Mayne Attraction: In The Spotlight (4 page)

I tried to apologize about the water (polite
to the end) while at the same time I could see the partner coming
for me, his hand outstretched to catch me before I hit the
pavement, having lost my ability to stand up straight. Though now I
realized nobody was actually concerned for my safety.

Was this really happening in broad daylight
in front of the store? The accomplice was all business, no pretense
of false friendliness. He grabbed me roughly and started to haul me
back towards the van. I realized, with sickening awareness, that
the van door was wide open, ready to swallow me whole. There was a
hollow ringing in my ears and the edges of my vision were turning
into a vignette, dark and blurry.

Then the situation took the craziest turn. A
gray-haired lady, who I realized was no larger than me once she got
close, had gotten out of her car, which was parked across the lot
directly behind the van, and came sprinting over with impossible
speed, while everything else around me was moving slow, caught in a
time warp. She approached from the passenger side, cutting off the
approach to the van door, while both of my abductors were facing
me, trying to corral me back to my feet and over to the
vehicle.

It was like watching a scene from The
Matrix, a scene that was probably enhanced by whatever was knocking
me out. In super slow motion she literally flew through the air and
connected solidly, elbow first, into Perfume Guy’s lower back. His
eyes bulged hugely, like they were the only part of him that had
absorbed the inertia from her impact. But then the rest of him
caught up and he flopped, face first onto the sidewalk away from
me.

The grip around my arm tightened painfully
as I was pulled behind the other man’s body, the way a predator
might try to protect its meal from a competitor, trying to steal
the kill. Except that I was passing out now and my body collapsed
behind him, pulling his arm with me, and he was forced to either
let go or hold on and turn with my inert weight. He let go and I
too, flopped on the sidewalk, banging the back of my head,
slightly.

I viewed the rest of the fight from this
angle. She used the brief distraction I had created to spray him in
the face with what my stoned mind at first thought was silly
string. But when he started screaming and jumping up and down,
batting at his eyes, I realized it was something much better. Then
she jumped up in a kung fu looking move and kicked him full in the
chest. The screaming stopped, but I couldn’t see what happened to
him after he fell out of my field of vision. For good measure, she
turned and sprayed my felled fragrance advisor as well.

In a deeply menacing tone she said, simply,
“Smell this.”

He whimpered, but didn’t fuss like the other
man had. It was probably because there was damage to his rib cage
or spine…I hoped.

Then she turned her attention to me.
Initially her face had been a mask of rage, but it had transformed
into deep concern as she looked me over, her hands brushing my face
and then exploring the back of my head. The vignette around my
vision was almost closed now. It was getting very dark, even though
the hot late morning sun was shining straight into my eyes. Someone
else was there now too, bending over me as they were talking, but I
couldn’t see any more. It felt like fingers on my neck…checking my
pulse?

“Should we take her to the emergency room?”
A man’s voice asked, quietly. His accent was strange.

“I don’t want to stick around for a police
report, do you? No, let’s just take her home. I don’t think she’ll
remember any of this. She’s not hurt.”

It felt like I was being carried now. My
heroine’s voice was sort of gruff and distinctly German sounding in
the accent. It reminded me of something…was she the Terminator’s
older sister?

“We’ll just put her back in bed and she’ll
probably think she over-slept.”

And that is exactly what I thought, at
first. I woke up at three-thirty in the afternoon. I was fully
dressed. But that wasn’t abnormal for me…I did that all the time. I
had a terrible headache and I was loopy from sleeping too much. I
was also seeing flashes of an extremely bad and vivid nightmare
about being abducted…and rescued. The recall made me shiver and
breathe faster.

I got up out of bed, a little unsteadily,
and went to the bathroom. As I pulled my shorts down and sat on the
commode, something dropped onto the tile at my feet. I bent over to
get a better look and was instantly rewarded with a head rush. When
my eyes cleared, I refocused on whatever had fallen. It was
rectangular paper packaging of some sort, with blue and white print
announcing ‘New Longer Lasting Peppermint Flavor!”

