(Ok Campers - Hold onto your hats...I hope what's coming up next will catch you off guard or keep you on your toes. I hope...but thank you to everyone who has put in such wonderful reviews. You've kept me going and fueled my fire. But hey, anyone reading my story - I'm willing to take any kind of review - good or bad. This is a learning process for me so don't be afraid to tell me if you don't like something or find problems/issues. :) - Now, on with the show...)
PS - There is a tiny bit of language used (like one word) but I'm just putting this warning out.
Chapter 23
Clara had spent the last two days out in the cold and damp taking her frustrations out on the last few remaining logs left to split. On the second day after the confrontation with Matt, it had misted on and off all day and she expected it to begin freezing that night with possible snow in the next day or so.
She was still upset and hurt over Matt's sudden appearance the afternoon after Lisa had left, demanding to know why she needed a lawyer. Clara had been so close to telling him everything but his demands to know what was going on had done nothing but raise her hackles and clamp her mouth shut over any words of explanation. She hadn't slept well the last few nights as her conscience played over things in her mind, making her second guess herself, fret and pace the floors when she wasn't busy trying to find things to do to keep her mind off of the things said. Her appetite was gone and she found it hard to choke down toast and soup much less anything else.
In her hours of walking the floors and fussing over things about the cabin, she finally came to the realization that she just had to suck it up and tell Matt the truth. What more could it hurt? He already didn't trust her and perhaps didn't want to be around her now because of their argument. She might as well pull the band-aid off the rest of the way and be done with it.
She had tried to reason out logically why she didn't want to tell him who she was and in the end, it boiled down to the fact that she wanted him to respect her for who she really was, not who she used to be. All anyone ever saw of Shandra Lee was a blonde headed bimbo that had a great voice and pretty body that looked great dancing up on stage. They never wanted to look past the wrapper to see what was underneath. She'd tried to tear that wrapper off when she'd come up here to prove to everyone up in the mountains that she had substance, that she was a fast learner, was smart and could take care of herself. She thought she'd done all of that but she was still deathly afraid that the moment she told people who she had once been, that they would only start to see the wrapping again and forget about the woman underneath.
It also had also dawned on her that she didn't want to be 'Shandra Lee' any more. She had had her fill of jostling crowds and loud noise, screaming fans and flashing lights. She had enjoyed over six months of peace and quiet, fresh air, hard work and good food in the mountains and she finally admitted to herself that she had come to love it up here. When this court case was over with, she was done. She was coming back here to live. She didn't care if she had a penny to her name. The cabin was hers and she'd make it work somehow.
That resolution was what made her decide that she was going to ride down to the station the next morning if the rain managed to stop to go talk to Matt. She would tell him everything and if he didn't want anything to do with her then she was no worse off than she was right now. If he did, well she'd cross that bridge when she came to it.
By the end of that second day, she was done with as much as she could do outside before the first snows of winter. She had worked through the day to get finished and by the time she put her tools away and shut up the barn, she was soaked to the bone and shivering from the cold. A hot bath had helped to stave off the chills but she couldn't seem to get truly warm, even wrapped in two blankets in front of the fireplace.
Finally she fixed herself a cup of tea and drug herself off to bed, taking the lamp with her. There was little else she could do other than to go to bed early and hope she didn't come down sick with something. Once settled into bed, she took the book she'd been reading off the night stand and opened it, trying to plow through the next chapter while she drank her tea. By the time she was done with her tea, she'd given up reading as a lost cause and set it aside, turning down the lamp. She felt herself finally begin to warm up under the multiple layers of blankets on the bed and drifted off, wondering if there would be the first snow on the ground by morning.
It felt like she'd only just closed her eyes when the groan of the floorboard next to her bed alerted her that she was no longer alone in her room. Startled she attempted to sit up, only to feel something hard slam into her face under her left eye. She heard herself cry out and fall back against her pillow and the weight of someone on top of her now pinned her arms and body tightly beneath the layers of blankets. She struggled to comprehend what had happened, her mind still confused with sleep and her head pounding in agony from the blow.
Light flared in front of her face and the beam of a flashlight shown down at her, obscuring her view of the person above her. She squinted against the light, her cheek throbbing in time with her heartbeat. "Who are you? What do you want?" she growled, trying to sound like she wasn't scared and by the sounds of it, failing miserably.
The cold voice that answered her nearly made her racing heart stop from recognition and fear. "When you disappeared, I thought I had lost the goose that had laid the golden egg. It cost me a small fortune to cover up the fact you were gone and then when your stupid band members started going to the press, it cost me even more to keep the press convinced that you were alive and well. Thankfully the private investigator I hired managed to track you down. Come to find out, your drunken doped up parents forgot to mention you'd inherited this nice little piece of property."
