Page 145 of Hello, Summer
He’d just slid back into the seat when the truck’s driver emerged from the convenience store. He was drinking a forty-ounce bottle of beer and held a paper sack with his free hand.
The driver was a bulked-up white dude, dressed, like Buddy, in all black—black tactical pants, motorcycle boots, and a black T-shirt whose fabric strained over the guy’s outsize biceps. Unlike Buddy’s shirt, the front and back of the truck driver’s shirt had SWAT printed in bold, four-inch-high yellow letters.
“Shit,” Buddy whispered. It was the cop, the same one he’d seen at Waffle House.He wasn’t a local cop, because Buddy made it his business to know every cop who worked for either the city or Griffin County.
And now the truck was on the move again. Buddy waited until thecop pulled onto the road and followed, hoping his past-midnight vigil would come to an end soon. He needed to get back to the apartment, pick up Hi-Fi and his stuff, and hit the road. With any luck, he’d be rolling into Daytona Beach by sunrise. He’d find a cheap motel room, get some sleep, and, in the morning, start looking around for a new gig.
Shortly before two, Conley dragged herself—and her laptop—to bed. She’d rewritten her piece for the Atlanta paper, focusing more on the national angle and the bizarre ongoing Robinette family feud, and throwing in, for good measure, some of the backstory on Symmes Robinette’s role in defending the railroad against cancer claims in Plattesville.
Once this funeral story died down, she vowed to take a trip over to Plattesville and then to the county courthouse to dig into whatever records she could find about the lawsuits arising from the chemical waste dump there.
She couldn’t resist checking theBeacon’s Facebook page. Michael had posted links to the digital edition, as well as some of the video footage he’d shot outside the church. It had only been a few hours, but the story had already gotten nearly 800 views, 120 likes, and 40 comments. Tomorrow, she thought, she’d read the comments.
Her eyelids felt like concrete blocks. She set the laptop on the nightstand and turned off the lamp.
Sleep came immediately. When her phone rang sometime later, she fumbled for it in the dark and groggily answered without checking the caller ID.
“Hello?”
No answer. Just heavy breathing. And then that voice again. “You’re dead, bitch.”
Her scalp prickled, and her pulse quickened. She sat up in bed and looked wildly around the room.
For what?Conley thought. This anonymous caller was obviously trolling her, hoping to get a reaction out of her. And it was working. Because she was scared.
This time, she dialed 911 and got another recording. “You’ve reachedthe Silver Bay Sheriff’s Office. If this is a nonemergency, please hang up and call back during office hours. If you do have an emergency to report, stay on the line, and a dispatcher will be with you momentarily.”
“Shit,” Buddy whispered when he realized the cop was headed back toward Felicity Street. This was not good. As the truck approached the house with the Subaru in the driveway, the driver cut the headlights. He drove slowly past the house. The front porch lantern was lit, but no other lights burned from inside the house.
Buddy cut the Vette’s headlights and pulled into the driveway of a cottage with aFOR SALEsign in the driveway. Unlike the other homes on the block, this one had no outside lights. The lawn and shrubbery were overgrown, and a handful of yellowing newspapers still encased in plastic bags poked out from a rusted mailbox.
“Now what?” he wondered aloud. The truck hadn’t stopped at the reporter’s house and hadn’t circled back. So where was it? And what should he do now?
“Nine-one-one,” the female dispatcher said. “What is the nature of your emergency?”
Conley hesitated. “I’m alone, at my grandmother’s house, and I’ve been receiving harassing, anonymous phone calls all evening. Just now, a man called and said, ‘You’re dead, bitch.’ And then he hung up.”
“Address and name?”
“Conley Hawkins, 38 Felicity Street. In Silver Bay. I called earlier and left a message on the nonemergency line, asking that a detective call me, but this feels different.”
“Do you feel threatened?”
“I do,” Conley said, her voice tightening.
“And you don’t know the caller’s identity?”
“No.”
“Okay, ma’am,” the dispatcher said. “I’m going to send a patrol unit over there, just to check things out.”
“Thank you,” Conley said fervently. “Thanks so much. I feel kind of silly.”
“You’re not being silly. You’re being cautious,” the dispatcher said. “What’s your name again?”
“Conley Hawkins.”
“Well, Conley Hawkins, you sound like you might be the age of my daughter, so I’ll tell you what I always tell her. Stay inside. Don’t open the door to anybody unless it’s an officer. And you call me right back if you need me. Okay?”
