Brett Battles - No Return

Wes released the accelerator and applied the breaks. “Hold on!”

At the last second, he shifted the handlebars and threw his weight so the back of the bike skidded around.

The smell of rubber burning on asphalt.

The whine of the engine.

Then-

Half thud, half crunch as the Triumph smacked sideways into the SUV.

Wes threw his right leg out to keep momentum from throwing them to the ground. One of the SUV’s doors started to open, so he twisted the accelerator, hoping the bike had suffered no serious damage. The Triumph responded immediately, zipping forward past the SUV.

Wes raced to Ward, then took that to China Lake Boulevard.

As they were finally heading south on the boulevard, he shouted, “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Anna called back.

“Can you tell if they’re still behind us?”

He could feel her moving around for a moment, then, “I don’t see them.”

“Okay,” Wes said.

But he didn’t feel any relief until they pulled in to the police station parking lot.

“Someone chased you ?”

Wes and Anna had been handed over to a plainclothes detective named Andrews. He looked to be about Wes’s age, and was obviously having a hard time believing their story.

“Yes,” Wes said. “From Downs all the way to China Lake Boulevard.”

Andrews glanced at his notes. “Two cars.”

“At first it was only the coupe,” Anna chimed in. “The SUV didn’t show up until the end.”

“That’s the car you ran into?”

“Yes,” Wes said. “If nothing else, the rear half on the driver’s side should be pretty scratched up.”

“You didn’t get a look at the driver?”

“The windows were tinted.”

“What about the make?” the detective asked. “Or a license number? For either car?”

“I was a little busy trying to get away,” Wes said. He rubbed his left shoulder. It had taken the brunt of the collision. Though the rear fender of the bike had also been bent a little. Sorry, Dad . Anna had continued to say that she was okay, but he was pretty sure she was just trying to keep him from worrying.

“There’s got to be someone who saw everything,” Wes added. “We passed several cars.”

Andrews picked up Wes’s driver’s license from the table. “Mr. Stewart, you do realize that you’re not licensed to drive a motorcycle, don’t you?”

Wes looked at the detective, his eyes narrowing. “Yes. I realize that. I plan on taking care of that next week. But that has nothing to do with what happened to us tonight.”

“We’ll have someone check it out,” Andrews said finally, continuing to study the license a moment longer before finally handing it back. “I’m going to let you off this time, considering what you say you’ve been through. I’ll even let you drive the bike back to your motel. But I’d advise you not to ride it again until you get your license sorted out. If you’re stopped, you will be cited, and your bike will be impounded.”

“Thanks,” Wes said, trying not to let his annoyance show.

“I’ll have one of our officers follow you back. Just in case your friends show up again.”

Wes was about to tell him it wasn’t necessary, but he could see that Anna liked the idea. “That would be nice. Thanks, again.”

“We’ll call you if we need any more information.” Andrews stood up.

“Or if you find out who did this to us?” Wes asked.

“Of course.”

By the time Wes and Anna pulled in to the parking lot of the Desert Rose Motel, it was almost 10 p.m.

“Not exactly the night I had planned,” he said.

Anna got off the bike. “Well, it wasn’t dull, that’s for sure.”

As he joined her on the sidewalk, he noticed she was favoring her left side. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

“Is it your arm?”

She frowned, then shook her head. “My ribs. Jammed my elbow into them when we hit.”

“You think you cracked one?”

“I said I’m fine. It’s just bruised.”

“Maybe we should take you to the emergency room.”

“Whoa. Who needs to go to the emergency room?” Danny had just exited the corridor to the courtyard, his new friend Dori stuck to his side.

“Nobody,” Anna said quickly, her voice strong. “I just tripped and banged into something, and Wes is overreacting.”

“Protective of your girlfriend, are you?” Dori said.

Danny let out a laugh. “Anna is Wes’s girlfriend? He wishes.”

Dori merely smiled, but the look in her eye let Wes know she suspected she was right.

“Hey, we’re going to grab something to eat, then head over to the bar,” Danny said. “Wanna come?”

“I don’t think so,” Wes said.

“Come on, Danny,” Dori said. “They want to be alone.”

“Ha. Alone. Right. Well, if you get bored or thirsty or want to look at more of those pictures, you know where to find us.”

“Sure.”

Danny tipped a hat he wasn’t wearing, then continued down the walkway.

Wes and Anna had only taken a few steps toward his room when Wes stopped. “Our suits. Here.” He handed her his room key and returned to the bike. They’d stashed their chlorine-soaked swimsuits in the compartment behind the Triumph’s seat.

But he’d barely got it open when Anna rushed back out of his room. “Call nine-one-one.”

He scrambled for the phone in his pocket. “Is your pain worse?”

“It’s not me.”

In the movies, when someone came home to find their place had been searched, it usually looked like a government-declared disaster area. That wasn’t quite what Wes found when he entered his hotel room, but close enough.

Everything that had been in his suitcase-shirts, underwear, socks, pants, a few books-had been tossed into a pile on the floor. The bed was skewed, the mattress twisted at a forty-five-degree angle from the box spring, the sheets and blankets ripped off and thrown in a separate pile against the far wall. Though Wes hadn’t used the dresser, all the drawers had been pulled out and were either on the floor or hanging in their openings. And in the bathroom, the contents of his shaving kit had been dumped into the sink.

Panicked, he ran over to the closet and jerked the door open. Surprisingly, the camera was still there. But the relief was only short-lived when he realized the backpack with his laptop and the case with the backup system for the cameras were both gone.

“No!” he yelled.

Anna came up behind him. “What is it?”

“They took the computers.”

While they waited for the police, Wes and Anna searched her room to see if anyone had been there, but it was untouched.

The same investigator from the previous evening, Detective Stevens, showed up accompanied by Detective Andrews. After a quick examination of Wes’s room, the night manager loaned them the motel office so they could talk to Wes in private.

“Not a good couple days for you,” Stevens said. “Detective Andrews told me about earlier tonight.”

“I’ve had better weekends,” Wes said.

“It’s only half over,” Andrews quipped.

“Thanks for that,” Wes said. “But what happened earlier tonight has to be connected to this.”

Stevens took out a notebook. “What makes you say that?”

“Don’t you see? The people chasing us were just buying time while their friends went through my room.”

Stevens held his gaze for a moment, but only said, “Perhaps.”

“Well, if they were,” Andrews said, “you’ve got a lot of people wanting to cause you trouble. At least one each in those cars, and someone here. So who is it you pissed off?”