Authors: Jackie Zack
A Chance Mistake (4 page)
He hurried back to her. “Quick, is that your house? We need to get you inside behind a locked door. I don’t know what those guys are up to.”
She turned a mournful expression his way and lifted up to a seated position. Her forehead wrinkled and her frown deepened. “Watch out for the goat. He butted me.” She rubbed a spot above her knee. “If you can catch the wretched thing, I’ll make some stew.”
“Really?” He grasped her hand to help her.
“No.” She leaned on his arm. “Sorry. I can’t put much weight on my right foot.”
“Pretty bad, huh?” He studied the road. The two cyclists wouldn’t turn around, would they? He checked the other problem of the goat. It still munched on grass.
She nodded and pressed her lips together. Tears formed in her eyes. “Hurts like blazes.”
“I’ll help you.”
“You’re being followed? Who—why?” She leaned heavily upon him as they walked to her door.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they aren’t. But doesn’t it seem weird that two guys from the plane would follow me down this road? It’s too much a coincidence. Don’t you think?”
“That is strange.” She puffed with the exertion. “Do you think they singled you out? They must think you ‘ave a lot of money.”
If they’d followed him when he exchanged money, they’d have to know he had a hefty amount. At the time, he’d put the bills in his wallet, but they couldn’t have known he’d stashed the majority of it in a money belt snug under the waistband of his pants, covered by another belt. No one was in the bathroom when he’d made the switch.
“I suppose.” He didn’t suppose. He had no idea. But why would the two spend money on plane tickets? “The whole thing is odd.”
“They must know that you’re a celebrity. Hoping for ransom, I bet.”
“Huh. Some celebrity
.
”
“You don’t agree—”
“No.” Kory shook his head with half a laugh.
He helped her up the steps, but she ended up putting too much weight on her sore ankle. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn’t make a sound. If only his legs weren’t shaky from the ride, he would’ve picked her up and carried her in. As it was, he didn’t want to risk dropping her.
She brushed her cheeks with a lavender sleeve, opened the door, and offered him a slight smile. “Welcome.”
Griff dashed into the house.
“Thanks. Uh. Let’s get you to a chair or couch.”
“Right over there.” She pointed down a short hall. “One of the chairs.”
He helped her the rest of the way, and she sat on a caramel-colored, wingback chair. Griff paced by her chair, keeping an eye on him. Kory slipped off his backpack, letting it drop to the floor then grabbed a pillow from the couch, put it on a nearby wooden stool, and moved it in front of her. Without thinking he gently picked up her leg, positioning her foot on the pillow.
“Oh, no. I just had a thought.” Dafina’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“Those darrens might come back looking for you, if they don’t see you on the road ahead.”
A sick feeling settled in his stomach. She thought along the same lines as he did. “Darrens?”
“You know, tough guys. Up to no good.”
“Oh.”
“Go move your bike. If they see it—”
“Shoot. You’re right.” He headed to the door. “Be right back.”
“There’s a shed round back. To the right of the ‘ouse.”
“Thanks.”
“Put ‘er in there for now.”
Kory dashed out the door and down the steps, keeping his focus on the road, and psyching himself up for a confrontation. Yeah, he could see how that would go down. Handing over his wallet and losing money. Would they know that he had his ID and vital credit cards elsewhere? He set the bike aright and ran with it toward the back of the house.
The backyard surprised him with colorful flower gardens and a stone house nestled in the back center among hedges and bushes. The shed was off to right next to an old, large tree. He stowed the bike away, momentarily losing all thought as he appreciated unusual, earthen pottery stored on shelves covering one wall.
He snapped back to full attention to his present problem, wondering what his next step could possibly be. He had to head somewhere for the night, but first he wanted to make sure the platinum princess was okay.
If they tried to hurt her, he’d likely fight them to the death. His death, of course. He’d at least try to do them some damage, so the cops would know the men were in a fight—and were at least guilty of something. He hurried back inside the house, closed the door and locked it.
A few quick strides took him to the living room. If she had another entrance to the house, he should make sure it was secure. He hadn’t noticed another door, but he’d only seen the one part of side yard. It could’ve easily been hidden by shrubs. “Do you have a back door? Is it locked?”
“It’s locked, but you can check it. Through the kitchen, there.” She pointed.
Kory headed the direction Dafina pointed and stepped through an open doorway into the kitchen. He about jumped out of his shoes at the sight of a rotund man sitting at the table reading a newspaper. The skin on the back of the man’s neck was an odd tan color with gray and black spots. A hat covered his head and gloves hid his hands. A plaid shirt was stuffed into his dark blue pants.