"Randall…," she breathed. Her heart was racing now. Oh god. He'd hired an investigator who'd traced the will back here and had come to check it out. Her mind swirled in a thousand directions at once. It stopped on the only person who had been here…the sleazy man in the Lincoln Continental. In a panic, she struggled again to get free of the covers on the bed, to escape, to fight back but he had the upper hand and was using it to keep her in place.
"But you've outlived your usefulness to me. Well actually, you did several years ago but I figured I'd just keep milking things for all I could get and then some day there would be this tragic plane or bus crash that would claim your life and your parents and I would cash in on the life insurance policy we have out on you," he said, giving a little chuckle as she heard a round being chambered into a gun.
She couldn't find the words to fight back verbally. Her whole body was shaking as sweat formed on her skin, adrenaline pumping through her. She strained to get her arms free of the blankets while she worked to get her legs untangled in case she could push up with them to throw him off. He quickly put a stop to her movements as he slammed the butt of the gun against her right cheek this time, causing her head to snap to the side. She was sure she had heard bone crack under the blow and the pain made her cry out as she went limp with the shock of it.
"When I found out where you were I had one of my men come up here to keep an eye on you for the last few days. He witnessed that little lovers spat of yours with that blonde federal cop." He paused for dramatic effect then spoke again. "It seems your blonde lover got into a bit of a fight in town. Too bad he's missing a little blood and hair. Next time someone comes to visit, it'll be to find you stiff and cold. The forensics team will be called out to investigate and it'll be interesting to see how your boy toy will explain why his blood and hair were in your bed and you shot with his personal revolver from under the seat of his truck…the one he probably forgot to check to see if it's missing after he was roughed up. Wouldn't it be lovely if he were framed for your murder?" came the smooth, nasty voice from above her.
Her whole body had gone stiff with true fear, her face throbbing in time with her racing heart. "You…can't do this…If you're going to kill me just do it but don't make it look like he did it," she said, trying to sound brave. "Please." She tried to put as much pleading into it as possible, hoping he might have at least a little compassion to grant her that much of a last request if he was really going to kill her.
"Oh but I will since it will be all the more attention off your grieving parents and I and onto someone else." He paused to chuckle a little. "I have to ask you though, was life so bad with me around that you had to run away from everything I'd given you and for you to make me look the fool?" he said, his voice coming out with a bit of a snarl. She felt him begin to move, shifting as if to get off the bed, perhaps to put enough room between himself and her to avoid getting himself soiled with her blood when he did the act of killing.
"Yes," she spat out at him as her only answer and in that moment, she felt him finally shift off the bed. Before she could take another breath, she was already moving, trying to roll to the side away from him and off the bed, out of the line of sight, out of the light of the flashlight and into the dark where he couldn't take aim.
The sound of the gun going off echoed loudly in the bedroom and the burning sensation in her left shoulder was like nothing she'd ever felt before. She cried out in pain as she felt herself falling half out of bed, her head slamming into the floor. Her head throbbed and she thought she blacked out for a moment because when her eyes focused again, she was laying face down, her legs tangled in the covers still up on the bed.
She could only thank god for years of acting lessons. Even in the pain she was in, she remained absolutely still with her eyes wide open, staring under the bed and her mouth half open in a gasp. She could feel blood running down her shoulder and neck and into her hair. Schooling herself, she worked quickly to slow her breathing, taking very slow shallow breaths, using her diaphragm to work instead of moving her shoulders or body when she breathed.
The sound of footsteps came around the side of the bed and the light shown down on her. "Bitch," said Randall with hate in his voice. There was a moment of silence and then the sound of a chuckle echoed through the room as if he found the position she fell in extremely funny. Moving away from her, he seemed to busy himself with something on the other side of the bed for a moment. She could only assume he was planting the evidence he had that would implicate Matt. When he finished, she heard the footsteps coming back over towards her and the light shown down on her for another long moment.
"What a great story this will make my dear. Such a tragic end. Boo hoo. Your parents and I will just be devastated," came the snide comment as he stood over her at the foot of the bed.
When she thought she could no longer hold her drying eyes open or deal with the pain of her injuries, the light turned away and she heard his footsteps leave the room. She quickly shut her eyes but remained still as she listened as his footsteps made their way to the front door. Within moments, he was gone and she took a moment to let tears roll down her face as she tried to deal with the pain of her face and shoulder. He had hit her in the left shoulder but had missed her heart and if she hadn't bled out yet, he'd probably missed any major arteries. She was still bleeding steadily and being upside down like this for so long was not helping matters. She'd lost a decent amount of blood by the evidence of what was in her hair and on the floor under her head and shoulder.
She had to get help. But first thing was first, she had to get free of the covers and get to the radio. She could only pray that Randall didn't have a scanner with him.
To Be Continued! Will Clara get help in time? Will Matt be framed if something happens to her? Will Randall get caught? Stay tuned!