Page 97 of Rest In Pink

“What?” I pulled back to look at her. “I didn’t even think of that. Why would I want you to leave?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. I just . . . didn’t want a Big Misunderstanding.”

“I don’t want you to leave,” I said. “Was that what was wrong?”

She hesitated again, and then she said, “You know what would have been great? If I’d helped you with it. If we’d done it together. If we’d been partners on it. I don’t want you to rescue me; I want us to rescue each other. If that makes sense.”

“Not really,” I said. I was still trying to process what I saw as a big misunderstanding—that she could think I gave her the car as an inducement to leave.

“It’s like . . .” She frowned, thinking. “It’s like you put me in a chair and say, ‘Don’t move.’ And then you do all this neat stuff, fixing up the car, and then you come back to me and say, ‘Don’t get up, here’s a car.’ It’s not about us. It’s about you giving me something.”

“Gifts are bad?”

She shook her head. “Never mind. I really do love the car, I mean, I just drove it across the lot, and it purred, that engine is something else. And the seats are so shiny. And I love the color.” She looked up at me then, smiling. “It’s perfect. Thank you so, so much.”

“Well, that’s what I thought,” I said, and then she kissed me again, and for a moment I forgot all the crap we were drowning in and just held onto her, relieved the car wasn’t a mistake, positive she wasn’t a mistake.

Liz Danger was a good place to be.

WEDNESDAY

Posted on BurneyCommunityNews on Facebook, 9AM:

I don’t know who you are, person pretending to be Thomas Thacker who is dead, but you can stop right now. Your post is not only not funny, it’s sacroreligious.

Thank you, Faye Blue, Page Administrator Pro Tem

Posted on BurneyCommunityNews on Facebook, Wednesday 9:15 AM

SAVE THE RED BOX, PLUS GOOD NEWS UNLESS YOU’RE A MOUSE

One thing about hanging out in the Cloud(s): you can see for miles. ECOmena is clearing out the Shady Rest and conversation drifted up to tell us that the ECO invader is using quality materials to bring that dump up past its former non-glory. And somebody tried to burn down Porters Garage last night, which was just dumb. I mean has this personmetPatsy? Meanwhile, another Burney landmark is in big trouble because its kindly proprietor took on two mortgages to help her widowed son who inherited a bomb of money from his dead bride. So go eat at the Red Box before Cash puts Kitty into bankruptcy and shuts down the best burger joint in southern Ohio.

Stay tuned for more updates from behind the veil. More good news: There are cats here too, which is hell on the mice, but that’s life (after death) for you. You can still go to BurneySecrets&Lies at ThomasThacker.online and pre-order the forthcoming tell-all e-book on Burney but I wouldn’t bother since that appears to have been a scam anyway. Why do you think I’m in purgatory instead of heaven? Not a nice person, that’s why.

Chapter Forty-Five

So much had happened yesterday that I hadn’t even checked to see if our neighborhood juvenile delinquent had scheduled a post for this morning. Of course, she had. It was going to take more than me saying, “That’s Detective Cooper” to put a crimp in Sun’s style. But I liked that she plugged the Red Box.

I parked the Gladiator short of and facing the new guardrail on the hairpin turn. I’d thought of coming up with a nickname for it, but Deadman’s Curve was gauche since Navy had died here and every other one just didn’t fit, so it was still the hairpin turn. Why break tradition?

I pulled on my dirty coveralls along with a climbing harness from my gear under the rear seat. I also took a snatch block which I secured to one of the railing stanchions. I unhooked the pin, ran the synthetic rope from my winch through, then secured it so the rope wouldn’t fray on the rail or ground.

I took the remote control for the winch and walked around front. Stepping over the rail, I clipped the winch hook to my harness then inserted the safety pin to make sure it wouldn’t accidentally come undone. I had synthetic rope instead of wire and over 200 feet to play with, more than enough to get to the bottom. I backed over the edge of the ravine, playing out rope with the remote. Then began backward walking my way down, using the winch to control my descent.

I passed grim milestones on the way down the steep slope. There were the twisted remains of two trees that had given their lives to stop ML’s car and save her life. Along with her seat belt and airbag protecting her inside the car. Then the lone tree that had brought Navy’s car to an abrupt halt and slammed him through the windshield, ending his life. Then the scree pile where Liz’s old car had hit and rolled into the undergrowth at the bottom of the ravine. We’d left that recovery to the guys who had the big highway truck so, of course, they hadn’t checked the brush and trees at the bottom for anything that might have fallen out. Their mission had been the car and they’d gotten it.

The mission thought stopped me cold for a second as I remembered another series of rappels I’d done in Afghanistan. A helicopter had been shot down and had crashed in a ravine that made this look like a walk in the park. My Ranger company had deployed to secure the area. And do the dirty work of recovering the bodies and weapons and classified gear. Dave had been in charge on site. Rain had been one of the volunteers to go down. She’d been at my side and it was one of those experiences you never talk about again. I shook off the darkness and focused.

I reached the bottom and was able to stand without the aid of the rope. I unhooked, then began to search for a pillow and a teddy bear that Peri had told me to get before Liz had taken her home last night. When I’d done my first rappel down the big tower at Camp Darby with the gold Ranger tab painted on it, little did I imagine that this would be the result. Of course I hadn’t imagined all the time in the rope corral learning the seven basic knots would come in useful with Liz Danger. I couldn’t imagine a woman like Liz Danger back then. So, there was that. Life is strange. And mostly good.

The pillow was easy to find. The wrecker guy should have grabbed it when he hooked the chains to the car, but what did he know? It was on top of some bushes. We’d had a couple of rains but it seemed in recoverable shape in my estimation although I’d never recovered a pillow. I stuffed it in my rucksack.

I spotted a glint of early morning sun off something underneath some scrub and there was the bear. A teddy bear wearing shiny sunglasses, jeans and a white t-shirt and sporting a heart-shaped tattoo with MOM written in it on the left shoulder. All it needed was a pack of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeve of the t-shirt to go hang out under the boardwalk.

But my attention was drawn to what was behind the bear, jammed amidst some boulders that had fallen down here long ago.

A black metal briefcase.

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