Jenna Night - Lost Rodeo Memories

Melanie began to tremble. A cold black wave of fear crashed over her, seemingly from out of nowhere. She couldn’t catch her breath, and she quickly rolled down her window for some fresh air.

Anna glanced over at her. “You all right?”

“Coffee,” Melanie said hoarsely. “Coffee would make me feel better.”

“Sure.”

Anna made the turn to take them to their favorite coffee shop. Melanie flipped down the sun visor and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Pale. Bruised. Looking like someone who’d been attacked.

The trembling got worse, and the midsize sedan suddenly seemed way too small. Melanie wanted to get out of the car. She wanted to jump up. She wanted to run. She needed to get away . It didn’t matter that she didn’t know why.

The coffee shop didn’t have a drive-through. Anna pulled into a parking space behind it, near the back entrance, and Melanie threw open her door before the car was completely stopped.

Anna gave her a questioning look.

“I’ll take my usual,” Melanie said to her. She gestured toward the front of the store, where there was a strip of grass and a couple of picnic tables. “Let’s drink our coffee while we sit outside. In the sunshine. I’ll meet you over there.”

Hiding in her bedroom seemed like a horrible idea now. She needed to be outside, where she could move. Where she could run. For a split second she had a flash of memory. Of being chased in the woods.

The coffee shop was in an area with both businesses and residences. Moving down the alley, Melanie could see into people’s backyards. See the houses, where normal life was going on. Where people felt safe.

Suddenly someone threw something over Melanie from behind her. A thick, heavy dark cloth that covered her head and shoulders and arms, down to her elbows. Before she could react, they wrenched it tight, pinning her arms to her sides, forcing the air out of her lungs. Then they started dragging her backward.

She tried to scream, but the cloth was tight across her mouth and she couldn’t get enough air. Terror and panic set her heart racing. She fought again for a deep breath, but the cloth was pulled even tighter across her mouth.

The world began to spin. The sounds around her were muffled, but she could hear a dog barking. She started to feel strangely detached from everything that was happening around her. After that, there was nothing.

“The guy who lives in the house next to the coffee shop, Jon Stoker, called the cops to report the attack on you,” Luke said to Melanie. “His dog wouldn’t stop barking. He came out to see what the problem was and saw someone with a blanket pulled over your head, dragging you across the parking lot.”

Melanie touched her fingertips to her lower lip, grateful to be alive and appreciating more than ever the ability to take a deep breath.

“When Mr. Stoker saw what was happening, he yelled and the person dragging you let go of the blanket and ran. Mr. Stoker hurried into his house for his phone and then came back outside while he called 9-1-1. He heard the roar of some kind of vehicle driving off, but he couldn’t actually see it.”

Melanie had apparently regained consciousness right after the attacker had let go of her. Anna had heard the commotion and hurried outside. She had pulled the blanket off Melanie just as Melanie was opening her eyes.

“The Bowen city police have been out, patrolling the neighborhood and going door-to-door, looking for anybody who witnessed anything. They also talked to customers and employees inside the coffee shop.”

Melanie, Luke and Anna were sitting in the front parlor of Anna’s house. Both Melanie and Anna loved vintage clothes, jewelry and home furnishings. The heavy furniture, thick curtains tied back with knotted silk tassels, crocheted doilies on the table tops and richly colored rugs on the hardwood floor gave Melanie a familiar feeling of stability and comfort. Something she desperately needed right now.

Luke had called ahead to ask if he could visit with Melanie for a few minutes. He’d arrived a short time ago, and Anna had invited him in and offered him tea, which he’d politely declined.

Luke sat in an upholstered club chair, with his sheriff’s-department-issued cowboy hat in hand, leaning forward a little as though he were already anxious to leave. Melanie was across from him, seated at the end of a couch, clutching the couch’s arm so tightly, her right hand was nearly numb. But she didn’t care. It was something solid. And right now there wasn’t much in her life that felt solid. Instead everything seemed disturbingly dreamlike. Normal life felt like something that had vanished a thousand years ago.

Anna sat close to her in a rocking chair.

“Did you go back to the hospital and get checked out by the doctor after this second attack?” Luke asked.

Melanie started to nod. Pain made her stop. Her neck was stiff after being grabbed and dragged in the alley, and she had a pounding headache again. Those pains didn’t mix well with the slight wave of dizziness that had come and gone, repeatedly, since she woke up this morning. For the moment it seemed best to stay as still as possible.

“I did see a doctor,” she answered. “I have no new injuries, other than a sore neck.” And a sense of impending panic that had started as soon as she had left the hospital, and it was apparently going to hang around for a while.

“This time I had nothing for anyone to steal,” she said to the large lawman sitting across from her. “I didn’t have my purse. I left it in the car. I wasn’t even wearing any of my jewelry. They made me take it off when I arrived at the hospital, and I put it in my purse.” Not that it was extremely valuable. She wore what she made. She’d splurged and made a few pieces using gold, but the vast majority of her jewelry was made of silver and semiprecious stones. She couldn’t afford anything more elaborate.

“This wasn’t a robbery,” Melanie said, with her voice sounding scratchy and tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “So, why is this happening to me?”

“I don’t know. But I intend to find out.” Luke cleared his throat. “Tell me what was in the lockbox,” he said. “Maybe that has something to do with all of this.”

Melanie blinked several times, trying to figure out what he was talking about. “What lockbox?”

“Peter told me you had a blue lockbox with you, all three days of the rodeo, and that it was with you in the truck when he saw you just before the attack at the fairgrounds. After that it was missing. It hasn’t turned up yet.”

Melanie stared at him, trying hard to remember her time at the rodeo, here in Miles County. But her efforts brought her straight to a blank wall. And the harder she tried to remember, the closer she got to that feeling of panic. “I can’t remember,” she whispered, afraid that if she spoke normally, she’d burst into tears or scream.

“You have that beige metal box you’ve used as a cashbox for a while,” Anna said. “Where is it?”

Melanie glanced at her cousin. “You can’t seriously be asking me that,” she said. “I don’t know where I’ve been for the last two weeks. How could I possibly know where that box is?” She started to shake her head and stopped when the pain started. “I don’t even know where the items I had left over at the end of the rodeo are.”

“Your trailer is still locked,” Luke said. “I haven’t seen inside it. But I have seen inside your truck. There are several clear storage boxes stacked in the back seat. Looks like your jewelry is in there.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Melanie said. At least that was one less thing to worry about.

“I can drive your truck and trailer back here,” Luke said. “Or wherever you’d like me to take them. You live here, correct?”