My gum sample! Were my dreams leaving behind
product endorsements and freebies? I wasn’t dreaming now, and the
gum was real…which meant so was the part where I had acquired it…at
the drugstore…this morning.

I puzzled over what had happened to me. It
all seemed straightforward except for the part where I ended up
back in my bed. Somebody was trying to snatch me. Somebody else saw
it and stepped in (in a kick-butt kind of way) to help me. That was
logical enough. But how did they know where I lived? My keys had
been in my pocket, so I understood how they could get me in, but I
didn’t carry any ID. I just had the keys and some loose change in
my pocket, but nothing to indicate where my bed might be. Yet here
I was, and I shuttered to think how different things might be for
me at the moment if they hadn’t come to my aid.

Then I began to ponder the intervention. So
someone was at the drugstore at the same time as me. And this
someone had no trouble taking down two men twice her size. And
finally, this someone somehow knew where to return me while I was
unconscious. And it wasn’t just a return; it was a cover up. Why
wasn’t I at the hospital or the police station, filling out a crime
report? Instead, I woke up under the covers of my bed like it had
never happened. If the gum hadn’t fallen out of my shorts, I may
never have thought about it again. So was it purely coincidence
that kung fu Helga was there to save me? And if it wasn’t a
coincidence, as suggested by her prior knowledge of my residence,
and the way the situation had been handled afterward, then what did
that mean? Had she been watching me and followed me to the store?
If so, why?

That was how it had started. Afterwards, I
was more aware than ever of that strange ‘someone is watching me’
feeling. Only I didn’t think I was crazy anymore. I became far more
observant of my surroundings and embraced my instincts more than I
ever had before. I tried to concentrate and pinpoint the times when
I would have that ‘being watched’ sensation, because its intensity
would fluctuate…it ebbed and flowed during the day, but somehow it
was always there.

I had once heard the aphorism (a clever
observation) that even though pieces of a puzzle make funny shapes,
they fit together in the end and the picture becomes clear.
Believing in the truth of that, I set to work on gathering pieces
of this mystery and putting the bigger picture together.

Chapter 5
–
Experiment

I was being watched.

Despite the anxiety I felt over the
realization of the meaning behind the strange, scopophobic
sensation I’d been experiencing, it was a relief to know my
instincts hadn’t been broken after all. In fact, they were working
exceptionally well, even if the rest of me wasn’t. And I promised
myself that I would never doubt my instincts again.

I had polar reactions to the idea that
someone was keeping an eye on me. It was flattering; someone had an
interest in me. Of course, it was frightening too; someone who
could kill me before I realized I was dead had an interest in me.
And it was frustrating; someone was interested in me when I wasn’t
even interested in me. Why? There was no logical explanation. I
never went anywhere or did anything. I was in high school for
crying out loud! Whoever they were, they had to be dying of
boredom…except for when I was nearly taken…and that had probably
been a nice change of pace.

It was fortunate for my peace of mind that
my discovery of observers had been in conjunction with a move on
their part to help me, to save my life. How much more frightened
and unnerved would I be if the ‘helping me out part’ hadn’t been
part of the equation when I’d made the discovery?

Second-guessing myself was a natural
reaction for me—something I did constantly. So I tried to come up
with a scenario that didn’t involve being under surveillance but
still explained being assisted and placed back in my bed. I came up
with nothing. I couldn’t make it fit, and I gave up trying. It was
a waste of time, and there wasn’t really anything I could do about
it anyway. I just decided to go about my business, keep my eyes
open and figure it out as I went. The worst that could happen, if
the pattern continued, was that they might help me again. And I
decided that I could live with that.

But I was crazy with curiosity and so I came
up with some experiments that would test the extents of their
watchfulness and helpfulness.

