My Kind Of Crazy (9 page)

“Never mind that, just give me a phone. Actually, could you
just get me to a road?” The man furrows his bushy brows that look black in the
firelight as he rummages around in his pocket. I take the small cellphone from
his large hand and feel my insides twist when I see that there are no bars on
the phone.

“Come on, help me put out the fire and we’ll head back to
town. On the way, you can tell me what happened.” My limbs feel like they’ve
been put through a meat grinder and molded back together, but I manage to throw
enough dirt over the fire to put it out. We set off in the gray of dawn down a
small trail that I would call a deer path, but he seems to know where he’s
going.

Half an hour into the walk, I realize that something is
wrong. We can’t be buried this far into the woods, and there is something oddly
familiar about the sound of this man’s footsteps on the ground. I’m growing
more and more suspicious by the moment, but he’s holding the gun at his side. I’m
afraid to contend with a gun, and I’m also afraid that I might be wrong about
my assumption.

“Could you stop for a second?” I feign fatigue, although
it’s not very hard to fake. My knees wobble and knock together as I fall to the
ground with my head hanging. It has the desired effect because the burly man
kneels down in front of me with his gun laid down on the ground, and he puts
his fingers under my chin to lift up my face so that I can see his eyes.

I let out a very long, held in breath when I see that
they’re not hazel with tendrils of brown. They’re a warm brown with a ring of
darker brown around them, and as soon as the relief floods through me the
fatigue is real. It’s so real that I’m unable to get to my feet, and the man
has to pull me up. He doesn’t go as far as carrying me, thankfully. His burly
arm wraps around my middle as he keeps me upright, and doesn’t say a word when
I stumble over some rocks or sticks on the ground.

Our journey through the woods finally ends when we reach an
expanse of field that is bordered by pavement. The grass scratches at my hand
as we stumble through it, and the man finally helps me into his pickup truck.
It’s beat up, looks unreliable, and makes a horrible gurgling noise when he
tries to start it, but when it finally runs I can’t help but feel that I’m
riding along in a Lamborghini.

“I’m going to take you to the police station in town.” For
the first time since I woke up in the cabin, my entire body relaxes and my eyes
close as the warm air washes over my face from the window. Untrue to his word,
the man has not asked me about what happened, and I feel the need to keep close
lipped about it. If I talk about it, then the entire thing will feel  realer. I
just want to leave it behind like a nightmare that someone forgets as soon as
they wake up.

The sound of people talking actually wakes me up, but I try
to ignore it like a sleepy teenager on a Monday morning. That is until someone
opens up the truck door and my back almost hits the pavement. Burly man’s arms
manage to catch me before I hit the ground, and I come up swinging like a cat
dunked in cold water.

“What the hell was that for?” I screech as I grab onto his
arms at the same time he has mine. A camera goes off in my face, and the
dazzling light show before my eyes impedes my ability to see my surroundings.
But the voices let me know what is happening.

“Ms. D’Salvatore! Can you tell us what happened?” Before I
can embarrass myself by telling the reporter to go to Hell, an officer swings a
jacket over my head and pushes me down as he pulls me through the crowd. I feel
like a criminal being led through a throng of protestors as we attempt to get
up the precinct’s steps.

I’m taken into some type of conference room with cushiony
leather chairs and a mahogany table, and then I’m offered either coffee or
water, but I opt for none. A pretty, female officer with strawberry blonde hair
and strikingly green eyes tells me that an ambulance is on the way to take me
to the hospital. After I’m cared for, they’ll get my statement and start
prosecution. I furrow my brows as I try to understand what she’s saying.

“You mean you caught him?” I ask the young officer. She
gives me a warm smile and pats me on the shoulder as she sits down in a chair
beside me.

“Of course we did! The sucker came wandering out of the
woods like an imbecile right into our hands.” My eyes never leave the tabletop
for the rest of the wait as my brain tries to process the fact that they caught
the man who drugged my dog and took me into the woods. How did they know it was
him?

