'Til Grits Do Us Part (23 page)

“You coward!” I hollered, scrambling up off the asphalt and tearing off my high heels. “Get back here!” I waved at the woman running toward me in the parking lot. “Help me, will you?”

And I tore off after him in stocking feet.

“He got away! I can't believe it.” Meg bent over next to me in the parking lot, gasping for breath. “You okay, Shiloh?” Her chunky earrings jingled, hair pulled back in a surprisingly chic twist.

I leaned back against the side of my Honda to catch my breath, unable to juxtapose the images that made no sense—my scattered heels, the dingy shadows of the parking lot, and Meg's face. In Waynesboro, Virginia. Black dots swam behind my eyes.

“Hey. You're not going to faint, are you?” Meg shook my shoulder lightly.

“No. I'm okay. I'm just…mad. The guy got my purse.” I brushed myself off, unspeakably glad I did stories with Meg and not Chastity—who'd have left me there to get knifed.

“What happened, Jacobs? Who was that guy?”

I glanced back over my shoulder in the direction my assailant had gone. “I have no idea.” I spun back around to face her, my teeth chattering in the late-night cool. “What are you still doing here? I thought you left ages ago.”

“Are you kidding? That school board guy with the keys locked me in. I told him I needed to use the bathroom, but apparently he forgot. I'd have been stuck in that school building all night if I hadn't hollered.” Meg's lip curled in a scowl. “Sexist jerk. He brought coffee to the TV guys, but me? I had to remind him three times I'm a
Leader
photographer!”

“Where'd he go? He didn't do it, did he?”

“The school board fellow? No. He left when I did.” Meg hooked a thumb toward the parking lot exit. “But listen—we've got to get you out of here—now. In case that masked bandit comes back.”

Before we could move, bright headlights cut the darkness, and the familiar rumble of Adam's pickup echoed against the long brick school building and barren asphalt.

Meg ran up to his truck, dragging me along by the arm, and stuck her head up to the window while he rolled it down. “Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes,” she said, shoving me in his direction. “Quick! Get her out of here before something else happens. It's not like I carry Cooter's machete to city council meetings, although I might have to start.”

“Sorry?” Adam's eyes bounced from Meg to me, widening at the sight of my rumpled sweater and messed-up hair. “You okay, Shiloh? What happened?” He cut the engine and threw open the truck door, nearly knocking me down as he scrambled out.

“She'll tell you on the way to the police station.” Meg bobbed her eyebrows sternly. “And if I were you, I'd get her car out of here, too, so the creep doesn't track her plate number or something equally evil.” She gave us a push. “Go on. I'll follow you guys to the station.”

Meg waited in her car, engine running, while Adam and I sprinted over to my Honda. I felt around the tires for my keys and tossed them to Adam, and he shoved me into the passenger's side. He jammed the keys into the ignition and squealed out of the parking space.

“It was him, wasn't it?” A vein bulged angrily in Adam's neck. “That guy your mom wrote about in her letters? With the messed-up right hand?”

It took me a second to register Adam's question, and I jerked on my seat belt as he swerved around his truck then gunned the accelerator into the street.

“Could you see his face? Try to remember, Shiloh!” Adam reached over with a shaky hand and pressed it to my cheek.

The knife. The ski mask. I blinked, snatching bits of stress-seared images from the recesses of my brain.

“I felt hair under the mask.” I swallowed, trying to conjure some moisture into my parched mouth.

“You're sure?”

“Yes.” I hung onto the armrest as Adam turned sharply at the intersection. “When I reached for the mask, I felt bulk at the top, like hair. I don't know how much, but the stretchy material didn't slide like it would on a perfectly smooth surface.”

“Did he wear glasses?”

I considered this. “No. I hit him in the face, so I would have felt them.”

“How about his hand or wrist? Was it weak or twisted or…?”

“Not at all.” I closed my eyes and replayed the scene like a slow-motion movie. “He held the knife under my chin with a strong right hand. Perfect dexterity. I couldn't pry his fingers off.”

“I can't believe the jerk took my purse,” I mumbled, standing at the counter at the Waynesboro police station while Adam's warm hand nursed the back of my neck. I'd tried to put my hair back in place in the dingy bathroom, but brown chunks still hung out of my impromptu ponytail, strands sticking up.

“Your purse? I'm just glad you're okay.” Adam kissed the top of my head. “But I'm sorry he got your ID and money.”

“My debit card. Driver's license. Wallet. All that stuff. Yep.” I shook my head in disgust as I scrawled in my phone and license plate numbers, thinking thoughts toward my assailant that would have had me arrested if the deputy on duty could hear them.

“You sure you called all of them to stop any withdrawals?”

“Meg did on her cell phone before she left. I don't have that many cards, you know.” I raised an eyebrow. “Me being the consummate nonspender these days.” I rubbed a hand across tired eyes, trying not to smudge my mascara. “And the consummate queen of confusion. I have no idea if this guy is linked to the roses or Mom's letters or what. Nothing makes any sense!”

