Page 148 of Hello, Summer
“No!” she yelled. “I’m not going anyplace.”
He looked around the living room with its polished antiques, thickcarpets, and gilt-framed family portraits. “Nice house. You got a nice house out at the beach too. Is that where your grandma’s at?”
Conley felt a ripple of terror shoot up her spine. He’d been watching her. That night when she and Skelly were on the beach. Skelly had joked about G’mama peeking out the windows, but it was him. Walter Poppell.
“Come on,” he said, pulling her toward the door. “Let’s go for a ride. Maybe we’ll take a moonlight walk on the beach. Hey, why don’t we do it in the dunes?”
She knew with an absolute certainty if he got her out of the house, she was dead. She had to stall him, no matter what it took.
“Get out!” she screamed. “Get out and leave me alone!”
He slapped her with such force she was knocked off balance. Her ears were ringing, and she felt a warm trickle of blood slide down her cheek.
“Leave me alone,” she sobbed, kicking out at him.
Poppell yanked her to her feet. She screamed again, and he clamped a hand over her mouth and began dragging her toward the door.
Conley closed her eyes and opened her jaws and bit down on his hand, feeling his flesh tear, tasting the hot salt of his blood.
“Bitch!” He howled and slapped her, but she hung on, attacking him with the only weapon she had like a crazed, rabid dog.
Suddenly, she felt cold metal pressing against her temple. She opened her eyes. He had a gun to her head. She heard the click as the hammer was drawn back.
“I’ll fucking shoot you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’ll splatter your brains all over your grandma’s pretty house.”
With the gun to her head, he dragged her out the door and onto the porch.
“Oh shit,” Buddy muttered, seeing the cop emerge from the house. He saw the glint of metal. “Oh shit. Dude’s got a gun.”
He glanced wildly up and down the street. Quiet as a graveyard. Not a soul around. No flashing blue lights. It was the oldest joke in theworld, and it was suddenly the unfunniest oldest joke in the world. Where were the cops when you needed them?
The girl was kicking and dragging her feet, but the cop seemed unfazed by her struggling. Where was he taking her? He must have parked his truck on the block behind the house and cut through the backyard. If he got her in his vehicle, no telling where he’d go or what he’d do to her.
Buddy didn’t stop to think. He gunned the motor and threw the Vette into reverse, backing out of the driveway with screeching tires. The cop looked up, surprised and maybe confused.
Suddenly, Gregg Allman’s ghostly verses popped into his head again.
Screw Daytona. Not gon’ let ’em catch the midnight rider,he vowed.
Buddy stomped on the accelerator, and the Corvette flew down the street. He flipped on his brights and steered the car toward the house, hurtling over the curb, plowing through the thick grass, aiming straight at the cop, who, in his surprise, had relinquished his hold on the girl.
On her hands and knees, the girl was frantically scrabbling backward.Good. Get away,Buddy thought grimly.Get. The. Fuck. Away.
The cop planted his feet apart, knees bent, both hands clutching the gun, which was aimed straight at the car.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Buddy muttered. He kept his foot on the accelerator, even as he heard the crack of the shot, saw the bright flash from the gun’s barrel, and—the very last thing he saw—the Vette’s windshield spiderwebbing.
The white Corvette kept moving straight at them. In desperation, Conley crawled as fast as she could away from the oncoming car.
Poppell saw it coming, but instead of running, he assumed the stance, holding the gun, straight-armed, in front of him.
She screamed. She screamed until she felt her throat was being ripped in two. She heard the gunshot and quickly looked away, curling herself into a tight ball, head tucked under her arms like a defenseless toddler.
At some point, she realized Poppell’s scream merged briefly with hers. And then it stopped. She heard the impact of the Corvette, slamming into the front porch of G’mama’s house, and the sharp crack of wood.
When she finally looked up, she saw that the thick plaster columns were split in half where the Corvette came to rest between them. A moment later, the porch roof began to sag and slowly tear loose from the old wood-frame house. As if in slow motion, it crumpled onto the top of the white Corvette, raining timber, shingles, and pieces of framing all around the car.
She was still numb, but she somehow managed to stagger to her feet and wobble over toward the house. When she saw the front of the Corvette, with the Working Press license tag and the shattered windshield, she gasped.
