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Jo giggled.
“Yes thank you.” She stood up saying goodbye to Nick. She was drenched in sweat and wanted a shower.
Her run had put her in a better frame of mind. She had looked at her and Wes’ fledgling relationship from his point of view. They were not committed to each other. They’d had a fun couple of dates. Maybe he had a few girls that he hooked up with on occasion. She had thought that perhaps they had been headed towards something special, something exclusive, but she must have misread his signals.
Jo thought about Jill and wondered if she had been the girl he had been with. For some reason she didn't think so. Wes had said there was nothing between them and she believed him. Even with her rationalizing and analyzing, Jo still smarted from Wes’ brush off. She knew she had blinders where men were concerned, but he had her totally convinced that he had been just as into her as she was with him. Jo decided she would forget him and focus on finding a job, working on her article and working out. If she stayed busy she wouldn’t think about him. Well she wouldn’t think about him as much as she had been anyway.
Jo still hadn’t heard from Wes and it was now Thursday. She was honestly disappointed that he thought so little of her that he had just dropped her. Maybe he didn’t feel what she had felt on Saturday morning. Maybe all he had wanted was a little sugar, as her mom would say, and now that he’d been intimate with her he was moving on. It made Jo depressed that she had misinterpreted him so completely. She was suddenly very glad she hadn’t had sex with him.
Jo had been making some headway on her article. She’d had a few people that she’d contacted actually admitted that the plans for the housing units had gotten their zoning ordinances faster than usual. No one was willing to go on record though. She still hadn’t gotten the investor list in the mail yet.
One afternoon Jo drove past the work site surveying the area and personnel when she spotted the man that had slipped her the original note. She quickly pulled her car over and waited for an hour until work had ended for the day.
Jo followed the small truck the man was driving and when it pulled up outside of a bar in the next town Jo parked and hurried in after him. She entered the dimly lit bar and stood off to the side for a few seconds, watching as he ordered a beer at the bar. Jo walked up to him and laid a ten on the wooden bar telling the bartender his drink was on her. The tee shirt clad man turned to look at her and Jo could see he was shocked.
The man looked around nervously before looking back at her.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” He spat out in a hard but hushed voice.
“I need to talk to you.” Jo said calmly.
“Not here. You’re going to get me fired, or worse.”
“When then?” Jo was like a dog with a bone when it came to a lead.
A group of similarly dressed men walked though the door sending the brilliant late afternoon sun slicing through the grungy bar.
The man moved quickly away from her and she knew she shouldn’t follow him. The men that walked in eyed her suspiciously. One of the larger men began to approach her so she quickly turned and walked out the front door. She was pissed, she needed to talk to the guy, he was her best chance at getting answers, but she didn’t want to get him fired, she needed to talk to him.
Jo heard the door open behind her and a male voice yelled out to her. “You need to mind your own business BJ Ross.”
Jo didn’t turn around, but continued walking to her car. When she was safely inside she saw that who ever had followed her out had gone back inside. Jo dug out a paper and pen from her purse and jotted her cell number on it. She quickly left her car and stuck the note into the crack of the drivers side window. She had folded it so that it would not be seen easily, except by the driver.
Satisfied that she may have made contact with the source, Jo headed home. She was so amped up and she knew she needed to run off her excessive energy. After changing into her shorts, tee shirt and grabbing her iPhone Jo knocked on Nick's door. He wasn’t home yet; she didn’t think he would be. It was only 5:30pm and Nick didn’t often get home until after 7:00pm. She decided to text him in case he tried to catch up to her.
Nick doing the Park route hope you had a good day!
Jo plugged into her iPhone tapped the start button on her Strava App as she jogged down her street. By the time Jo had reached the park she was dripping with sweat. There were more people out than the last time she was there, but as she headed onto the Park’s rougher uphill trails the people thinned out considerably. There were posted signs that the Park closed at dusk, but Jo figured since it was mid summer that she had a good two hours of daylight left.
As usual when Jo ran she cleared her head. She had made a mental list of things she needed to research for her investigation, her weekly household chores were already done, she wanted to check out a new website for musicians that she’d heard about hoping to get a lead on a new gig. Then Jo’s mind returned to Wes. She really missed him. In their short time together he had become a friend. It was still difficult to think about him without aching, His handsome face, his kisses, and the way he could make her body come alive, was all secondary compared to how much she truly missed his calls, his texts, and his company.
Jo pounded her frustration out on the dirt trail. When she came to the footbridge she was completely lost in thought, so when a heavy body knocked into her from behind she was stunned and totally unprepared. The attack was so swift that she had no time to react and she barreled head first over the small railroad tie perimeter. As she tumbled over the wooden bridge with no sides she screamed and tried unsuccessfully to right herself, her arms were flailing as she dropped the six feet into the running water below. Her head grazed a large rock jutting from the creek and Jo’s world went black.
Chapter 15
Jo
Someone was hovering over her and she was really, really cold and wet. An elderly man was shaking her shoulders frantically.
“Miss, Miss wake up. You gotta wake up I can’t move you from the water.”
She tried to focus, something was obscuring her vision and she hurt, badly. Slowly what had happened returned to her and she tried to move towards the bank, but she couldn't.
“Oh thank God. Missy you gotta get out of the water, your lips are blue.”
Jo tried to push away from the cold water, but realized her hands were numb from being in the chilly water, because she couldn’t feel her fingers. When she tried to move her frigid body she groaned in pain and the elderly man became even more anxious.
“I called the police. They’re on their way, but you’re freezing.” Jo could see that it was almost dark out, but she just couldn’t get her body to move. A four-wheeled ATV rattled over the wooden bridge and pulled to a stop on the trail just above where she lay. A Park Ranger hopped out carrying a med bag, which he dropped on the trail.
