Apples, Appaloosa and Alibis by Maria Swan (feel good novels TXT) 📕

had been set up as protection from the crowd of lookie-loos of which I was now a part. And... in case of doubt, it clearly stated Rent-A-Fence at the very top. Why, oh why, did I not listen to Brenda?

And then I noticed him, Neighbor Bob. Good, a familiar face. Neighbor Bob who lived a few houses down from us, was a retired National Guardsman. We all looked up to him as a sort of an armed good guy/protector. He was licensed to carry, as he proudly and often reminded us, and he also assured us he had a gun for every occasion. I thought he liked very much to play the badass role. If he really was tough or not, I had no clue. But he was friendly, and I decided to go say hello.

I scoped the area I knew so well and found a spot where I could park my vehicle without getting into trouble. I also noticed that the Dumont gate was locked. And for good measure, it had a yellow Do Not Cross police tape spanning it.

No clue if Tristan was locked inside or if he’d ever even set foot there at all. I figured if I joined Neighbor Bob’s vantage point, I’d have a much better view of the side that supposedly had the fire damage. I grabbed my bag and then paused to really look at all the commotion, completely unjustified in my opinion.

There weren’t any celebrities involved, no scandalous lifestyle. Why so much interest? Of course not having followed the news put me at a disadvantage.

And that’s when I really looked at the unfolding scene. Few appeared to be local folks. Most of the people standing around either filming or recording something seemed a bit out of place, and then it dawned on me... these were the influencers. I was pretty sure that was the term used on YouTube and other social media sites I made a point to avoid. A few of the people had their own entourage which would explain the circus-like atmosphere.

What a sad statement. I shook my head as if that would help me get a clearer picture of the whole mess, locked my car, and headed toward Neighbor Bob’s premium spot. He gave me a polite hand wave from afar. Good, now I could pretend to be there with a purpose besides the salt. It occurred to me that with all the commotion I hadn’t seen a single cop car.

Perhaps they had located Angelique, arrested Leo, and figured out who the dead person in the burned car was. Maybe that was Leo, if he was a bad driver and got stuck in the desert with his dead half-sister’s Kia and something went wrong...

I was so focused on my interpretation of the facts that I bumped into some guy standing around with a group of people taking pictures or videos of the locked gate with the yellow tape. Weirdos. The encounter somehow caused my handbag to slip from my arm, and I barely caught it before it landed on the street. The man bent to help me, or so I thought, until I felt something sharp pushing against my left side, right below my rib cage. Stunned, I assumed a spider or an ant bit me, except—the man’s arm grabbed me around the waist.

“Hey... Get your...” I looked up and met the unflinching hateful eyes of Rogelio Avondo. I stopped breathing and tried to cry out. He held me with one arm, and now the sharp pressure against my skin increased. He hissed, “Keep your f**king mouth shut and start walking. You and I are going for a ride, in your car. Move.”

Something in my mind screamed. No, no. My lips quivered; no sound came.

He literally forced me upright and made me move. Everything came to a standstill. The only thing I knew for sure was that if I got into my car, he would take me somewhere and kill me.

I let my body go limp while my eyes searched for Neighbor Bob, but the spot where he stood was now empty. Rogelio was as aware as I of the unsuspecting, indifferent crowd preoccupied with the real or imagined drama unfolding in some new or revised desert version of Manderley, the mansion at the end of the driveway. The young rich man and the missing older wife made for a great tale, more interesting than the real-life crisis feet from their precious lenses.

It didn’t matter how much I resisted; Leo was almost twice my size. He lifted me up ever so slightly until my feet no longer touched the ground, and he kept walking. Slowly, painfully we reached my SUV. The keys were safely anchored inside the pocket of my purse along with my cell phone. He only had two arms and two hands, and one of the two was busy holding a knife against my body. It was now or never. Think, Monica, the knife is to your left. And just like that, I screamed and pivoted to my right, hitting his stomach with all the strength I could put into my elbow and flung my handbag with the car keys in it as far as I could, toward the crowd that suddenly fell silent.

I didn’t know if he cut me with the small knife, I felt no pain and refused to linger on it. Instead, I sprinted toward the clusters of people standing idle. He grabbed the back of my denim jacket and jerked me back. Not so fast. I kept on pulling forward, and in an instant he was left holding my jacket while I ran and screamed.

“Help, help.”

Was everyone deaf? And like in a predictable bad movie scene, I tripped and went down, and Rogelio tripped on my feet, landing inches from my face.

The shadow of his hand holding the knife high above me fell across my face, and my whole body started to shake.

That’s when I heard, “Put it down or I’ll shoot.”

Neighbor Bob