“But you've told the police everything.”

“Every detail.” I blew out my breath. “I've already given them all the florist's cards, too. Mom's letters.”

I caught my breath, remembering Shane Pendergrass the cop—the one who'd sent me roses last year. Who practically WAS the Staunton Police Department. Everybody knew him and loved him. The Pendergrass family held a swanky, low-slung power over most of the police force—like a friendly Mafia of grouse-hunting hillbillies. Just sophisticated enough to make the local girls swoon.

“On second thought,” I said, “I probably should've made the report somewhere else.”

I looked up as the officer on duty came toward us with a sheet of paper. “Believe me, I never thought I'd get mugged in Virginia,” I muttered to Adam. “And this makes the second time—that fiasco at the Civil War battle reenactment being the first. New York's looking less and less dangerous every day, you know that? Maybe we should move back to that cold-water flat I shared with Mom where the woman upstairs stabbed her husband to death with a frozen sausage.”

“She…she what?” Adam leaned toward me, incredulous.

“She sharpened it to a point while it was soft. Pretty clever, don't you think?”

I looked up as the officer leaned over the counter facing me, pen poised. “So could you please list the contents of your purse, ma'am?” Officer Rodunk, as his nametag read, scratched the back of his freckled neck, tapping the pen impatiently.

“Debit card, wallet, the whole bit.” I crossed my arms, fresh anger making my hands clench. “I told you that already. Plus the new Shiseido lipstick and blush Kyoko sent me—from their premium line.” I paused. “The purse is a Kate Spade original, in a limited-edition pink—if that means anything to you. I probably sank more money into that thing than I make now per year.”

He raised an eyebrow and shifted his position. “Anything else in the purse?”

“A pecan pie.”

He glanced up. “A…pie?”

“Right. You know. One of those little gas station snacks.” I gestured with my hands. “The little pecan pies in a metal tin. Only this one's about two years old. Maybe more.” I clasped my hands together. “But it's important.”

Officer Rodunk's pen wobbled. “Ooookay.” He tipped an eyebrow. “Um…anything else?”

“A glow-in-the-dark jellyfish. Plastic.” I wiggled my fingers. “With little sucker tentacles. The kind you can throw against walls and they stick.”

This time even Adam's eyebrows shot up. Officer Rodunk tapped his pen again, not writing anything down.

“Kyoko sent it, Adam!” I put my hands up. “Do you want the contents of my purse or not, officer?”

“What else?” His voice turned sour.

“A package of gummy shrunken heads, a dangly Japanese cell phone strap with a cartoon character made of blue cheese, and a wind-up plastic sushi toy.” I thought hard, trying to recollect all the ridiculous stuff Kyoko had sent me. “And…I think that's all.”

“You reckon?” Officer Rodunk glared at me. Over his shoulder a female officer looked at me through angry slits-for-eyes, as if she'd like to leap over the counter and taze me.

“What a waste of our time,” he mumbled. “What are you, a Wilson kid?”

“Sorry?”

“He means the school,” Adam said in low tones, stepping up to the counter. “No, sir. She's not from here originally. And not…not in high school.” The corners of his mouth twitched.

“High school? Excuse me?” My eyes popped.

“Not from here, huh?” Officer Rodunk jotted something on the corner of the form, and I thought I made out the word
Yankee
. “And you claim you got mugged.”

“I
did
get mugged!” I stepped forward indignantly. “He held a knife to my throat, for your information!”

“A knife.” He seemed to hide a smile. “What kind of a knife?”

“How am I supposed to know? A knife!” I spread my hands to show the size. “A sharp one.”

“Oh, a sharp one.” He was mocking me. “You a witness to this alleged mugging with the…um…sharp knife?” He nodded at Adam.

“No, sir. I arrived right after the guy ran off.”

The two officers exchanged knowing glances.

They don't believe me
. I took a step back from the counter, the room contorting into a haze of disbelief.

“No, wait!” Adam protested. “It really happened.”

“Officer Podunk.” I'd just launched into my “I'm an ethical journalist” speech, cold hands clenched in fury, when I realized what I'd just called him. Adam coughed, and the room turned deathly silent. “Rodunk!” I waved my hands. “Rodunk. That's what I meant to say, sir.”

A fly buzzed against the glass of a nearby window while Officer Rodunk turned an ugly shade of pink. His knuckles clenched on the pen.

“Call Meg West, officer,” I tried again. “She saw my assailant.”

“Meg West? The photographer at the paper?” He turned up cold eyes.

“That's her! You know her?” I let out a sigh of relief. “I work at
The Leader
, too.”

“Oh, I know her, all right.” He made another note on the form. “That crazy hippie caught a trailer on fire once burning incense—and I wouldn't trust a word she said.”

Adam walked me to the exit door, holding it open for me. Night air snaked in through the opening, balmy and fragrant with the sweet perfume of daylilies and juniper. I followed, shaking with anger and humiliation.