I began by carrying a purse, something I
usually didn’t mess with because my money fit just fine in my
pocket. So in order for a purse to be convincing I had to put some
stuff in it…and I scraped around for things that might legitimately
be in one. Things like a hairbrush, Chapstick, mini-notebook and
pen, wallet, some very dark sunglasses and of course, gum. The
final key element, though, was a pocket sized monthly planner,
purchased for a dollar at a card shop. This was going to be the key
to setting up controlled experiments and conducting careful
observations.

I was eager to get started with my
investigation and surprised my folks by accepting a cursory
invitation to join them out to eat dinner one evening. Normally I
would decline and just get leftovers or a sandwich because I
preferred being home alone. Joining them had a double benefit: I
could carry out an experiment and I could also appease my mom by
doing something normal with her.

The concept was simple. When we finished
eating or doing whatever, I would ‘forget’ my purse. If my
observers were any good at watching me, and if they were as close
as I suspected, they’d notice. Now whether I would get my purse
back was a bit of a question mark, but I was counting on that
universal human characteristic…curiosity. Wouldn’t they want to
know what was in my purse? And wouldn’t they be interested in
things I wrote down in my planner? And wouldn’t they show up at
places and times that were marked there? They would no doubt follow
me no matter where I went, but if they had advance notice, like a
meeting date, wouldn’t that increase my chances of noticing a
familiar face, when I was in control of the time and place?

My mom was so surprised and pleased that I
had said yes to her offer that it made me feel guilty. I realized
how very selfish I had been the last few months. She was worried
for me and she missed me—that was so clear to me now. The least I
could do was spend some time with her. I could keep my emotions
under control for an evening. Having something new to focus on was
going to help with that.

Mom wanted to go to Cheesecake Factory. This
was normally a special occasion kind of place to go, but for them
maybe my presence made it just that. It was also good because it
was in the mall and we’d probably walk around for a bit before and
afterward…a good opportunity to people-watch.

As usual, the line out the door was as long
as the mighty Mississippi. But, bless him, Hoyt had followed the
call ahead reservation procedure, so our wait was only thirty
minutes instead of two hours, like it was for other poor, dejected
and starving souls sitting around us.

As we passed time on a bench inside the mall
but outside the restaurant, awaiting our summons, my mom was
beaming with contentment. It just made me feel more ashamed of my
recent anti-social behavior. She sat between Hoyt and me—the nexus
linking us together—one hand around his and the other snuggly
around my own.

“It’s such a pleasant evening. How would you
feel about taking a walk at the park after dinner?” she asked
me.

“Sure, that sounds nice.”

And a good opportunity to get looks at
people going by or hanging around, I thought.

“Or, we could take a river cruise. There’s
one that sets off at eight. We could probably make that,” Hoyt
offered, with quiet enthusiasm.

Mom was instantly sold on that idea and
turned to me hopefully.

Oh, all right, I thought, with a bit of
concealed petulance. But again, this would be an even better
opportunity since no one could move away too far and I’d be able to
get a very good look at fellow passengers.

“I’ve never been on a cruise. That’s a
really nice idea, Hoyt,” I responded, trying to match his
enthusiasm. Mom’s pleased expression washed over me like a warm
breeze. I was thankful they made it so easy to like them. It was a
powerful incentive to be likable in return.

We had passed a jewelry store on the way
into the mall and I excused myself for a moment because there was
something I wanted to look at again. It was just across and down
the hall, within sight of the bench we were sitting on, so I could
feel the eyes on my back the whole time. Thankfully I was spared
from hearing the accompanying comments—though I’m sure I could
guess.

In the jewelry store window facing out into
the hallway was a beautiful, beach themed display. The background
was a photograph of a sand dune, with cloudless blue sky above, and
a lone seagull soaring high in the sun. Real, sparkling, buff
colored sand was layered all around, and miniature, but very real
looking sea oats were growing from it. Colorful seashells and sand
dollars were scattered in strategic positions, adding interest. And
in the center, like a lost treasure resting in the sand, was a
gorgeous aquamarine, set in a platinum band with a lattice of
diamonds on either side.