“Don’t worry about Pops.” Dafina’s voice drifted from the other room.
“It looks like it’s too late to worry about him,” he said under his breath.
“He
is
getting a bit moldy.”
“Oh, you heard me?”
“Yes. Doesn’t he look real?”
“Um…yeah. Thanks for warning me. I about peed my pants.”
Her laughter cheered him, making the grotesque discovery of Pops a lot more tolerable. She’d concocted the dummy out of men’s clothes and some sort of gourd for the head. He spied the steps heading down to the back door and hurried down them. Trying the door knob, he was satisfied it was locked. A flight of stairs headed down into the darkness of a basement. A spot of light from the door’s window revealed at patch of the dirt and gravel floor down below. Nope, not checking that out. He stopped and listened. No groaning or clawing sounds. That was a plus.
Returning to the kitchen, a sweet smell of something baking made his stomach rumble. He was starving and dying of thirst, but no time for that.
He made his way into the living room and sat in a chair closest to her.
“The back door is locked?” she asked.
“Yes. Safe and sound.”
His eyes had adjusted from the brightness outside and he could see a little more clearly in the darkened room. Her decorating scheme had him at a loss. Pink walls for a living room? The threadbare carpeting was tan. The chair he sat in was striped like a candy cane and equally as worn. A yellow and green afghan folded on the seat and draped across the back was hot and itchy through his clothes. Everything was mismatched, yet arranged in a somewhat pleasing manner.
A picture of an angel with a sword faced him from the wall if he dared complain. One wrong move and Kory would get sliced. Above the burgundy couch was an arrangement of old plates. One had a red dragon designed like the flag of Wales. A heavy wooden bookcase housed on another wall held a variety of splashy colored books.
He felt like he’d been dropped into a bag of pink cotton candy with an array of bright candy spilled in with him. He glanced back in her direction. Her eyes were closed and her lips pressed tight.
“Can I get you anything? A drink and something—like aspirin? Do you have ice?” He moved out of the chair and onto his knees to look at her ankle.
She’d kicked off her sandals. He moved her jeans on her right leg to slightly above the wrenched area. “Your ankle doesn’t look too swollen. Can you move your foot?”
She didn’t answer, but moved her foot around in a circle.
“That’s good. But it’s still a bad sprain and starting to bruise. I’ll get some ice.”
“Thanks.” She opened one eye. “And there’s pain medicine in the pantry by the sink.”
He found a kitchen towel and put several ice cubes from the freezer into it and folded it as he headed back to the living room. Her eyes were still closed, the spot between her eyebrows was creased.
“Here’s the ice.” He placed the cold bundle on her ankle. “It should help.” He turned to head toward the kitchen. “Do you need more for where the goat…?”
She placed a hand on a spot above her right knee. “No…no. It should be fine.”
“I’ll get you some anyway.”
In the kitchen, he repeated the process, only this time putting the ice in a plastic bag. He filled a glass with water, found aspirin in the pantry, and took the whole lot to her.
Aquamarine eyes blinked open. “Thanks. My goodness. It’s a good thing you ‘appened along.”
“Yes. It is.” He handed her the water and bottle of pills, then carefully positioned the bag on her leg. “Also good that you happened to live here on this road. There should be a village close by?”
She widened her eyes and slowly shook her head.
“I—I’ll be heading back to town then.”
She placed a white pill on her tongue and took a drink then set the glass on the table to her left. His book
The Unseen
nearly burned his eyes out when he saw it there next to her glass. A bookmark held her place about a tenth of the way in.
“Twenty five kilometers is quite a distance back.” She rested her chin on her palm. The next village is a bit further and most of the traveling on a dirt road, but I can’t imagine doing either. The hills are
wicked
.”
Despair clutched his chest and his knees threatened to buckle. He sat in the same candy cane chair as before. She reached over and patted his arm.
“I don’t understand. I thought I followed the map exactly.” He pulled the paper from a pocket.
“I would take you either place in the car, but my ankle—” She moved it and winced.
“I’ll just have to head back.”
“But what about the men following you?”
This can’t be happening.
He placed a hand on his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. “No matter. It’ probably nothing.” It’s what he deserved for writing such a horrific mess. Why had he listened to Ed? How sublime to see the reason for his demise before it happened.
