Adelaide Upset (14 page)

My hold on her was tenuous
at best, and I wildly searched the room through a haze of tears
looking for Smith. From a corner of the room he was watching, a
pearly pillar that refused to take complete shape, half mist, half
man.

“
Do
something!
”

He didn’t move. His eyes
were sorry, but his emotions were firm and resolute. The situation
was coming unraveled and Smith refused to help me because of his
scruples?

Maybe he wouldn’t hit a
girl, but I sure as hell could.

Raina had fisted the hank
of hair, twisting it until I screamed. I was so angry then, so
angry I might have killed her. I jerked forward to grab the kitchen
utensil I kept hanging by its hook along the end of a row of low
cabinets. Raina had used my lurching weight as an opportunity to
roll out from under me. I let her. She came at me from behind,
somewhat insensible, lashing out like her life depended on it. I
pivoted around, my arm raised, weapon in hand, ready to knock her
unconscious. I hesitated. She didn’t, punching me. In. The. Boob. I
didn’t hesitate then, swinging the rolling pin down in an arc aimed
for her head. The cylinder of wood got her just above the ear and
she toppled instantly after.

I tried moving Raina
myself, but I was already winded and hurt from our tussle together,
and even after running my face under cool water I was still
feeling... off. I needed help. She wasn’t waking up in my house,
and furthermore, I was determined that she would never set foot
here again.

No, I didn’t intend to
kill her, but I definitely had something in mind. That was why I
called Francesca. I had to return to Luke’s to do it, borrowing his
phone. The little orange light blinked away at me while I was
there, a taunting reminder of my earlier discovery. Strangely
though, Raina’s botched break-in was just what I had needed to keep
my mind off things.

Francesca, recognizing Luke’s number,
answered her cell phone hastily. “Adelaide, I’m glad you called. I
was just thinking that—”

“I need your help,” I cut in, keeping my
voice low as I spoke into the receiver.

“Anything,” she replied lightly.

“
Come over to my house,
but don’t tell anyone what you’re doing.”

I heard movement in the
background, she was already gathering up her keys, purse, etc.
“What happened?”

“
I’ll tell you all about
it when you get here.” I would’ve hung up, but a thought suddenly
occurred to me. “Oh, and bring some tape. The big kind.”

Raina’s visit was not
without perks, namely the acquisition of her things. I got a
syringe, still fully loaded with who knew what (though I could
guess) and even better, a big ass stun gun (with a range of
twenty-one feet) and some spare cartridges to go with it. After
stowing them somewhere safe I gave Raina’s face—red, swollen and
slick with mucus—one last glance before going to the living room to
wait for Francesca.

She burst through the door
a few minutes later without knocking. “Does this have something to
do with that silver Lexus I passed?”

I’d already seen Raina’s car, craning my
neck to glimpse it through the window. It was close, but not too
close.

“
Good, you brought the
tape.” I took the red dispenser from her hand, finding it heavy and
awkward. I’d been thinking duct, but packaging would do. “So...
Francesca, I think of us as close. We’re close, right?”

She tossed her purse onto
my couch, fluffed her hair and took a seat. “Since I’m your best
and only friend, the answer would be yes. Why are you being weird?”
She looked around the room, suspicious. “What did you
do?”

“
For example,” I
continued, ignoring the question. “If one of us was to say, ‘I need
your help burying a body,’ the other would say, ‘I’ll grab my
shovel,’ right?”

Francesca was both
intrigued and worried, but she made a concentrated effort to appear
bored and disinterested. Oddly, this was her way of being
supportive. “I guess it’s a good sign that you only asked me to
bring tape, then.”

We were busy after that. I
led Francesca to the kitchen, vaguely waving at Raina’s inert body,
which was my way of explaining.

“
Is she dead?” Francesca
asked.

“
No, but I want to move
her away from my property before she wakes up.” I told her my plan,
glazing over everything quickly. It basically entailed carrying
Raina to her car, driving it downtown, and dumping both.

