AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I counted the cross streets down as we approached the Route 50 Bridge. Fourth Street, no cars coming, Third, no cars, Second, a car rolled by just before I reached the intersection. I wove around its rear end and continued straight down the alley.
At First, I hung a sharp right, skidding halfway across the street and barely managing to keep upright. I aimed toward the next street over, but faked them out by taking another alley. They overshot it. While they were backing up and trying to make the turn, I gained distance on them. I cranked the accelerator and took her as fast as I could without wrapping myself around a phone pole. This is insane, but who are those guys?
I came to my senses a few blocks later. I backed her down in time to cruise safely into an area where the street ended in a small park with a promenade running alongside the inlet to the bay. The salty breeze blowing off the water was bracing. The gulls cried. Was it in sympathy or mockery? I stopped the scooter and watched them swooping, listened to their cries. I shrugged. “Oh, fuck you,” I said. I started laughing. Hard. So hard it brought tears.
I could hear boats
on the water, engines pulsating. Then another sound. One I didn’t want to hear. I looked up. The green Chevy. It had pulled into the lot’s entrance, blocking me in. Shit!
My scooter was idling beneath me. I eased it toward the pavement and over the curb. “See if you can follow me now.” I hit the gas and headed down the promenade.
I could hear car doors slamming behind me. The promenade narrowed behind a building into a thin strip of pavement, a railing separating it from a drop-off onto the rocky shoreline of the inlet. I would have appreciated the water view if I hadn’t been so focused on staying upright and maintaining a decent speed.
I emerged from behind the building into the corner of an overflow parking lot with a hodgepodge of retail stores, restaurants, bait shops, and boat supply and maintenance service providers. Then the pavement simply ran out.
The sky had darkened to slate blue. The sunset was a breathtaking explosion of blood-red, orange, and yellow stripes spread above the clouds. I pondered my next move.
A pair of headlights zeroed in on me. One wall-eyed. The green Chevy.
I hurriedly turned the scooter to go back from where I’d come.
The car chirped to a halt. Two people exited. One called, “Wait!” A woman’s voice.
I looked at her. She waved both hands. “Please. Can I just talk to you?”
“What do you want?”
The woman approached. Her companion, a man, perhaps sensing my apprehension, stood by the car.
As she drew near, I saw she was no older than 25 or so. With shoulder-length blonde hair and dark eyes, she didn’t look especially threatening. “Please. Hear me out.”
I took a breath and relaxed my shoulders. “You guys need to get your headlight fixed.”
“Huh?”
I waved a hand. “Never mind. Why have you been following me?”
She reached into her purse. I started to tense up again. “I’m with the press,” she said. She pulled out a wallet and showed me her press pass. I think it was a point of pride. “Barbara Feldman. The Wicomico Weekly Alternative. Ever hear of it?”
“Nope.”
“We provide long-form journalism articles. Behind the scenes and in-depth reporting. The kind of thing that mainstream print and broadcast journalism can’t handle.”
“Uh huh.”
She yammered on for a bit about the importance of a free press and how journalism was turning to shit. I nodded.
When she paused, I said, “So, why were you following me? At three o’clock in the morning?”
“Oh, that. I’m sorry. We were up late, putting the paper to bed and we’d stopped to get a drink or two. We ended up closing the bar. We work evenings, so my cameraman, Clint, and I tend to be night owls. We just happened to notice your car and hoped we could talk to you.”
“You guys must be desperate for a story, because you scared the living crap out of me,” I said.
Barbara’s mouth turned down at the corners. Her eyes gleamed with seemingly genuine remorse. “I’m awfully sorry. It’s just that we’ve tried so many times to reach your client Jamila Williams. She’s not answering the door. Or her phone. We were hoping to get her side of the story about what happened to her brother.”
I peered at the reporter. “Her brother? Jamila doesn’t have a brother. She’s an only child.”
The reporter fell silent for a moment. “You don’t know, do you?”
