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  So I got dressed and rolled off. It was less than a mile away, but the late morning sun was scorching. By the time I got inside the store, I didn’t feel like drinking milk anymore. I needed a bottle of water instead. How ironic, I thought. If I’d just stayed home, I could have had all the free cold water I could drink! To save face with myself, though, I purchased a small bottle of milk along with a larger bottle of water…and a chocolate bar too, since it was calling to me. The cashier offered me a sample packet of a new kind of gum, which I certainly couldn’t refuse. I accepted it gladly and tucked it in my pocket after concluding my purchase.

  Walking back out the door into the sun I was slightly distracted with trying to open the water. The lid was on unusually tight. I set my bag of milk and candy bar down on the sidewalk once I reached the far side of the building where I had parked my bike and tried again to loosen the cap. My feeling of accomplishment at opening the bottle was cut short when a man came straight up into my personal space holding a piece of stiff paper out towards me. I didn’t get a good look at his face because he was so fast, but I remember that he was swarthy and kind of hairy and that he had a huge gold chain around his neck. He was smiling at me but it didn’t feel like a friendly smile, it felt like something else, and the danger alarm started to ring in my mind.

  He spoke to me in an overly friendly tone and said, “Hey, do you like perfume?”

  That was weird. He didn’t look like he would work behind a perfume counter.

  I hesitated in my confusion and growing panic. He had come from the van that I was now standing in front of because another man, who could have been his twin, started to get out of the passenger side and walk towards me as well. This must have been by design. It drew my attention, just for a second, and that was what he needed to rudely shove the paper with the ‘perfume’ sample under my nose.

  “Smell this! I think you’ll like it,” he said with an unpleasant sounding one-syllable laugh at the end.

  “What? No…no thanks.”

  But he had surprised me with his quick move and I did get a whiff of whatever was on the card. And it did smell nice. Just as I was thinking that, my knees buckled and I dropped my water. It took a big bounce and splashed all over Mr. Perfume’s mid section and down his legs while he cursed a blue streak in response.

  Whatever I had just smelled was obviously more than perfume. It made gravity stronger and made everything move in slow motion.

  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.

  The stone was a rare, deep blue color, with only the barest hint of green. Normally aquamarines were sky blue. I had never seen one like this in person. I was tempted to go inside and ask to try it on. But I was sure they’d laugh at me, or more likely, no one would wait on me, so the desire to feel the ring around my
finger swiftly transformed into a velleity (a mere wish, unaccompanied by any effort to obtain it). Sometimes it seemed like ‘Velleity’ would have made an excellent middle name for me.

  I wasn’t usually big into jewelry. What pieces I owned I had received as gifts from mainly my grandpa, who definitely was into jewelry—well, the gemstones that eventually became jewelry, that is. I didn’t wear any of it though, because it made me sad. But the mesmerizing blue beauty of this stone, like a big drop of water from some tropical sea, frozen in stone and set in glistening platinum, was completely dazzling.

  I purposely didn’t look at the price tag, which was discretely propped in the sand near the back of the window in tiny print. The fact that this single ring was displayed all alone in valuable marquee space indicated that the price was ‘if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.’

  I stood there for the longest time, just staring and imagining. The bright display lights that shown down on the scene made the jewel, the diamonds and the sand sparkle in a way that was entrancing. The lights also warmed the glass, adding to the sensation of being at some warm tropical destination. The warmth felt good on my face. It was a very pleasant escape. In any case, it was nice to not have to make conversation…I’d have plenty of that to do at the dinner table.

  I saw the buzzer flashing in my mom’s hand when I glanced over my shoulder. Taking one last longing gaze at the beautiful blue beryl, I turned and sauntered back to her side and then into the restaurant.

  Dinner was good. Hoyt ordered fish, as always. Mom and I shared a pasta dish and then we each had our own dessert. I always ordered the same thing, Chocolate Tuxedo Cheesecake. It was wonderful every time, and the obvious choice because I couldn’t tolerate surprises or disappointments when it came to dessert. Mom, however, felt obligated to try something different each time, which always led to regret and dessert envy, and she would invariably end up eating my treat with me.