That question rolls through my mind like an old black and
white movie reel while an EMT helps me into a garage that is closed off from
the hoard of people outside. First he checks my pulse, and then I’m poked and
prodded as they drive me to the hospital, where I’m poked and prodded even
more. I learn that I’ll need stitches in my leg, but otherwise I don’t look too
bad. Now, my smell, on the other hand…

“When can I take a shower?” Getting the dirt, grime, and the
smell of death off of me is my first concern since the police have already
dealt with capturing my kidnapper. The male nurse standing at the end of my 
bed with his dazzling smile and perfectly cropped hair glances up at me with a
crooked smile. If I hadn’t just been kidnapped and interrogated, I might be
interested in that crooked smile.

“Now, if you’d like. I can get a female nurse to help you
down to the shower room.” Within moments of his departure, a woman in her
mid-years with curly, brown hair and doe-like brown eyes helps me from my bed
and ties the back of my gown for me. I hobble down the hall with just one care
in the world, getting to that bathroom to wash myself off.

“The Chief of Police called and said that he will be down to
have you give a positive identification of the criminal.” I could care less
about that, maybe she could get me some shampoo and body wash? When I get into
the bathroom and see the little kit already waiting for me, I feel a little
silly for my snarky inner dialogue.

“Thanks for letting me know. I think I can handle it from
here.”

“I’ll be right outside the door.” The woman pats me on the
shoulder awkwardly and then leaves me alone in the room. It’s not a very large
space, but it reminds me of the shower stalls used at the public pool areas. I
step into one of the stalls, and as soon as the hot water runs down over me I
feel safe.

Out in the woods, I was on the verge of tears, but right
now, deep down inside I feel
angry
. The urge to hit something or someone
is so strong that I have a rough time washing my hair without smarting the lump
on my head. At least I should be thankful that I didn’t get hurt worse, but
mostly I want revenge. My shower is short but gratifying, and the female nurse
helps me back to my room with my wet hair in a braid down my back and a fresh
gown around me.

Two police officers are stationed outside of my room, and
the way they’re standing reminds me of toy soldiers with their right hands
grasping their left wrists as they remain rigid. When I get closer to the door,
the one who is taller than his comrade nods his head once at me, and I can’t
help the quizzical feeling that runs through me. The perpetrator has been
caught, why do I need armed men stationed outside of my room?

This just seems like overkill for someone who was missing
for less than twenty four hours.

“Ms. D’Salvatore, I was wondering when you were going to get
back.” My cheeks flush immediately, but I’m not sure why when the man in his
forties greets me. I hold out a hand to him, and feel silly for standing here
in a hospital gown. He reminds me of cops in television shows with his strong
jaw, a five o’clock shadow on his face, and hard, blue eyes. I immediately feel
intimidated around him, but I’m sure he’s used to people reacting that way to
the fact that he’s wearing a uniform.

“Sorry about that, but a shower sometimes helps to clear my
head.” The female nurse helps me settle into bed with the back raised so that
it makes me look like I’m sitting. I definitely don’t want to be in a lying
down position with company around, especially not the Chief of Police. “Thank
you.” I tell the woman quietly, wondering if she ever told me her name. She
probably did while I was in LaLa land walking down the hallway; perhaps I’ll
have a chance to get it later.

“You’ve been home less than ten days, Ana. Already you’re
getting into worse trouble than when you were a kid.” I roll my eyes at him and
look him up and down from head to toe.

“You’re only about ten years older than me, so I don’t think
you were dealing with my troublesome behavior back then.” I fluff the pillows
behind me and cross my arms over my chest as I lean back. A walk back through
memory lane is not what I need right now.

“You don’t remember me do you?” My lips curl up at the
corners, and I take a long time to study him, but nothing clicks in my mind.

“No, sorry, I don’t.” He takes off his hat and runs a hand
through his thick, dark hair. I might take this as flirtation if I weren’t
lying in a hospital bed with a thin sheet over me.

