The scream that ripped itself out of my throat could’ve been in any good slasher flick. Loud and shocking, even to me, I let it roar from my chest. It seemed to upset him as he turned and rammed his body into the door. Panic seized my throat as I realized that there were so many ways he could get into the stall with me. He could crawl under or even go over. I was fucked.
I watched the lock slipping and threw my body at the door to keep it closed. “What do you want?!”
Shrill laughter rang out and seemed to echo around me. “You! Why do you hide yourself from me? Come out and play!”
I screamed again, hoping to draw someone with a gun closer to us. Then, amazingly, it ended as soon as it started. The force pressing against the door was gone and I heard the door squeak again. I was too scared to move, but it felt like I was alone in the bathroom once again.
Barely ten seconds passed before I heard Hendrix’s voice. He was shouting orders and then he was yelling at me to open the stall door. When I opened it and saw him standing there, I fell into his arms, my emotions getting the better of me. I sobbed into his warm chest as he held me.
“You’re okay. I’ve got you, Darby.”
Suddenly, more shouting filled the hallway outside the bathroom and I heard Laster’s name being shouted. Hendrix swore under his breath and led us out.
What I saw scared the hell out of me. Max, the guard, was still unconscious, with a nasty looking lump on his head. Laster was being held up by another security guard. Blood covered the front of his shirt and body, under the spot where his hand was attempting to hold a towel to his shoulder.
“What happened?”
Laster looked at me with sad eyes. “Someone attacked me. Some freak in a mask. Aaron Gadberry!”
The crowd that had gathered around erupted in whispers and cries of shock. Nothing quieted them until Jennifer walked up and whistled. Her face was pale and taught, making her look ten years older than she was.
“Alright, folks. This is it for a while. Until we can make sure this place is safe and no one wants to hurt any of us, we’re closing down. Consider this film postponed until further notice.”
Samford exploded through the crowd, still waving his script. “What the fuck? You can’t do that! We can’t shut down. This film will die out and you know it.”
Jennifer shrugged one shoulder and held up her hands. “I’m not willing to let anyone die for a movie, Samford. Go back to the main set. All of you. I’m sure the cops will want to talk to everyone and then you’ll all get to go home.”
She looked over at me and blew out a rough breath. “You okay?”
“Sure! Ask her if she’s okay! Don’t worry about the rest of us who just got fucked over! Little bitch!”
Hendrix shifted until I was behind him and got in Samford’s face. “You heard the lady. Go back to the main set. If I have to start giving the directions, they won’t be nearly as nice and they’ll include a boot up your rude ass. That goes for everyone.”
Watching him be bossy was almost enough to make me forget the terror that I’d just lived through. Almost.
He turned to me and I could read through his expression that he felt guilty that he hadn’t been with me. His eyes wouldn’t meet mine for longer than a few seconds and his entire body was stiffer than I’d ever seen it. “You want to tell me what happened?”
I explained the whole thing and realized that while it’d felt like hours, it’d really only been a few minutes since I’d walked away from Hendrix. “I feel like my heart isn’t good enough for scares like that one.”
Jennifer stepped closer to us and shook her head. “I just got off the phone with the police. They’re sending over a few cops who are going to question everyone. Do you want to look through the security footage before they get here and decide to take it?”
Hendrix nodded. “Come on, Darby. You’re with me.”
He didn’t have to tell me twice. As far as I was concerned, until we got the hell off the set, I was perfectly happy pretending to be glued to his backside. I followed him into the security office and watched as he dismissed the guard sitting behind the desk with barely concealed contempt and started working.
“There. He comes out of these dressing rooms that are farther back and comes straight for the bathroom you were in. Takes out the guard, who won’t have a job after he wakes up, and then goes in after you. Then, he runs out, goes straight back to the same dressing room and barely a second passes before Laster stumbles out. Jennifer said there’s a big window in that dressing room that leads outside, but there’s no camera positioned out there.”
He worked in silence for a bit longer and then looked over my shoulder. “We’ve got company.”
I turned to find Detective Harding striding into the office with a giant scowl on his face. I stepped forward and shook my head at him. “Seems I’m a trouble magnet.”
He pointed at Hendrix and hooked his thumb behind him. “I need the room, Swayze. I’m sure you’ve already found everything you could, anyway.”
Hendrix stood up and shook Harding’s hand. “A Ghost reference. Creative. I’ve got a call in to a guy of mine about some stuff that might interest you. We’ll give you a call later.”
Harding stared at me for a little bit longer and sighed. “Be careful, would you?”
I nodded, fighting off more tears, and left with Hendrix. We stayed at the studio for another couple of hours, answering questions about what’d happened and getting cleared to leave. I’d seen Laster getting wheeled off on a stretcher and winced. I felt horrible for him but I couldn’t help think that it was going to make him want to bond with me over everything even more.
On the way home, I asked Hendrix to drive by the Chinese place again. We had to get dinner and I’d actually tried the place once before, so I knew it was good. Hendrix made me wear an oversized hoodie with the hood up and sunglasses on while he ran inside and grabbed the food. He was back in less than thirty seconds, but my heart had pounded the entire time, like Ricky or the masked man were just waiting for their break.