It wasn’t until I told
Francesca that she should follow me into town so I’d have a ride
home that she finally spoke up. “But I want to drive the
Lexus.”

“
Fine,” I agreed,
stripping off Raina’s gloves. “Wear these then. I don’t want you
leaving fingerprints in it.”

Francesca was more
intrigued by the minute, enjoying the situation immensely. “They’re
so soft,” she said, rubbing the leather. “And they fit
perfectly!”

“
They’re yours,” I
answered. “Now help me carry her outside.”

Raina began to cough and
moan just as we got her out the front door. Francesca released her
shoulders in alarm, letting Raina plop to the grass. “I think she’s
coming ‘round!”

“
Dropping her sure didn’t
help,” I replied, letting her feet go as well.

“
I’m sorry!” Francesca
answered, a little guilty. “It’s not like I’ve done this
before.”

“And I have?”

“
Well I don’t know, have
you?” Francesca countered. “I don’t know what you do or what you
think. I swear you’re like that saying, about the man being an
island.”

“No man is an island,” I corrected. “And it
doesn’t support your argument.”

“Shut up, Adelaide,” she said, shifting from
foot to foot, growing uncomfortable. “What do we do?”

“I gave her a good knock on the head, it
should have put her out for a while, but the pepper spray is so
intense, the burn might rouse her. We have to rinse it off.”

Francesca was staring.

“She had it coming,” I assured.

Francesca believed me, her
loyalty and trust always came as something of a shock. The way she
had picked me, just picked me to be her friend, well, I’d always be
in awe of her for that. I’d always think of her as the pretty one
and myself as her sidekick. But just now I was calling the
shots.

“Wait here,” I said. “I’ve got to get
something from Luke’s.” I was back in less than five minutes, a
coil of tubing under my arm. “Let’s hose her down.”

Cold water splashed onto
Raina Thompson’s face, running freely down. She sputtered and
moaned, but didn’t wake. And after that we resumed hauling her
towards her car. It was hard work and soon she began to droop,
lower and lower, until we were more or less dragging her
along.

“I’ll get a wheelbarrow.”

“It’s not far,” Francesca protested.

But I insisted. I wasn’t
going to leave Raina in her car, too easy that. Her placement would
be noteworthy, and we needed help carting her there.

The place was Neptune
Park. I followed Francesca using her own car. The wheelbarrow was
shoved in back, hanging out so much the trunk refused to close. We
parked side by side on Beachview Drive, Francesca and I both so
nervous you’d think the body we were dumping was
actually
dead.

It was a busy part, the
place where the park was located on the island, maybe even the
busiest. But it was late. Wrangling Raina into the backseat of her
car had taken quite a while, and even then I’d still had some
things to do before we left. But the lateness of the hour worked to
our advantage, nothing stirred but the crash of distant
waves.

“Let’s hurry,” Francesca suggested, uneasy
as I.

We lifted out the
wheelbarrow, not bothering to shut the trunk before we pushed it
into place, then pulled Raina out by her ankles, dumping her in.
With each of us lifting one of the wooden handles our balance was
off. The wheelbarrow tipped over twice (both times were Francesca’s
fault) and spilled Raina all over the pavement, a spray of limbs in
every direction.

It took a while, but we
finally made it through the parking lot, down the widely paved
walkway and around the little park. Our destination was centered in
a circle of sand, the large sculpture of a whale, its massive head
breaking through the surface of the earth, a baby whale, the gray
body longer than a man, riding along. The duo drew lots of
attention, situated near a host of attractions, not to mention the
fenced in jungle gym beside it. It was too easy to imagine the
gawking children, the concerned parents, and Raina’s horrid
morning. I wished I could be there.