“I arrested you once for stealing a candy bar at the
grocer’s in town. You were nine.” I squint at him and try to remember the
incident he’s talking about, but nothing really clicks. “You were arrested a
lot when you were nine for stealing candy bars, so I guess I’ll understand if
you don’t remember.” And then it finally clicks when he smiles, and my eyes
widen.

“Oh, you! You put me in the back of the police car and
actually drove me to the precinct, I remember now! Boy was my father pissed
when he had to come pick me up there after he was done his grocery shopping of
course.” We both chuckle at the old memory, and something inside me feels more
at ease in this man’s presence.

“Well, enough reminiscing. I’m going to take a verbal
statement here if you don’t mind. Then when you’re feeling better I’ll get a
signed, written statement from you. I’m going to record this for my own
records.” There’s a manila envelope sitting on an uncomfortable-looking plastic
chair with a small device sitting on top. The Chief picks up the little
recorder and hits the play button with a quirked eyebrow. “Chief Roberts interviewing
the victim in the D’Salvatore kidnapping.” I roll my eyes at the absurdity of
this act, but play along with him as he sits down in the plastic chair. The
interview begins with an amicable air.

“Anastasia D’Salvatore, tell me what you remember from the
beginning.” And so I tell him in a quiet voice the beginning of my journey
through the woods in the fading light with a maniac.

“I was putting away the leftover lasagna when I noticed May
coming back from doing her business in the back yard with something in her
mouth. The poor dog was stumbling by the time she got to the back door, and I
pulled her inside quickly. She lay down under the kitchen table, and I tried to
pull the meat from her mouth, but she refused to let it go.

While I was trying to wrestle the meat from her, someone hit
me over the back of the head pretty hard. I remember flashes of being drug
through the trees, and at some points I was conscious enough to stumble
alongside the man. He was tall, probably over six feet, and he was wearing
camouflage clothing, like a hunter. He also had on a mask, so I couldn’t see
his face.” The Chief raises his hand to halt me.

“Do you remember which direction you were heading?” I lean
back into the pillows and close my eyes as I try to remember. My lips purse
with my agitation, and then I hear the shuffling of some paperwork.

“East, we were heading east. He knocked me over the head
again when I started to struggle, and the next time I woke up I was in a dark
room. There was a dirt floor, and I was tied up with some sort of nylon rope on
my ankles, but the rope around my wrists felt more like polyester. I don’t know
if that’s important, but it’s what I remember.” Chief Roberts nods for me to go
on, and so I do.

“He asked me repeatedly where the tape was. Before you ask,
I have no idea what he was talking about. I told him a fake location in the
house, and he told me that he would cut off my fingers if I was lying. After he
left, I managed to get out of my restraints and broke the tarp over the window.
Then I broke the window and climbed through. I don’t know which way I went. I
just started walking and ran into the man who drove me to the precinct.”

“Do you remember anything else about the man who took you?”
I try to think back, and furrow my brows.

“He had hazel eyes.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because that was the only thing I could see about him in
that cabin, or whatever it was. His eyes were hazel with these shoots of brown
that grew out of the pupils like rays from the sun, and they were surrounded by
the blackest iris ring I’ve ever seen.” The chief purses his lips as he opens
up the manila envelope and studies the picture inside.

“Is this the man who took you?” He flips the picture and
hands it over to me, and my stomach plummets. My left eye starts to twitch
minutely as I stare at the picture of Jonah in my hands, and my heart begins to
pound audibly.

“Jonah Quinton?” I squeak out, staring at his gray-blue
eyes. “No, you have the wrong man. Jonah didn’t take me. He’s h-harmless.”
Reality is starting to set in, and my bladder starts to squeeze. “You don’t
have the man who took me, Chief Robertson.”

“You did this to us! We’re fucking stuck here, and we’re
going to rot in jail if we’re lucky! They’ll probably strap us to a chair and
stick us full of chemicals to stop the breathing, and then stop the heart. You
idiot!” Tom’s ranting has me leaning my forehead against the cool wall of the
cell while the other inmates stare at me with concern. I don’t blame them
because I’m starting to lose my marbles without my medication, and to top it
all off no one will tell me if they found Anastasia or not.

