You always hear about people who think they are dying and how their life flashes in front of them. You secretly wonder, how can that be? A whole life in a matter of seconds? You might hear about someone who witnessed an accident say everything happened in slow motion and they recount every detail.
I never believed those kinds of stories until that day.
That day, I heard a name I hadn’t heard in almost a year.
I read the look on Grizz’s face immediately. In that instant, I knew he thought he’d lost me. And I also knew I was correct in thinking something had been different about him since the executions.
Grizz knew there would be no going back from what I’d witnessed that day in the pit. He’d worried I might want to leave him, and now he was faced with that possibility. The threat to hurt Delia and Vince would no longer hold water. I wouldn’t be trying to escape if someone recognized me. All I had to do was turn around to the person talking to me and say, “Yes, it’s me,” and it would be done. There would have been plenty of witnesses in that waiting room.
Grizz would have two choices: grab me and drag me out to the car, or take off by himself and hightail it out of there. One choice meant he risked losing me; the other way meant he risked not being able to come back for Damien.
That’s when time stood still. That’s when, not my whole life, but the past year, flashed before my eyes. I met Grizz’s glance and knew instinctively what I was going to do.
Standing in the doorway I turned to see who was talking to me. I recognized her immediately: Diane Berger. She wasn’t a close friend, but we’d shared a couple of classes. She was a nice girl. Kind of like me. Not real popular, but not an outcast either.
With an extremely convincing British accent, I answered her, “Me, luv? Are you talking to me?”
That surprised her.
“Uh, yeah. You look like a girl I went to school with. She’s been missing. It’ll be a year next month, I think. You could be her twin.”
“My name is Amelia. I’m visiting my cousin,” I lied with my phony British accent.
“I’m so sorry. I just can’t believe you’re not Ginny. The similarities are unbelievable!”
“No, luv, it’s me that’s sorry. I wish I was your friend. I hope you find her some day.”
Grizz grabbed me by the hand and walked me to the car. He didn’t say anything. We headed back to the motel and I spoke first.
“Do you think she believed me?” My voice was quiet.
“Actually, I do. Hell, I think I believed you,” he said, incredulous. “Where did you learn how to do an accent like that?”
“Oh, you know how much I love Masterpiece Theater.”
“I wasn’t sure what you were going to do,” he said, giving me a sidelong glance as he drove.
I didn’t say anything.
“You know I wouldn’t have let you go, don’t you? I would have hauled you out to the car and kept driving. I would’ve taken you somewhere else. No one would have found us.”
This surprised me. “What about the motel? Your car, your bikes, your money, your dogs?”
“Doesn’t matter. I have a way to get all my stuff back eventually, if I needed to.”
“You’re telling me that if for some reason I was recognized and there was a chance of me being rescued or found, you wouldn’t give me up?”
“Never, Kit. Never.”
We drove the rest of the way back to the motel in silence. When we arrived, he asked if I wanted someone to take me to church in the morning. He was going back to the vet to see Damien, but he didn’t think I should go with him.
“No, I can miss church tomorrow. I want to be here for you.”
I know this made him happy. I put together a quick dinner, and he went out to the pit for a little while. When he came back I was already in bed. He climbed in beside me and pulled me into his arms.
“You awake?” he whispered.
“Am now.”
“Good,” he replied, nuzzling my neck.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I want you to talk dirty to me.”
This was new, and I laughed. “Oh, you do? And what exactly do you want me to say to you?”
“Ah, I don’t care. Use your imagination.”
“I don’t have any dirty talk experience, but I’ll try,” I teased, my cheeks hot in the darkness.
“Can you do me a small favor?”
“Sure.”
“Can you talk dirty to me with that British accent?”
* * * * *
Damien’s recovery was quicker than expected and uneventful. Before the snake, I’d never considered the dangers that lurked in the swamp. Other than keeping an eye out for the occasional alligator, I never gave a second thought to other harmful creatures. I did now.
We fell back into a routine, and I stayed busy with my correspondence course. Before I knew it, it was 1977 and Ann Marie Morgan O’Connell was the proud owner of a high school diploma. Ginny Lemon wouldn’t have graduated for another year. I was a good driver and was getting to go to most places I set my sights on, but I still had to follow Grizz’s driving rules. That would change in a couple of months.
Still, it wasn’t enough. I needed more. I was bored. I needed a mental challenge. And I found it quite by accident.
I’d been living at the motel for almost two years. One day, I was sitting on the couch painting my toenails. Grizz was doing paperwork at his desk. I’d never concerned myself with the type of paperwork he did. I figured it had to do with his criminal activity, and like he’d told me more than once, the less I knew the better. I’d just finished my nails and was twisting the lid back on the bottle of nail polish when Grizz slammed his fist down hard on the desk. I jumped.
“Damn it!” he yelled.
“What? What’s the problem?” I was glad I’d finished my toes. His outburst was so loud I might have messed up my paint job.
“Just trying to get these damn numbers to work, is all. Numbers aren’t my area of expertise.”
“Well, what exactly are you doing with numbers?”
“Balancing this fucking bank statement. Hasn’t balanced for three months, and I can’t figure out why.”
I immediately perked up. “Bank statement? Why don’t you let me look at it? I can help you. I love working with numbers.”
“Nah. I’ll figure it out eventually.”
“Seriously, Grizz. I’d love to help. I bet I can figure out the problem.”
He turned around then and looked at me. I could tell he was weighing his options. He was just frustrated enough to let me help, but he had also been very careful to keep me away from his business.
“I could be like a secretary or bookkeeper. I don’t have to know any details or where these numbers come from. Believe me, I’m just interested in the numbers, Grizz. I’d like the challenge.”
I knew I’d won when he didn’t say anything right away. I jumped up and walked over to him while balancing on my heels, trying not to mess up my pedicure.
“Okay, Kit,” he said at last. “All yours. No questions, though. You just balance the checkbook. Old statements are right here.” He pulled open a drawer.
I sat down and got to work. I figured out the problem very quickly. An old entry had been calculated as a minus instead of a plus. In addition to about $21.65 in other combined entry errors, I could see why he was having trouble finding the problem. He could have found it easily enough if he’d had more patience.
That’s how I started taking care of Grizz’s finances. I soon came to learn he had more than one alias. Each one had a substantial balance in their account.
I started diving in a little deeper and casually asked him one afternoon, “Why do you just let all this money sit there and not earn a decent return? Why don’t you invest it?”
Within the year, Grizz and his many aliases had a decent stock portfolio. I was earning him a good amount of money. I secretly hoped if I could help him earn money another way, he would cease his criminal activity.
Another naïve assumption on my part.