We were about to pull away when I looked up and spotted a girl walking towards the store, her stride awkward as she favored her left side. Her hair was hot pink, but her face was impossible to forget once you’d seen it. I gasped and grabbed Hendrix’s arm. “That’s her.”
He looked up and swore. “I’ll be damned. It is odd, isn’t it?”
“What do we do? We can’t lose her. She’s our only chance.”
He put the SUV back in park and adjusted his mirrors. “We wait and we follow. We won’t lose her, Darby.”
*
That was precisely what we almost did two different times. She met up with a couple of johns and I’d nearly lost my mind when she came out of that same strip club I’d gone into to meet up with Pamela with an extra limp to her walk. Knowing how much she’d meant to Tabatha made it hard to watch the girl get her ass handed to her by god only knew who. She’d disappeared into a convenience store and hadn’t come out for so long that we thought for sure she’d given us the slip. Just as we were turning down the block, I saw her in the rearview mirror.
It had gotten dark on us and finally I made a decision that I hadn’t wanted to make. It was obvious the girl was spooked and we’d followed her as long as we could without giving it away. “I hate the idea of this, and I know Tabatha wouldn’t like it, but I’m going to tell Harding to pick her up. I can’t chance losing her. Look at her, Hendrix. He’s been beating the shit out of her. She didn’t look like that when Tab was around.”
He nodded. “Make the call.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. “It’s harder when there are live girls involved. I felt the pain with the families when I was working on the Gadberry case, but here, seeing the victims of Ricky’s abuse, it’s worse. Knowing that they’re trapped… It makes it hard to not act immediately.”
“I” He cut himself off and then shouted at me. “Get down! Now!”
I ducked just as the windshield exploded over my head. Glass rained down on me and I found myself screaming once again.
Hendrix kept a hand on the back of my head, keeping me down, while swearing viciously. “Hold on.”
I felt him speed away as more loud bangs rang out and more glass shattered around us. He took a turn so fast I felt the SUV lean on its side and then slam back to the ground.
“We overstayed our welcome. Call Harding now. Tell him to get her the fuck out of there, just in case Ricky knew we were following her.”
I was panting as I pawed through my purse and found my phone. My hands shook like leaves in the wind as I pushed the buttons. “So that was Ricky?”
“I didn’t see Ricky, but it was the same goon from yesterday.”
A wave of motion sickness washed over me as Hendrix took another sharp turn. I tried to keep my food down, but it was useless. I threw up all over the floor and groaned just as Harding answered my call.
“Connors?! What’s going on? Where are you?”
I explained to him the best I could between throwing up. Eventually, Hendrix took the phone from me and delivered an address and an accurate description of the girl. He barked orders like no one I’d ever heard before.
“You okay, Darby?” When I mumbled that I was, he grunted. “Sure. We’re going to meet a guy I know and switch vehicles. Then, I’ll take you home, okay?”
Home. That sounded scarily good in that moment. Kansas, on my parents’ farm, surrounded by more acres than I knew what to do with. It was safe there. Nothing bad ever happened.
Kansas, where my brothers were, where a date meant that I was followed, where there was never enough whiskey to drown the boredom and the most I could hope for was sleeping with Kenny Williams, the farmer from down the road whose wife left him for a rodeo clown.
Kansas, where I’d get a job at the local library and spend my days cleaning up after the daily activities put on for the school kids.
My brain readjusted and I wiped my mouth and sat up. “Sorry about your car.”
Hendrix looked over at me. “Yeah, I really think the vomit is the breaking point. Not all the windows being shot out. Well, not all. I still have mine.”
With a laugh, I brought my feet up to rest on the dash. “Small miracles.”
“You seem like you’re doing better. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you earlier, Darby. I fucked up.”
I reached over and touched his thigh. “I’m fine. It scared the shit out of me, but it could’ve been worse. Look at Laster.”
He frowned, but didn’t say anything else. He pulled over into a parking lot and got out when a truck pulled in behind us. A smaller guy shook hands with Hendrix and then gestured towards the truck. That easily, we’d gotten a new ride.
He drove it to my house the same crazy way he drove the SUV. My motion sickness had abated, barely, and by the time we got home, I practically fell to the ground and kissed it.
“You shouldn’t have a license.”
He winked at me. “Maybe, I don’t.”
I gaped and he just grinned. Once inside, I beelined for the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I went ahead and washed my face, too, before heading back out to find Hendrix. It’d been a long day and I couldn’t help but want to crawl into his arms.
When I spotted him, his back was rigid and his skin was pale. His eyes were on the TV screen and when I looked at it, I understood his reaction. There, playing on my TV, was video footage of me. It’d started before I ever knew it had. There were clips of the very first days I’d started investigating Ricky. As the footage continued, there were clips of Hendrix, and then Hendrix and me. When it scrolled to video of our night together, I felt my whole world swirl.