“Shut up, before you get us both thrown into the nut house!”
I can’t help the shout, and feel heat flood the back of my neck all the way to
the top of my head as I realize I said those words out loud. One fist comes up
to rest beside my head on the wall as I crush my eyes closed as if that will
help me block out Tom’s incessant ranting.

“You should have just left so you could spare us all this
trouble! Now we’re
stuck
, Jonah, we’re stuck in this stinking Hell hole
while the cops plot our deaths.” Tom hisses in my ear and I feel the heat of
his breath against my neck. I wish he weren’t so real, and part of me wishes
that I thought he was real so that I was oblivious to my insanity.

“In just two days that broad has ruined our entire lives!
D’Salvatore was right in telling us that she was off limits, never mind about what
I said earlier. Don’t try to get her pants off, Jonah, or we’re going to be in
even deeper than we are now. I have a bad, bad feeling about her!” Leaning
against the wall is not going to get him to go away, so I push off and put my
back to the bricks. Two of the men in with me stare at me warily as I slide
down and put my head in my hands, waiting for something from the officers. The
waiting is the worst part.

Just as Tom is going on about how we’re going to end up in
Hell within the next forty eight hours, I hear the sound of boots clunking down
the concrete hallway and immediately stand up. It’s the Chief of Police with
someone behind him, and I catch a glimpse of her blonde hair framing her pale
face. I don’t need to see anymore to tell that it’s Anastasia D’Salvatore, and
Tom grips the bars next to me as he stares out at her.

“One last time, are you sure this is not the man who
kidnapped you?” Her blue eyes search mine and I let my fingers slide off the
bars as I see the scrape along her jawline. She’s alive, but she’s not
unscathed.

“No, he wasn’t the man who kidnapped me. Now will you
please
get him out of there? He needs his medication and a shower.” Tom lets his head
fall back and laughs raucously with his hands thrown up in the air. I chance a
sidelong glance at him, and Anastasia gives me an understanding nod. The door
to the cell slides open with a hiss, scrape, and then a loud clang as it hits
the end.

“Come on then, Quinton, you’re free for the time being.” I
immediately step out of the cell like the hounds of Hell are on my heels, and
don’t even wait for the Chief or Anastasia to catch up with me. I don’t stop
until I’m standing outside of the precinct in the fresh, afternoon air.

It takes her about five minutes, but Anastasia finally
catches up to me with a bottle of water in one hand and the pill bottle in the
other. Tom is nowhere in sight, but as soon as my high from getting out of jail
wears off he’ll show his ugly face to me again. So I take the pill from
Anastasia without looking at her and down half the bottle of water. In half an
hour,  I’ll feel dizzy and sick because I missed a dose, but I won’t be seeing
Tom.

“The car is around back. I wasn’t sure if the reporters
would still be here.” Anastasia puts a hand on my forearm as she leads me
around the back of the building. I slide into her rental and lean the seat back
so that I don’t have to look out any windows. My arm goes up over my eyes to
block out the light, and as soon as I feel her pull out of the precinct parking
lot I’m asleep.

I wake up to the feel of the gravelly, dirt road underneath
the tires that make the car jostle around. Anastasia pulls the car up to the
front steps of the farmhouse and turns off the ignition. She sits there for a
few seconds staring at the field surrounding the house with her hand still on
the keys in the ignition. She still hasn’t looked over at me yet, so she
doesn’t realize that I’m actually awake. I take advantage of that and watch her
even breathing, and the way that the afternoon sun makes her hair look like
tendrils of gold.

“I called about May before I came to pick you up.” Guilt
floods me, how could I have forgotten about May? I pull my arm away from my
face and use the handle beside the seat to raise it. Her face is turned away
from me now, staring out her own window. She turns enough that I can see the
way her chin wobbles, and my entire body tenses.

