As the Wicked Watch(90)

I started to gather up my things to get out of the car. “Okay, Joe, thanks for calling. Let me get inside my apartment. I need a reset.”

“All right,” he said. “Good night.”

My hands full, I got out of the car, struggling to carry the food, my gym bag, and my extra-large tote at once. I could use another hand or could just make another trip, which wasn’t going to happen. My thighs couldn’t handle the burn.

The release from my workout, however brief, and my thirty seconds of Zen on the drive home were long gone. Right now all I want to do is eat my salad under the covers and be done with it. And as crazy as this day has been, some things never change. The light near the access door was still broke, only now instead of flickering, it was completely out.

Damnit, how hard is it to fix a lightbulb?

I pulled a pen with a flashlight at the tip that I picked up at the dentist’s office out of the tote and used it to help illuminate my path. Who knew it would come in handy? Steps from the heavy steel door, I heard a man’s voice.

“So you’re still not married, Jordan?”

I looked around. “Excuse me?”

Gil from the radio morning show had razzed me about my marital status during my appearance. “Gil?” I turned around. “Is that . . .”

I felt an explosion of pain in the middle of my forehead, then another to the back of my skull. I spun around and fell backward. My head hit the pavement so hard it bounced off the concrete.

“You fucked up, bitch! You fucked up!”

The fall knocked the wind out of me. I couldn’t even scream. I was disoriented, and what little I could make out in the darkness was blurred. Before I could recover, the force of his fist struck me hard across my right cheek.

Dear God! What is happening? Help!

There was another blow to my forehead. He was saying something, but I couldn’t make it out. The next thing I felt was his body on top of me. He was yelling, crushing me, cutting off the little bit of air that remained in my lungs. I felt something warm running down my nose and mouth. Everything was moving in slow motion but rapidly at the same time. I could feel his warm breath on my face as he continued to shout words I couldn’t make out. But I could feel his rage. He closed his hands around my neck and pressed down. I would’ve fought him if I could, but I was overpowered, gasping for air. For the first time in my life, I thought This is it. This is how I die. And the world went dark.





14




I woke up in an ambulance, awash in a blinding antiseptic light, a siren screaming and bouncing around my skull like a banshee straight out of hell. A blurry, muffled figure hovered above. “You’re going to be okay.”

But I was unable to respond. All I could see, feel, and smell were the moments following the initial blow. Hot breath on my skin. Hands as rough as sandpaper around my throat. A crushing weight on top of me, stunting my breathing, and that smell. Industrial, oily, like an accelerant. I gasped for air. If my arms hadn’t been strapped to my sides, I would have reached up and touched my face, felt my own breath against my skin to remind myself that I was still alive. My reliving it was broken only by the calming words “Ms. Manning, you’re safe now.”

A man with dark hair and glasses came into focus. He was wearing a navy blue collared shirt, and there was a patch on his sleeve with the American flag and the four-star Chicago flag crisscrossing a flame or a snake. I couldn’t tell which. I tried to lift my head, but a bolt of pain shot through the base of my skull and out through my forehead.

All I could hear was my attacker’s assertion: You fucked up. You fucked up. My thoughts were dizzying.

Who called the ambulance? It must have been Bass. I bet he’s freaking out right now.

My brain fog lifted, and the day’s events replayed like a sizzle reel. Yvonne confronted Manny. Manny beat up Terrence. Manny’s been violent before. The only two people who would have thought I’d fucked up were Manny and Terrence. But I’d never even met Terrence. What did Manny tell him?

My next recollection was the jarring motion as the gurney was pulled out of the ambulance and rolled through sliding glass doors, then parked in the hallway up against a wall.

Where’s my phone?

I felt around the gurney to see if someone had left it by my side. I was in too much pain to sit up and look.

Did the assailant take my phone? Was I robbed? But why would a mugger say that I fucked up?

It was cold and much, much too bright in the hallway. My adrenaline was on a sliding scale, fluctuating between extreme highs and lows. I closed my eyes, and all I could see was red behind my eyelids. I tried to turn my head, but it felt like an hourglass, heavier with sand on one side than the other. After a few minutes, someone wheeled me into an emergency room cubicle and sealed me in with a closed curtain.

Moments later, the curtain was whisked away and a woman with short blond hair and a voice so buttery smooth, I wondered whether she’d ever done voice-over work, walked in and got right in my face. “Jor-dan. Jordan Manning,” she said, speaking loudly. “Is that your name?”

I nodded and pulled down the oxygen mask as she asked me what seemed like a never-ending series of questions. What year is it? Where do you work? What city are you in?

I was sore, but my cognition returned rapidly and so did my need-to-knows. “Can I speak to one of the officers who was at the scene?”