Not One of Us(33)
He chuckled. “Stop it,” he mimicked in a high-pitched falsetto.
I fought him in earnest then, kicking and squirming. His weight slammed against me, pinning me to the seat. A loud, metallic rip rent the air as he unzipped his jeans. I screamed, and he clamped a hand over my mouth.
I was trapped. I looked out the car window, focusing on a cypress whose limbs swayed in the breeze like beckoning witchy fingers. This was not happening. My mind left me, drifted far, far away. This was a nightmare. I was at home in my cozy pink bedroom with my fluffy comforter wrapped snug around me and the smells of Saturday night’s roast beef dinner drifting upstairs from the kitchen down below.
It would be over soon. I’d find Lisa and hightail it home. I couldn’t tell my parents. If they knew I’d sneaked off to a party and drank and did drugs, they’d be angry. Anger I could handle, but not their disappointment. I didn’t want anyone to know how stupid I’d been. I could hear my classmates snicker about fat Tegan hollering rape. Who would even want her lard ass? they’d say.
No. I’d tuck this memory of Jackson down so deep that it would never hurt me again. Everything that happened tonight would be relegated to a black chasm of oblivion.
Chapter 11
In hindsight, perhaps sending that message hadn’t been a good idea. It had been way too specific.
Stubborn woman went straight to the sheriff’s office. I hadn’t counted on that. Not that the investigators would find anything to incriminate me. But still, the vandalism and its timing provided a link to my past misdeeds—a past I couldn’t allow to surface.
That initial crime necessitated a string of felonies that grew increasingly worse. How much longer did I have to keep paying? I thought after Ray Strickland was convicted, I was home free. But Strickland had put a kink in everything, threatening to expose me. He couldn’t prove anything, and yet I couldn’t risk calling his bluff. I’d anonymously deposited cash into his prison canteen account over the years. Small change, mostly—it wasn’t like he could spend much money on the cigarettes and candy bars sold at the inmate store. But he had bigger plans for the future. He’d plotted revenge, and once he was paroled, he kept tightening the screws, demanding more money, until I had no choice but to pull the trigger.
I turned my attention back to the matter at hand, trying to be optimistic. Maybe the message would work after all. Jori may have reported the threat, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t shaken her. Wouldn’t hurt to cover my bases.
So far, everything was contained.
Strickland’s murder investigation would be hot for a few weeks, and then, as they found nothing to discover the killer’s identity, the trail would grow cold. Other crimes would be committed, and manpower would be split in different directions.
Besides, it wasn’t as though anyone cared about Strickland’s death. He was a parolee convicted of murder. A person to be regarded with, if not fear, then mistrust. The convenient death of his mother left the man with no more ties to the community. No one cared that he’d died. There’d be no political pressure or moral outrage placed on law enforcement to find his killer.
All I had to do was sit tight and wait it out. I was no rookie to that game. Circumstances had been far more nerve-racking for me with the Cormier disappearances.
Meanwhile, I’d wait and watch.
I might like Jori. But that wouldn’t stop me from doing what had to be done. She’d been warned.
Chapter 12
JORI
It was difficult to concentrate on my job when all I could think about was the threat against me. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat at the small table, longing to make my escape. Mayor Hank Rembert finally adjourned the special county commission meeting. I’d answered every last question volleyed at me by the half dozen folks who composed the entertainment subcommittee—no easy feat, considering my thoughts kept circling back to the dead snake left in my closet. But I knew I had to focus as best I could, both for my work’s reputation and for the town who depended on this successful event for the local economy. Enigma’s population doubled from its usual twenty-five hundred during the festival weekend, when the archbishop from Mobile arrived to bless the boats and sailors. Before and after his blessing, there were land and boat parades, arts and crafts vendors, bands, dances, boat and kayaking tours, a race, and a gumbo cook-off. And since this was the South, a beauty pageant to crown a queen and her court.
I’d been selected queen one year in high school. I smiled at the recollection of a happier time before Deacon’s disappearance. Dana and two other runners-up had been part of my court. The duties were fun, consisting only of dressing up in our sashes and tiaras for various town events.
One thing our small town had going for it—we loved to celebrate old traditions. Our intimate connection to this remote land and the surrounding sea bound us together in a way many modern cities and their inhabitants probably didn’t experience.
Even though the local fish processing plant was now our largest employer, nearly half of the town’s population was still made up of small, family-owned shrimpers. They embraced the challenge of netting the daily catch while the sun shone on them from above and the mysterious depths of the sea below tantalized them with its bounty and beauty. The occasional storm was to be expected alongside the peace and majesty of the sparkling vista.