Chapter 36
The magic of riding was doing its hat trick again. I’d been cycling about fifteen minutes, head down, pumping. It cleared out both the anger and the icecream calories. It was my own personal Zen zone, where all I was doing was this one thing. In the back of my brain, I knew I had a lot to deal with once I was home, but for now, the road was just the road. A Mary Chapin Carpenter song my mom used to play about a road being just a road came into my head and I sang into the wind, my legs going at the rhythm of the song.
I cut it off when an engine gunned behind me. I’d turned onto South Lick Road a few minutes earlier, a narrow way winding between wooded hills and marshes, with not a house in sight. Cars rarely traveled it, preferring the easier drive of Route 46. Slowing my pace, I glanced behind me. Uh-oh. A black sedan barreled toward me. Ed’s black sedan. And I had a funny feeling he was after me. Where were those tourists when I needed them?
Now what? I could stop and pretend I was fixing my tire. I could ditch the bike and run into the woods to the left, since it was all marsh on my right. I could ignore him and keep riding. I swore. If he decided to run me off the road again, like he did a week ago, was I better off as a moving target or a stationary one? The engine noise grew louder.
Right when I decided to ditch the bike and run, he roared up behind me. I instinctively veered right a second before he passed way too close. Gravel on the narrow shoulder scattered under my skidding wheels. I braked, fighting for control, and lost. The front wheel caught on a branch and stopped. The loss of momentum threw me over the handlebars. As I heard car brakes scream, I landed on my right shoulder, in a heap of legs and bike and dust. Or maybe that was me screaming.
The pain in my collarbone stabbed. As I pushed up to sitting with my good left arm, I grabbed a handful of gravel. I cradled the forearm of the one I couldn’t move, keeping it close to my body. I’d seen a cycling friend break her collarbone and it wasn’t pretty.
Hinges creaked, then Ed stood in front of me. He leaned down, setting his hands on his knees. “Oh, did you fall off your bike?” He faked concern, but his eyes gave him away.
“What do you think you’re doing, running me down like that?” I bent my head back to see him. “The road’s wide enough for both of us.” The light behind him blinded me and I looked away.
“The sun was in my eyes. I didn’t see you.”
“Ed, the sun is that way.” I pointed across the road behind him.
“What were you doing, snooping around the back of my store, anyway?” He straightened.
“I was looking for a trash can to throw something away in. What were you doing faking a rat invasion in my restaurant?” A wave of pain washed through me and I closed my eyes for a second. I could hear the car idling and the distant machine-gun rat-a-tat of a big woodpecker. When I opened my eyes again, his smug look had turned to a glare.
“Who says I did?” He squatted in front of me.
“The woman at the store in Nashville where you bought the plastic rats, for one. That was a nasty, cheap trick. You have your own restaurant and a loyal following. Why do you have to try to wreck mine?”
“Because you’ve been getting a little too close to the truth, that’s why. Poking your nose in where it don’t belong. Asking questions all over the place.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I knowed it was only a matter of time before you figured out who killed that manipulative, blackmailing pig, Stella. And you’re stealing my so-called loyal customers, too. Not to mention my best line cook.”
Ed was the murderer. Stella had been blackmailing him, too. And I was here alone with him. I was in big trouble. I needed to make him think I hadn’t suspected him. “I thought Roy killed Stella. The police do, too. After you left last night, I even found Roy in my apartment, hiding in a closet.”
“That moron’s too stupid to kill anybody. Unless it’s by accident.”
“I didn’t steal your line cook, you know. Danna left of her own accord. And last night I saw why.” A flash of pain as I moved a bit made me wonder if I was going to puke in front of him.
“Hey, it was just a little fun. She’s too sensitive. They all are,” he said.
“Why was Stella blackmailing you? Everybody knows you harass women.”
He barked out a laugh. “That wasn’t the goods she had on me. It was something a lot worse.” He stood. He reached down and grabbed my left arm, pulling me to standing. At least he grabbed my good arm, but that removed support from the broken collarbone. As that arm fell limp to my side, another wave of pain almost knocked me out. He pulled a gun out of his waistband with his left hand.
A gun—the gun he shot Stella with. My heart had never beat so hard or so fast. My feet went numb and my gut was a block of ice. But I had to get out of this. I had a father to meet. And a business to run.
Pressing the gun against my temple, he said, “I’d rather shoot you right now.” He laughed without a speck of humor.
“You don’t want to do that, Ed.” I gulped in as much air as my tense lungs could manage.
“I do want to, something fierce.” He pressed it a little harder and his snicker was one of the scariest sounds I’d ever heard.
“You’ll be in big trouble if you kill me.” Too, I added to myself. “Lower your gun down, now.” I couldn’t believe it when he actually did.
“Instead of my killing you here, know what I’m going to do?”
I shook my head, terrified of the alternative, but relieved beyond belief the fatal metal no longer pressed into my skull.
“I’m going to watch you walk into that-there marsh and just keep on walking.” He waved the gun toward the marsh at his left.
Oh, no, he isn’t. “Don’t be crazy, Ed. I’m sure we can work this out.” I was not going into the marsh. The air temperature was already dropping and I’d die of exposure, not to mention snapping turtles, leeches, and whatever else lurked in that murky weedy water. Give me a nice clean salty ocean any day.
“Nothin’ to work out. You got too nosy. Now get the hell going.” He let go of my arm and gave my back a push.
I managed to keep my balance and took only a single step. I turned back to face him, gauging the distance. I was only going to have one chance to get out of this mess.
“Watch out, though.” He snorted as he waved the gun toward the marsh. “This here used to be a quarry way back when. And there’s real quicksand in it, exactly like in all them B movies. It’d be such a crying shame if you got stuck. I don’t think Lassie’s alive anymore to run and get help for y—”
Ignoring my pain, in one move I threw the gravel into his eyes and kicked his kneecap with all the strength of my muscular biker’s leg. He cried out and fell. I raced around the car and leapt into the open driver’s side. I swore when the seat was too far back. No time to find the lever to move it. I scootched up until my foot hit the pedal and floored it. A shot shattered the back window as I drove. The driver’s door waved madly, since I couldn’t reach out to close it. I only possessed one usable hand, and that was clamped tight to the steering wheel.
Two more shots followed, but didn’t hit me. I didn’t look back. I took a sharp bend to the right, almost too fast. I had to fight the wheel for a minute, the knuckles on my left hand bleached white with the effort, but at least the momentum swung the door shut. I drove fast, another couple of minutes, just in case he decided to hop on my bike and give chase. I finally pulled to the side long enough to slide the seat up and put on my seat belt. I’d almost died just then. Meeting my end in a car crash, instead, would be really, really stupid. I took another second to pull out my phone and press 911. I put it on speaker and laid it on the seat next to me.
As I drove away, waiting for the dispatcher, I heard the rise and fall of a siren in the distance. The usually upsetting signal of an approaching emergency vehicle never sounded so good.