A thought like a distant light broke through. God didn’t work like that. Some authors loved to do that to their characters in books, but not God—the author and creator of all. Even if Kory did meet his end soon, it wasn’t punishment for writing a crappy book that had sections he’d never in his right mind write.
God forgive me.
“Well, I—” He stood to leave.
“Wait. Don’t leave yet. Have something to eat and drink—‘ave a look out the window to see if those fellows pass by again. Doesn’t ‘urt to be careful, I always say.”
“Do you have bread in the oven? It smells wonderful.” His stomach rumbled again. Had to be loud enough for her to hear it.
“I’m sure they’re ready. Tea cakes, they are. Could you take them out for me? Sure hope they aren’t burned.”
He took a step toward the kitchen.
“Poke ‘round in the freezer. There’s meat and vegetables in a container. You can warm it up in the popty ping.”
“Popty ping?”
“Microwave.”
“Ah.” Clever.
He headed toward the sink and filled a glass of water, downing it in no time flat. Then drank another at a slower pace, but set it down to get the cakes out of the oven. The potholders were right next to the oven. He grabbed them and took out a cookie sheet. The cakes looked like biscuits. Uh—yeah. Just like pudding was cake and biscuits were cookies. One could never be sure what he’d get.
He set the hot metal sheet on the stovetop, then stepped over to the freezer and surveyed the contents. Man, oh man, he was starved. Then he saw a clear plastic container with what looked like a huge hunks of cooked roast with potatoes, and cabbage.
“Is this the one?” He held the container in the hallway for her to see. He could only hope.
“Yes. That’s it. You can eat all of it.”
“Thanks. It isn’t goat meat, is it?” He stepped in the hall to see her expression.
She laughed. “No. It’s a beef roast.”
He popped the container in the pippity pot, or whatever she said, and set it for defrost. When he turned, he got a better look at Pops. How crazy was it to have a fake, fat man sitting at her table with mold eating away at the face? What did he know about her? She worked at a bookstore and liked Agatha Christie. He glanced at the food in the microwave and the movie
Arsenic and Old Lace
came to mind. And how convenient for her to have a dirt floor in the basement.
Dafina hoped her throbbing ankle would stop hurting. Being helpless in a chair wasn’t what she’d counted on. Cupboard doors creaked opened and thumped shut. What was Kory looking for?
He must’ve been looking for a plate. He stepped from the kitchen with a glass of water in one hand and one of her mismatched, everyday plates in the other, stacked full of the teacakes.
“Hope you don’t mind that I—” he said.
“Ah—no. Thank you for taking over. I’m sorry that I’m not the right, proper ‘ostess. It’s killing me that I can’t get ‘round.”
“So,” he smiled, “tell me about you. Why do you have a stuffed man in your kitchen?” His smile broadened, and he held the plate for her to take a cake.
When she took one, he handed her a paper napkin. He set the plate on the table, grabbed a cake for himself, and sat in his chair. She liked to think that it was
his
chair and rather liked the idea of having him around.
“It’s quite the story.” She took a bite of the cake, delighted that they hadn’t burned. She’d guessed the temperature almost perfectly to match the time she’d be waiting for horror cyclist Kory.
“I like stories.” Kory bit down into her baked offering. “Mm. These are great. But go on with,” he motioned, “why you—”
“It’s to keep the neighbor man away. He won’t leave me alone. He thinks that—” She tried to keep a straight face but couldn’t. “He thinks that fat dummy is my ‘usband.” She laughed.
Kory’s mouth opened in what was either surprise or mirth. “Your
husband?
” He chuckled. “But wouldn’t the neighbor wonder why he never moved from the chair?”
“I move ‘im around every once in a while—he’s lazy like the real one—but I keep him close by the windows. When I turn on the kitchen light, Hoover can see a man sitting at the table.” She rolled her eyes. “The scrut.”
“A derogatory description for your neighbor?”
“Oh, it could be my ex-husband, too.”
“So you have a husband and an ex-husband?”
“Goodness, no. Just the ex.” She grit her teeth and tried to will herself to forget him. Why had she been so kind to him?
Love. Drat it all.
“The neighbor, this Hoover guy, bothers you often?”
“Not so much, but he lets the goat loose, knowing the scruffy thing will come ‘ere. Gives him an excuse to come by and collect his property. Ever since I made up Pops, and told ‘im over and over again that I wasn’t interested, he’s let up
some
.”
Kory frowned at the floor. He glanced at her, his pained expression lightened. “That would be difficult to put up with.”
