Ten minutes later, I was driving home. But as I approached the turnoff for the Boyers’ house, I decided on a whim to go back to the job site instead. It was a little after four o’clock and I figured I could squeeze in another hour of work before going home.
After dealing with Jennifer and Whitney, I needed a distraction. I was still fuming over our bizarre confrontation and figured it would be better for me to work on something tangible and practical at the job site than to have to face my own four walls in this rotten mood.
I parked the truck in the Boyer’s treelined driveway, grabbed my bag and toolbox, and walked up to the house. The guys had all gone home for the day. I decided to continue Todd’s work of lining up the newly painted balusters for the porch railing. He had dropped everything when I called him to come to Whitney’s house, so the least I could do was pick up where he’d left off. It was easy but time-consuming, a matter of fitting the new decorative baluster into the groove in the bottom railing that the guys had built last week.
The best part of the job was that it was mindless. I had already finished a third of one side of the porch when my cell phone rang.
This time I answered it eagerly. “Dad! Where are you?”
“I’m heading home. Wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“I’m so glad.”
I told him I was still at the Boyers’ house and asked how his fishing trip had gone. We made plans to walk down to the pub for dinner later. After I ended the call, my mood was completely lifted. I would finish this portion of the railing and then pack up and go home.
The sun was just starting to slide below the horizon when I trudged back to my truck to pack up my tools. Despite feeling good about my father’s return, I realized that the earlier confrontation with Jennifer had exhausted me. There was nothing I could do about the woman, so I would have to learn to let go of the frustration and negativity I walked away with every time I had to deal with her.
I turned and gazed out at the horizon and took a moment to appreciate the deep blue ocean and the vivid colors of the crisp fall sky. I could smell leaves burning somewhere nearby. I waited until the last bit of sun disappeared into the ocean before I turned and pulled the tailgate down to slide my toolbox into the truck bed. It took a minute to secure it to the side of the truck and then I slammed the tailgate closed.
The soft snap of a tree branch behind me was my only warning. Something brutally heavy slammed into my temple and everything went bright before it all turned to darkness.
? ? ?
I awoke slowly. My vision was splintered; my head throbbed in pain. I couldn’t quite swim out of the blackness. I had to remind myself to keep breathing, but even the act of sucking in air was difficult. Every little movement was like a power drill boring a hole into the side of my head. I had to ignore the pain, try to revive myself in order to track down whoever had done this to me.
I was wasting precious time while that person was getting away, but I couldn’t be too impatient with myself, since I was incapable of sitting up. I blinked again and realized I couldn’t see. Am I blind now? Oh, my God. I started to panic.
It was a few long seconds before it occurred to me that it had grown dark while I was unconscious. Idiot! I must’ve been hit even harder than I thought. Stretched out on the cold concrete driveway, I moved my head back and forth, looking around, concentrating on my vision, trying to pick out shapes and objects. My truck. A neighbor’s house. The moon rising.
I heard a vehicle approach and tried again to sit up. The bright headlights blinded me and I moaned and rolled over onto my side. I was a mess.
A door slammed and footsteps ran toward me.
“Shannon! You here?”
I’d never been so happy to hear my father’s voice.
“Dad,” I uttered.
“Baby, what are you doing on the ground? What happened?”
I touched the side of my head. “Somebody hit me.”
“Oh, my God. My baby.” He fell onto his knees, pulled me close, and rocked me in his arms. “Who did this? Who was it?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “My head.”
“Hell, I’m hurting you.”
“Not you,” I insisted. “Someone hit me. Not you.”
“I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No.” I couldn’t face answering questions from nurses and doctors and, no doubt, the police. My head pounded, my stomach was iffy, and I was just miserable enough to crave my comfy couch. “Please, Dad, let’s go home.”
He picked me up and carried me in his arms to the Winnebago. By the time I was sitting in the front seat of the huge RV, I was a little more lucid.
“Will you go back and find my purse and car keys, Dad?”
“Sure, honey.” He was gone for less than a minute and came back with my purse. “I locked up your truck. It’ll be fine here overnight.”
“Hey, Dad,” I murmured a minute later. “Do you remember passing any cars on your way here?”
He thought for a moment. “There was one black car driving pretty fast toward the highway. It looked like a little foreign job. Sporty.”
Great. Everyone I knew had a black car. But one of them stood out in my mind more than the others: Jennifer Bailey’s BMW.
I couldn’t think of anyone more likely to want to hurt me than her. And nobody was more capable of murder, in my opinion. But why?
I had to admit, Dad’s little black-car clue was weak at best because didn’t Whitney drive a groovy little black Jaguar? Her parents must’ve bought her that car, I thought, because there is no way Tommy could’ve afforded it on a cop’s salary. And wasn’t Penny’s little Miata black? Or was it blue? Heck, even Lizzie’s SUV was black. So was Mac’s car. And Emily drove a black Mini Cooper. Did anyone in this town drive a car that wasn’t black?
The pounding in my head was getting worse and I couldn’t think straight. There were plenty of people in town who had hated Jerry enough to kill him. And the same went for Wendell Jarvick. But who hated those two men—and me? And which of them drove a black car?
I had been enemies with Whitney most of my life. But if I died, who would fix her water leaks? Who would she call to unclog her toilets? No, I couldn’t believe Whitney would bother trying to kill me. But Jennifer? Definitely.
My head was spinning painfully with clues and possibilities and too many dead ends. As my father drove his unwieldy monstrosity slowly toward town, I finally slipped back into blessed unconsciousness.