“How is she?” The silence that follows tells me that it’s
not going to be a good answer.

“May died. The powder on the meat must have been poisonous,
but they’re not sure what it was yet. The results from the lab are not back.” Through
this entire explanation,  Anastasia’s voice stays solid, yet when she puts her
fingers on the door handle her face turns enough for me to see the tears
brimming in her eyes.

“I’m sorry.” Telling people how much something upsets me is
difficult. It’s as if the emotion grief is foreign to me, but it’s obviously
not foreign to Anastasia. She slips out of the car without another word and
meanders up the steps to the front door.

We shouldn’t stay here tonight.
Tom whispers in the
back of my mind. He’s not normally the one who makes rational decisions, and
yet on this point I have to agree with him.
You’re right. I’ll pack a bag,
and all three of us will stay in town until this mess is all cleared up.
I
feel a stab of pain in my head and lean over in my seat to grip my head between
my hands.

What if she doesn’t want to go? This is a dog eat dog
world, Jonah, and we can’t be responsible for her well-being. You can’t even
keep us out of jail!

“I know!” The sound of my roar shocks me into sitting up and
looking around to make sure that no one heard me.

Before I can have any more embarrassing outbursts, I pull
the door handle of the car open and slip out into the warm afternoon air. The
humidity is high today, and I feel as if I’m wading through a pool as I walk up
the front steps of the D’Salvatore house. All the while, the same question
plays over and over again in the back of my mind:
What if she doesn’t want
to leave?

“Anastasia?” She doesn’t answer me, and I immediately kick
back into survival mode as I creep towards the kitchen. She’s
always
in
the kitchen. “D’Salvatore?” I call out her last name as I used to with her
father, and feel my muscles tense when I hear a clang in the kitchen. When I
finally turn the corner, my heart is pounding in my chest, and my fingers are
twitching as if my body is determining whether I need to make fists or not.

I’m not sure how to comprehend the scene in front of me. The
dish of lasagna is sitting out on the kitchen table with the plastic wrap
pulled half way back, next to it sits a tub of ice cream, and sitting calmly in
one of the chairs like this is all normal is Anastasia. She has a forkful of
lasagna halfway to her mouth when she spots me staring at her, and a blush
graces her cheeks as she puts the lasagna down.

“I eat when I’m upset.” She admits to me, and I struggle for
a response to that. Most people choose one thing to eat when they’re upset, not
the two weirdest things that could ever be eaten at one time. “What?” She asks
with an irritated tone, pointing her fork at the lasagna. “It has all the food
groups in it, and ice cream must always be present at a well-rounded meal!” I
throw my hands up in surrender, and try to figure out how to broach the subject
of leaving this house.

Spit it out!
Tom shouts at me while I sit down at the
table across from Anastasia. Part of me wonders if she should really be eating
anything in this house, considering the police were all through here and the
kidnapper might have had time to leave behind some more poison in the fridge.

“I don’t feel like it’s safe here, at least, not until this
maniac is caught.” Anastasia gives me a haughty look as she pops a piece of lasagna
into her mouth and chews slowly. I see a gleam in her eyes and wonder what she
finds so amusing.

“I thought they already caught the maniac. I practically had
to bail his ass out of jail.” A small grin tugs at her lips and she tilts her
head to the side as if she expects me to come up with something better than
that, but I do my damnedest not to play into the game.

“You haven’t seen crazy yet.” I see her open her mouth in an
attempt to answer me when a noise upstairs has both of us looking up at the
ceiling. Before she can scream, I reach across the table and put a hand to her
lips gently so that she gets the hint. Then I put my finger to my lips and
gently creep out of my chair without a sound. I pull off my boots so that they
don’t make noise.

Against my hushed order to sit back down, Anastasia pulls
off her own sneakers and pads behind me to the bottom of the stairs in her
white socks. We’re both crouched down as if that will actually help us if a
crazy killer is up those steps. I turn around to tell Anastasia to go back to
the kitchen and grab a knife, but her back is already disappearing around the
entranceway. Shaking my head in disbelief that she just ditched me here, I take
the first three steps gently and skip the further, it creaks.

