Bitch: Puncture (book 2)

Arlene returned in a couple of hours with some copied papers in her hand. She got in the RV and drove out of town. She didn’t talk for several miles. Finally she began to talk as she was driving looking out her mirrors. She seemed very wound up and her voice shook a little.

“Ok so here’s what I found out. Dr. Shen was covering for a colleague, a Dr. Hess was the regular vet. Dr. Hess, died from a heart attack last year after returning from his vacation. He was only back a few days when it happened. Very tragic, this according to the girl working the front desk at the clinic.”

“And now it gets weird, she was way too helpful and called the sheriff for me. Apparently, she’s dating one of the deputy sheriffs and wanted an excuse to talk to him at work. So she closed up the vet clinic and then walked me down to the sheriff’s office. According to the sheriff, no one has seen or heard from Chris since the night you were taken. So it sounds like he may have been killed by the car when you were struck. His truck was found submerged in the river near the falls. Because of the empty alcohol containers in the cab, it was believed that he drove into the river and drowned. Apparently that happens a lot here. But they found blood at the bottom of the hill near where they found the truck and that has made them think that there may have been foul play.”

“And weirder still - apparently Dr. Shen and a number of other people in town said you were with Chris the night he disappeared. You put your dog to sleep because it was old and sick, and then decided to stay in town. Apparently you then gave alcohol to a minor? A minor who worked at the front desk of the vet clinic, Chris Johnson, local football phenom’. I’m guessing you didn’t know he was underage. And so you are wanted for questioning at least, they apparently have video of you at the bar with Chris, but are more interested in his disappearance than yours.”

She continued, “The sheriff here, who gave me the heebee jeebies by the way, is handling the investigation and he said that they had an eyewitness from a guide shop down river that saw you drive away in your car early the next morning. That’s where your trail goes cold. You apparently didn’t show up at college. He hinted that he thought you might have done something to Chris and then ran away to avoid the consequences. Maybe a lover’s quarrel that turned deadly? He tried to track you down at your parents house, but they said that they hadn’t spoken to you in years. Apparently some long standing quarrel, that left you estranged from them. You cancelled all of your credit cards, and your cell phone. He thinks that you may have entered Canada illegally and sold your car to a chop shop. And if he was right you should be running out of money about now, unless you were selling drugs or your body or both.”

“And he gave me this...” Arlene laid down a copy of a wanted for questioning poster, with a picture from my driver’s license. I was cold inside. Chris had not returned. And my parents said they hadn’t seen me in years? A hunting guide who saw me down the river could be explained away with mistaken identity, but my parents would never deny my existence.

Cold fingers of dread were crawling up my neck because I felt I knew what had happened to Chris. But my parents... my family estranged from me? What was that all about? I had been returning to school driving from my parents house. Had Shen gotten to them somehow? Had he killed them? It felt like the world had suddenly turned sideways and all the things that I believed about my life were just sliding off a cliff and shattering into a million pieces. I desperately wanted to call my parents, just to hear them answer the phone. Just to know that they were okay, and still among the living.

“I... I guess this makes it real. I’ve seen you. And I can kinda see it in you. You know, when I look at you. I wouldn’t be surprised if the creep was following us right now. He was very surprised that I was asking questions about you. Apparently he thought this was all put to bed. A long dead cold case which will never be solved. All the questions that he’s fielded in the past have been about the local boy Chris. Apparently no one has asked questions about you. I got the feeling that he didn’t mean to tell me that...”

I tingled all over. This was my worst nightmare. What had happened to my family? Why was no one looking for me?

Wait!

Guide?!? The guide. Start there I thought, was he ‘J&R guides’? What was the saying on the door of their guide trucks - something like find it and kill it? Were they the same ones that Dr. Shen had contracted with? The same one who’s dog I’d drowned in the river. The ones who’d slaughtered the pastors family?

It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

I tried to signal Arlene.

“Look I’m just trying to put as much distance between me and that creep as possible. I’ll admit I’m just a little freaked right now.”

I whined.

“Ok, ok. Lemme pull off for a minute.” Arlene pulled off at Dwayne’s Gas-N-Go, a tiny gas station/bait shop/gun store/used tractor lot. She jostled the bus into the tiny gravel parking lot on the far side of the tractors, and slid into one of the spaces up the hill a little from the two lane highway.

“Look, I’m just a little freaked right now. I know you wanna talk, but I need a beer. I gotta calm down, ya know. I’ll just be a minute.” She slid out of the drivers seat not looking at me.

In a couple minutes she was back with a 12 pack of something I got sick on in high school. She downed the first beer and reached for the second.

With half of it down she began to slow down. “Ok, ok. I can listen now.”

I began writing.

“Guide?”

“He didn’t say exactly, who the witness was, but it sounded like he knew who he was, so maybe a local? I guess. And was a couple towns down river.” She motioned back the way we’d come.

The doppler whoop of a siren stunned us both into silence. A sheriff car and a sheriff SUV zipped by lights and sirens pumping.

“Ok now I’m really freaking out. I mean I don’t know for sure those were for you. Or for me. I don’t know why I’m so stressed out, I don’t really have much on board and I have a permit for the weed. I have glaucoma you know.”

‘Hey’, I barked.

“What? I’m just sayin’. I’m just nervous is all. Out protesting you come into contact with law enforcement from time to time, and most of them are good people just doing their jobs, but every once in a while... and this guy was one of those. He was just too interested in me, being interested.” The partially empty beer can shook in her hand.

I wrote again.

“Go downriver? Find guide? Really, why don’t we just dig our way to hell now? You really like the heat. You sure you wouldn’t just rather lay low for a day or two?” She took a deep breath, looked me in the eye and nodded as if I’d said something brilliant. “Ok. Let’s do this. Just let me drop something off first.” She poured the rest of her beer down the drain. Popped a breath mint, opened a tin on the counter and took out a grocery bag with another bag inside, she wrapped it tightly and got out of the RV and stuffed it under the hood of the nearby tractor. “Gonna make some farm hand very happy.”

I wrote ‘J&R Guides’.

“Alright, we’ll go see about this witness. You are my eyes and ears pup. I... I’m sorry do you want me to call you your real name?” she asked.

I felt Apoc’s gaze. He was watching me. I wrote.

“She’s dead? You’re new, huh. Ok well, I can’t just call you ‘Hey you.’ How ’bout Blossom?”

I nodded.

“Blossom. It’s a beautiful name dear. It suits you.”

She shut the door and fired up the RV. She got back on the road and headed in the opposite direction we were going back through town.

I sat down in front of the chair, barely able to see over the dash. I felt Apoc beside me. He sat and watched out the window. Not crowding me, just close enough that his fur on his legs tickled mine.

The trip through town was uneventful. Arlene glanced continually at her speed, making sure that she was right on the money. Before long she was looking in her side mirrors at the growing train behind her. Just then someone passed on the double yellows on the left. Then it seemed they were all doing it. Everyone hurrying to be somewhere else.

Arlene breathed a little easier once she left the little town and was speeding back up when the sheriff’s SUV pulled in behind her mini-bus, turned on it’s lights and pulled her over.