I didn’t sleep.
I didn’t just toss and turn. I literally laid there the entire night and didn’t shut my eyes, trying to figure out what to do.
Zip had thrown me. I thought I had mentally prepared myself for any and all scenarios once I left San Diego, but it was clear that I’d been fooling myself. Zip was small time and I knew I could handle him, if needed. But the fact that his presence had so unnerved me told me a lot about my frame of mind.
I knew I couldn’t hide forever and I honestly wasn’t sure what I was hiding from. I didn’t want to go to jail and I didn’t think that I deserved to. Ridding the earth of Keene was anything but a crime. But I knew that there were at least two San Diego police detectives who thought differently.
I’d chosen to run. Not just from the fallout from my actions, but from the memories haunting me. Only problem was, they'd followed me. And now it looked like the rest of what I'd left behind was following me, too.
I was living my life afraid of everyone and everything, unsure of what each day was going to bring.
Right at that moment, it felt like it was going to bring me a heart attack and I didn’t like it.
At some point, I was going to have to face whatever consequences were coming my way for avenging Liz’s death. I guess I was just hoping that I could be the one who chose when and how I faced them.
I finally crawled out of bed with the sun, threw on some clothes and grabbed the bicycle.
The sun was still waking, low and soft on the horizon as I pedaled over the bridge and into Fort Walton proper. The streets were quiet and I pulled up in front of a small coffee shop wedged between an art gallery and a used clothing store. I leaned the bike against the building and went inside.
The aroma of fresh coffee hit me like a crashing wave and I inhaled it, letting it filter into my senses. I bought a small cup at the counter and the kid took my money with one hand while tapping out a text message with the other.
There were only two other customers in the shop. An older gentleman engrossed in the New York Times in a seat next to the front window and a woman at one of the small tables, typing furiously on her laptop. They both ignored me, which was fine by me.
A small, wooden bar ran the length of the wall opposite the counter, two computers sitting idly. I’d found the coffee shop the first week in Fort Walton, needing some access to a computer. I wasn’t interested in putting my name on anything that might make me have to pay a bill at the house, so this was a good alternative. I could use the Internet if I needed and I could check or send email with a relative amount of anonymity. Was it overkill? Maybe. But I wasn’t willing to risk anything else.
I brought up AOL and typed in the user account I’d created and that only Carter knew about. We’d agreed that if we needed to communicate for any reason, this was how we’d do it. And it would only be if it was necessary. So far, it hadn’t been, but there was always a twinge of anticipation when I logged in each week.
The inbox was still empty and I let the breath escape my lungs.
I clicked the tab for a new email, entered in the address that Carter had created and typed “Zip” in the subject line. In the body of the email, I typed:
Zip is here. No clue why. Don’t know what he knows, but not sure how to handle. Any ideas?
I hit send and logged out of the account.
It was the first time I’d communicated with him since I’d been gone and I was surprised at how much it made me miss him. I couldn’t tell him anything about what was going on, hadn’t even signed my name. I was isolated in the truest sense of the word and I didn’t like it. At all. Liz was gone, but Carter was still here.
Just not in the same way he used to be.
I filled the coffee cup again before I left and pedaled back over the bridge, more leisurely this time, one hand on the handlebars, the other holding the coffee. The morning breeze was still cool and it would be the last few moments of the day that wouldn’t be filled with humidity and moisture. The sun was beginning its ascent into the sky, casting long shadows down the highway and the sand was still perfectly manicured when I got to the beach.
A layer of clouds hovered menacingly on the horizon as I unlocked the shed and pulled out the chairs and umbrellas. I only set a few out, unsure of what the weather might hold. Rains could roll in in an instant, drenching everything in sight, and the beach furniture weighed twice as much when it was wet.
Tourists trickled out to the beach as the morning wore on, eyeing the sky as they walked down the wooden ramps to the sand. By noon, I only had five umbrellas rented and the beach was as quiet as I’d seen it in weeks. The clouds darkened and billowed at the edge of the water, casting ominous shadows on the water.
My stomach rumbled, the result of the long night and no breakfast. I locked up the shed so I could find some lunch and headed up the ramp toward the parking lot and the street. There was a deli about a block up that I frequented and a gigantic sandwich sounded good.
I descended the ramp toward the lot and stopped.
Bella was standing next to her car, her back to the passenger door window. I couldn’t see their faces because their backs were to me, but I recognized David and Colin standing in front of her and it looked like they were preventing her from going anywhere.
The frustration from my last conversation with Bella immediately flared and my initial instinct was to turn around, walk back to the beach and find another way to the street to get my sandwich. She’d made the choice to keep from me whatever she was into and I didn’t need any more complications. She didn’t want my help and I had enough to worry about. I was better off by myself.
But then I saw Jackson’s head bob up and peer out of the window from the backseat. His fingers grabbed at the door and his nose pressed lightly against the glass, his eyes filled with fear.
I hopped down the stairs and walked across the lot toward them.
Colin turned around first, his eyes masked by the shades from the other day. He tapped David with the splint that encased the finger I’d broken. David followed his gaze and an amused smile emerged on his face.