“Aye, especially after…” Why’d she let that slip? No reason to bother him with it. She sighed and tapped her fingernails on the armrest.
Kory chewed a bite of teacake for a while, with a solemn-eyed expression. “After…?”
“Oh, nothing important. Don’t want to get into all that right now.”
“About your ex?”
“You’re pretty smart, ya know. At least with—some things.”
Ah. Puke.
She didn’t know when to shut up.
He smiled for a short second. “Thanks…I think.”
The microwave howled like an air-raid warning. Kory looked at her with a should-I-be-worried expression of troubled eyes and wrinkled forehead.
“Don’t worry. The popty ping is only letting you know about the fry-up.”
He started to say something then paused. She could almost see his thoughts bumping around in his brain.
“The microwave. Your dinner is ready.”
“Right.” He pointed the direction of the kitchen, then headed off.
Griff hopped up into her lap, bumping her sore leg.
Ouch!
She held her breath and then puffed air until the spike of pain lessened. No way could she eat anymore of the teacake.
“Here you go, poppet.” She gave him a piece.
Griff all but smiled and set in on the morsel.
Dafina’s only thought was to help the foreigner, and it was a good thing she did, but should she confide in him? What would he think of her trouble? Would he care enough to help? Maybe.
A guilty notion threatened. She’d planned this all along only to secure his help. No, really she didn’t. Why did her conscience rear its ugly head and make her miserable at the most inopportune times?
Kory grabbed a hot pad and pulled a molten hot plastic container out of the microwave and knocked off the lid. Steam shot out. The aroma made his mouth water, making him realize again how starved he was. But he needed to let it cool off for a few minutes.
To get his mind off the food, he looked out the kitchen window that faced the road. The goat was still out there. It had moved away from the grass and chewed on an orange flower.
Kory assumed that living away from a city only gave one rest and relaxation. Dafina didn’t seem to get much of that, especially today. The way that he’d added to her trouble made him sick. He wouldn’t be surprised if she worried what she was going to do with him. Probably even fretted if she could trust him.
She had enough problems with that Hoover guy. He glanced out the side widow by the table. A murky yellow house peeked out from behind some trees. At least it was a good distance, maybe a thirty yard dash away. Hopefully the Hoover guy was big like Pops. Then at least the distance would take him longer to traverse and give her a heads up that bad stuff was on its way.
A reflected light caught his attention from the road. Two bike riders headed toward the dirt path. He was sure they were the same two guys, but they headed in the same direction as before. That meant that they had to have doubled back the other direction when he was busy with Dafina.
Oh, God, they are after me.
The rest of his prayer evaporated as fear clutched his heart.
The riders slowed and stopped at Dafina’s driveway. The shorter guy motioned as he talked to his buddy. They turned to look toward the drive and the house. Kory stepped to the side of the window by the curtain, still keeping one eye on them.
The two left their bikes by the road and started walking up the drive. The taller one abruptly stopped and stuck his arm to keep the other from proceeding.
“Kory, you okay in there?” Dafina called.
He hurried in a bent over fashion to the hall. “Shsh! The guys are on your drive. The ones following me.” He said the words so softly that he feared she wouldn’t hear them.
“Oh, no. What—”
“Wait.” He headed back to the window.
The two had resumed walking, eyes resolved, jaws set in determination. Suddenly they stopped. Green Laces and Short Guy backed up with bugged out eyes. Then Kory saw the reason. The goat was preparing to charge them, pawing the ground with a hoof. The men turned tail and scurried to their bikes. The goat charged after them all the way to the road then abruptly stopped with legs poised to rush at them again.
In one quick move, the men picked up their bikes, turned them the opposite direction, and headed down the paved road toward civilization. Somehow it did Kory good to see them afraid of the goat. They were ordinary guys not willing to face the nubby-horned confrontation. They didn’t pull out guns or knives, definitely a plus. And they didn’t beat the goat to a pulp with their bare hands. Another gold star for them.
Why did Kory worry about them anyway? The whole thing had to be a coincidence or a misunderstanding. Surely, more than one man on the face of the earth had green shoelaces.
Even so, he would keep an eye out for them. And right now, he felt he had the upper hand. The two didn’t know that he knew they followed him. Plus they had no way to detect his whereabouts with the bike hidden in Dafina’s storage shed. They’d give up and find something else to do.
He picked up his dinner and found a fork from the last drawer he tried. He didn’t want to sit at the table next to Pops.
