Quicksilver Dreams(7)
The hair on the back of my neck rose with alarm. A cold sweat popped out around my neck, and the familiar voice in my head cried RUN! which was more than enough for me to spin around and go from zero to sixty.
I sprinted across the floor, my heels clicking sharply on the marble while I sought purchase on the slippery surface, and threw myself out the front door. The scorching heat of the afternoon slapped at me, but I hardly felt it. My ears picked up the heavy pounding of footsteps that would bring Frank into the living room, fueling the spike of adrenaline that raced through my bloodstream.
I slammed into my car, fingers shaking as I tried to pick out the right key on my key chain and stab it into the ignition. Praying that the car wouldn’t take this opportunity to protest being overworked, I whispered, “Please, please, please,” as I turned the key.
It started, if a little roughly.
The car was in gear when I saw the front door bang open, showing the full, muscular size of the angry man, and I was already disappearing around the bend in the road when he hurled himself out onto the street with the agility of a professional athlete. He still only caught sight of my tailpipe disappearing down the hill, from what I could tell, watching in the rearview mirror.
“Ohmygod,” I whispered shakily. Breathing rapidly, I took the winding curves much too quickly, almost losing control on one of the hairpin turns, and eased off the gas. Suffering through another minute of anxious driving, my eyes searched the mirrors to make sure I wasn’t being followed.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I smacked the steering wheel, punctuating each word, and still felt my heart racing madly against my chest. At the light on Sunset, I stopped and rested my head on the wheel, wondering what the hell had just happened and trying to calm my fluttering heart. Why the hell had I run out of the house?
It had seemed like my boss’s boyfriend wanted to kill me. But how did I know that? Voice in my head? No. Yeah? Totally crazy. And what was the proper response in this situation? Call Reggie? Call the police? Call Cynthia and ask her what she thought I should do?
A car honked behind me. Heart in my throat once again, I scanned the rearview mirror but only saw an annoyed driver in a low-slung red sports car. The light had turned green. Easing off the brake, I made my turn.
But what would I tell Reggie? Or the cops? I was standing there in the house. The silver-haired guy was coming in with a mad look, and he was going to kill me. How do I know this? I don’t know. I can’t tell you. Intuition? I heard a voice? Yeah, that would go over really well.
A more absurd thought, considering I was sure my life had been in jeopardy, was would I still have a job on Monday? Maybe Reggie would even call me over the weekend to tell me not to bother showing up. But what the hell? What else was I supposed to do? The guy had looked like he was about to kill me!
The lights seemed to be working in my favor. I made my way back to the shadier side of town feeling my anxiety lessen. Familiar stores, junk-food restaurants spewing the smell of grilled onions, and familiar street people lying under newspaper blankets seemed to bring back normality. I could breathe easier.
About halfway home, my heart quit thundering, and though I’d replayed the scene a thousand times in my head, I still wasn’t sure what had happened. First, there was the...oooookay, could I admit it? I heard a voice. In my head. But did I really? Just thinking it felt cuckoo. Maybe I was just tired and overly stressed. That could be the case. Maybe Cynthia was right about the side effects of overworking myself and needing to cut back on hours to relax some, but I truly needed both jobs.
Could I have heard a voice?
In less than a second, my own mind scoffed at me. My inner adolescent smirked rudely, and I was forced to admit that it was just too crazy to be believed.