“Man, you seem to be everywhere,” he said. “Like fucking Superman or something.”
I looked past him at Bella. “You alright?”
“She’s fine,” Colin snarled, sticking his chest out.
“Last time you spoke to me, I broke one of your fingers,” I said. “Answer for her again and I’ll break the other nine.”
David chuckled as Colin’s chest deflated a fraction.
I looked at Bella again. “You alright?”
The cut beneath her eye had puckered and scabbed over, the dried blood turning a dark red. The bruising around her nose had darkened and the swelling in her lip was gone. None of the defiance I’d seen in her eyes in the restaurant the day before was present. Confusion and fear had replaced it all.
Jackson knocked on the car window behind her and waved at me. I smiled and waved back.
“We were just talking to Bella,” David said, shrugging his shoulders. “Just hanging out.”
I didn’t like that he was so at ease.
I looked at Bella again. “You wanna go have lunch?”
“Yes,” she said, quickly.
“You aren’t invited,” I said to David. “I don’t eat with assholes who beat up women.”
“Man, you are such a…” Colin said before I shoved my elbow in his mouth.
He stumbled back, blood staining his teeth bright red before he could get his hands to them. He looked at his hands, then at me and charged. I held my ground, then stepped to the side, just as he got to me. I caught him around the neck and moved behind him, locking my arm around his throat and pulling hard. He gagged and his hands pulled at my arm.
But I was stronger.
David watched us, again with amusement. “At least he didn’t break your fingers this time.”
Colin tried to respond, but managed only something between a scream and a gag.
“Let him go,” David said.
I turned to him. “Why? Better to beat the shit out of a woman than some asshole like this? Because that’s what you do, right? Send your shit scum to do the work,” I said, tightening my grip around Colin’s thick neck. “Or was it you? Did you do this to Bella?”
David’s only answer was a thin smile.
“Get in the car, Bella,” I said through clenched teeth.
She hurried around the back of the car, fumbling for the door handle. She slid into the driver’s seat.
“Let him go,” David said. “I won’t ask again.”
Colin’s hands pulled at my forearm, pinching and scratching at the skin.
I held on. “Fat chance.”
David reached into the waistband of his shorts and produced a gun, aiming it at us. “I might hit him first, but eventually I’ll get one in you, too, Superman.”
I heard Jackson’s muffled voice in the car and Bella very clearly telling him to get down on the floor of the car.
I yanked hard one more time and then shoved Colin toward David. He stumbled and fell at David’s feet, coughing and gasping, his hands going to his throat.
“Leave her alone,” I said.
David squinted at me. “Seems like I’m the one with the gun and I’m pretty sure in the movies, the guy with the gun is the one telling people what to do.”
“I don’t watch movies.”
David smiled, nodded. “Good one.”
Colin got to his feet, rubbing his neck, adjusting his sunglasses on his bright red face. “Motherfucker.”
Bella started the car and the door lock popped.
David kept the gun on me and walked in my direction. “I can tell you are going to be a problem.”
“Most likely,” I said.
“I hate problems.”
“I hate assholes.”
He laughed again, now right in front of me. He pressed the barrel of the gun to my forehead. “Now who do you hate?”
David’s biggest problem wasn’t me. It was that he didn’t know me. He had no idea what I’d been through, that I’d had plenty of guns stuck in my face, that I’d shared space with guys far scarier.
And he had no idea that I wasn’t afraid to die.
“Still you,” I said. “Because you’re an asshole. An asshole who beats up women. Your buddy, too.”
“Pretty ballsy calling me an asshole,” David said, raising an eyebrow. “Me holding a gun to your skull and all.”
“Pull it,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“Pull the trigger,” I repeated.
“Do it,” Colin urged from behind him.
But he wasn’t going to. I could already see it in David’s eyes. I felt sure he was capable of pulling the trigger, but he was too smart to do it in such a public place.
Which made him even more dangerous.
“You are going to wish you never met me,” he whispered.
“Already do,” I said.
I heard the window slide down behind me.
“David, don’t,” Bella said. “Just don’t. Please.”
His eyes never left me. “You’ll call me later, baby? Finish the discussion?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Noah, get in the car.”
I stood still, leaning into the gun, letting the steel bite into the skin on my forehead.
David slid the gun to the side, then jerked his arm and slammed the weapon into the side of my face.
Colors exploded in my eyes and pain seared through my skull as I dropped to a knee. I heard both Bella and Jackson scream.
The steel crashed into me again and I went down on both knees, the colors brighter, the pain hotter as it spread through my forehead and cheeks. I leaned forward and rested on my hands. Drops of blood fell to the asphalt next to them.
I felt David’s breath on my ear. “Lucky the kid was here. Only reason you’re alive.”
Nausea swept through my stomach and I swallowed hard to keep it at bay, the red droplets near my hand beginning to form a pool.
“See you soon, Noah,” David said, sweeping my arms with his leg.
I hit the ground, my body heavy and I rolled to my side. The black clouds, thick with rain, were the last things I saw before I blacked out.