“Kooorrry.” The whisper sounded like it was right next to him, sending a shiver over his upper body. His name ushered forth from some unknown spirit. “Is everything okay?”
Only Dafina. He headed toward her. Seeing her concerned expression, he realized he should’ve told her right away that the two strangers had been scared off.
“I wish you could’ve seen it. The goat—”
Her eyes brightened then gleamed. “Chased them away, did he?”
“Did he ever! You might consider buying him from…” He didn’t bother finishing his sentence. Her dark look could’ve won superiority over Sundae’s facial expressions of deepest angst. What was it with him that he always had the knack of gleaning cold eyed, frowning faces from the female gender?
Wake up, Kory.
He glanced at her ankle. “Oh yeah, right. You don’t get along with—”
“The mucky beast. You’ve got that right. I never did learn how to get on his good side.” She glanced at the container in his hand. “’Ave a seat.”
He sat next to her in the candy cane chair with the scratchy yarn blanket, half closed his eyes briefly with a prayer, so quickly she wouldn’t notice, then he took a bite. The savory taste of meat made his mouth water all the more. But it was still too hot! He thrashed it back and forth over new parts of his tongue and cheek that hadn’t been burned yet, while taking in a big breath, hoping to cool it down. He glanced at the table by her chair.
The Unseen
glared back at him. Revulsion tightened his gut. He couldn’t let Dafina read it. But first he must keep his focus on putting out the fire in his mouth. He took a gulp of water, tricking himself that his eyes didn’t shed tears.
The heat dissipated. Could he smuggle the book out of her home somehow? Why did the thought of her reading it bother him so much? He stirred the food in an effort to cool it.
“Taste okay?” she asked.
“It’s great—just letting it cool.”
She smiled with half-lidded eyes and must’ve caught his glance toward the novel. She patted it. “Hey, I’m enjoying the book so far, and I haven’t run into any butler yet.”
“Oh, yeah, that—”
“Is there a butler?”
He rolled his eyes to the left and thought. A creative answer, where was it?
“I take it by your silence that you aren’t going to tell me.”
Sure that his grin turned sheepish, he gave no explanation. He took a bite of the roasted beef. The dinner had to be planned by heaven. The flavorful juices brought his appetite back to full life. He chewed and swallowed.
“Dafina, I…” How could he put it into words? Here he was a writer, yet fumbled with communication. “My gut…”
Her glance swept to his belly which didn’t help matters. Not that he had any accumulation of fat there. If anything her eyes showed appreciation.
He continued, “feeling is that it pains me…”
Her eyebrows lifted in questioning doubt, a smirk playing with her lips.
“…for you to have all that bad gunk stuck in your mind. Once you read something it can stay with you forever.”
“I’ve read books that I can’t remember a thing. Not a character’s name, any sort of scene or plot. Just gone.”
“True.”
So true.
How could he say what he wanted without sounding the egotistical clod? “But thing is,” he squinted from inner pain, “that we’ve met, and you might attach some sort of emotion to the book, so you’d remember. How about reading one of my other books instead?”
Anything
, but that one. He’d have to sneak it out or at least carefully rip out some sections. Maybe she wouldn’t notice if he could get the pages out clean enough.
“Oh, you worry too much.” She waved a delicate hand through the air. “I’m
not
a child.”
He stared. How old was she? Time or age didn’t seem to have a hold on her.
“I’m twenty-seven.” Her eyes regarded him. “Old enough, wouldn’t you say.”
“Quite.” He glanced away from her piercing expression and landed on the angel with the sword. His immediate response came in the form of squirming in his chair. Absentmindedly he placed a forkful of cabbage and potato in his mouth. Wonderful in its simplicity.
Simplicity. Wasn’t that what was missing in his life and what he really needed?
“Now then…” she said.
He returned his gaze toward her.
What?
A piece of cabbage slipped out of his mouth and plopped into the plastic container.
“I don’t think you’ll have enough time to make it to the next village or back to town.”
“Doesn’t matter. I can ride the bike all night if I have to.” His one foot took off and almost kicked him in the calf. Not only did his legs complain, but his heart did as well. He was bushed.
“With those darrens out there?” She shook her head. “I don’t think so. How could I live with my conscience? I have a guest room that—”
“That’s so kind of you, but I can’t bother y—”
“It’s no problem, really.” Her eyes pleaded. She slipped her foot off the stool and wiggled her body out of the chair.