My heart is thudding in my chest as if it’s a beating out
its own drum solo, and sweat has popped out on my forehead by the time I get to
the top of the stairs. I should have told Anastasia to call the police, but it
will take them too long to get here, and the sirens might alert the intruder. I
can only pray that the man, or woman, doesn’t have a gun or some other type of
weapon. Silently cursing my knee jerk reaction to investigating the noise, I
creep down the carpeted hallway towards the scraping noise emitting from Mr.
D’Salvatore’s bedroom.

Something cool taps me on the back of my neck and I almost
jump right out of my skin, but when I turn around it’s only Anastasia with her
cellphone in hand and a knife in the other. She looks as if she’s ready to pee
her pants, but the hand on the knife is as steady as a professional.
This
girl has guts,
Tom whispers in the back of my mind, or maybe that was me.

She pockets the cellphone, and I take her free hand so that
she stays close to me. Even though her other hand is steady on the knife, I
take it from her anyway. She’s never had to kill before, nor have I, but I
think I’m prepared to do it more than she is right now. We inch our way down
the hall and stop whenever the noise recedes, just in case someone comes
bursting from the bedroom.

Outside of the bedroom door, both of us look at the other.
Then I gently ease open the door and pray that it doesn’t squeak, and I don’t
see a thing. Feeling like a complete fool, I turn around to tell Anastasia that
it was nothing when something large, gray, and furry comes barreling out of the
room. The poor animal brushes past my legs while I’m turned around which makes
me roar as I turn around to confront my attacker. Anastasia screams bloody
murder, most likely because I’m screaming. And the poor, oversized raccoon
scrambles down the steps to the first floor where it bangs through the dog door
on the back door.

All the while I’m trying to catch my breath, attempting to
hold in nervous hysteria, and patting Anastasia on the back of the head while
she clings to me like a piece of driftwood in a hurricane. She’s openly sobbing
with panic, and I can feel her entire body trembling against mine as I lean
against the wall. It takes about a minute for her to realize what she’s doing
and pull away from me. I don’t say a word as I bend down to pick up the kitchen
knife and the cellphone that fell out of her jeans pocket.

“I don’t want to stay here anymore!” She throws her hands up
in the air and throws her head back with a scream, and I feel my ears
physically try to move away from the sound. Tom is standing at the end of the
hallway with his arms crossed over his chest and a malevolent look on his face,
and my head is pounding from the adrenaline rush.

“Okay, okay, just clam down. It was just a raccoon.” I reach
out my free hand to pat her on the shoulder, but Anastasia shrinks away from my
touch and puts her forehead to the opposite wall. The way she’s dragging in
deep breaths makes me think that she’s having a panic attack. I know exactly
how she feels.

“It wasn’t a
raccoon
that murdered my father!
”
She sounds like a fog horn as she tries to drag in breath after breath down her
swollen throat, and I’m at a loss how to deal with this. Honesty is always the
best policy, so I cross my arms over my chest with the knife against my side
and puff up to make myself look bigger.

“No, you’re right. It wasn’t a raccoon that killed your
father. But if you don’t
get it together
right now, you’re going to end
up in the psych ward. Believe me, it’s not a pretty place.”
It’s full of
drooling fools just like me,
I think to myself. I see Tom grinning at the
end of the hall and put my thumb and fingers over my eyes, pinching as I try to
get his image to go away.

“
You
wouldn’t understand, he wasn’t
your
father!”
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about punching her in the face for
that one, but I suppose I deserved it a little bit. The knife slips from my
fingers and thuds as it eats through the carpet and buries itself in the
floorboards beneath. My jaw twitches while I try to keep the angry, hate-filled
words from spilling out. My first therapist would have been proud of me in this
moment because I manage to keep all of those words inside.