that was a bit more deserted.
And then there it was on the horizon, a small mom-and-pop shop that might not even have a bathroom. But at least there were no other cars in the driveway. She pulled in and parked right beside the door. Despite her enthusiasm for the restroom, it took her a while to climb out of the vehicle. Her legs, which had been absolute champs for four thirty-minute halves, had stiffened up during her drive. As she waited for them to cooperate, she had the strangest feeling that she was being watched. She looked around, expecting to see Bob—but she didn’t.
What she did see was difficult to process. A flurry of motion and a flash of red. Someone was close to her, too close to her; absurdly, her first concern was how sweaty she was. But then her head exploded in a pain that didn’t make sense. Something had hit her—hard. Her stomach rolled, and her knees buckled, but someone grabbed her from behind before she could fall the rest of the way to the ground.
At first, she felt gratitude. Someone had kept her from falling. But then her brain made a disturbing calculation: that person had hit her. And now that person was dragging her. She opened her mouth to scream and managed a bellow she was proud of. She tried to scream, “Fire!” but only managed a high-pitched “Fi!” before a hand clamped over her mouth. She gasped for air and tasted the saltiness of his hand, which, absurdly, made her angrier than any of this incident had thus far. A salty hand in her mouth was gross, and her chest filled with rage. She bit down on that nasty hand with all her might, and her attacker cried out in pain before calling her an incredibly impolite name. “If you want to live through this, you might want to be more cooperative,” a voice hissed into her ear, and she knew that voice.
Oddly, this knowledge comforted her. She wasn’t being kidnapped by a stranger. She was being kidnapped by a fellow soccer ref.