We unloaded her quickly. I
pulled on her arms while Francesca pushed, griping all the while
about Raina’s bony ass. When she was sprawled in place, lying atop
the sloped gray mound of a whale, we both breathed easier, slipping
through the dark as we returned the wheelbarrow. But I wasn’t done.
I grabbed the bag of supplies I’d packed from home, creeping back
to the park as Francesca tailed me.

Tape came first; just
enough to keep her from slipping off the sculpture. Then I poured
the honey on by myself as Francesca didn’t want to get her fingers
sticky. I had even thought to bring a butter knife, so I spread a
nice even layer all over, taking time to work it through her hair.
Francesca lightly sprinkled flour over my work, and by the time we
were done Raina was a splash of white in the dark.

I quickly scrawled a note,
my fingers sticking to the pen and paper, leaving honey smudges. I
patted it to Raina’s chest where it stuck like glue.

“I can’t see,” Francesca complained. “What’s
it say?”

“
I rob houses for fun,” I
recited. “Do your civic duty and call 911.”

“
She robbed you? Why
didn’t
you
just call the police?”

I wasn’t in trouble with
the police per se, but I’d been involved in some incidents, for
which the police were curious. I thought it best to tread lightly
where they were concerned, no need to draw attention to myself. But
I couldn’t say any of that, so instead I said, “She pissed me
off.”

“You know the insects are going to eat her
alive.”

“
I hope they do,” I
replied.

“Ben,” I said sharply, “that one almost hit
me in the head.”

“
Don’t screech at me,” he
gruffed, although he took more care not to spit sunflower shells in
my direction.

His shift had been finished more than an
hour past, but he was in no hurry to go. The summer heat beat us
into a sullen silence as we sat together under the big oak, the
picnic table scratchy beneath my thighs. The motel lot had a
spattering of cars, but was mostly empty, everyone away enjoying
their day.

“So where is your pal Tim?”

He shrugged, taking his
sweet time, making the consumption of seeds into a ritualistic
art-form. “You got a bug up your ass about that boy. Missy likes
him well enough, I imagine most girls do, so what’s your
problem?”

“
Missy likes him because
she wants to indoctrinate him, and by that I mean she wants to
brainwash him into being her boyfriend. But I already have a
boyfriend. My neighbor, Lucas, remember?”

Spit. Spit. “Don’t know
about that,” Ben said, feeling skeptical. Ever since I had
mentioned Lucas, more or less fessing up to a growing
infatuation/obsession, Ben had been loathe to dwell on the subject,
going so far as to willfully forget.

“
You’d like him,” I
insisted, wanting Ben’s approval for some odd reason. “He doesn’t
say much and he takes good care of the lawn.”

“Don’t know about—”

The clash of his alarm and
terror assured me of the worse, propelling my body into overdrive
as it primed for action. I was certain we were about to be gunned
down, murdered, definitely murdered, or a maiming at the least, but
no. It was just Florence.

A few weeks back Ben had
dipped his toe into the pool that was society, deciding, after
years of prolonged mourning, to move on from his wife’s death. He’d
joined ‘his’ crowd, meaning the elderly, bingo nights and all. It
had been at one such event that he’d met Florence, a local widow.
They must have really hit it off, because underneath all Ben’s fear
was a growing awareness. He tried to bury it, and when that failed,
he simply ran. He did that now with shoulders pulled forward, angry
steps, spry-like in movement as he escaped from sight, slipping
around the back of the motel.

“Florence,” I called, seeing her pluck
something off the backseat of the boat she called a Volvo. “Over
here.”

Unable to tack down the reason for it, I
still had to admit, I liked Florence. She had sugar white hair, and
it wasn’t thinning like you’d expect, but thick, and always worn in
a loose, heavy bun. Her dresses were outdated but flattering,
today’s a linen print of some sort. She was always cute, and so...
earnest.

“Hello, Adelaide. I don’t suppose Ben is
around?” she asked hopefully.

“
His shift ended an hour
ago,” I replied, trying to be gentle. “But you can probably still
catch him. He’s walking home and his trailer isn’t far.”