Page 74 of Waitress at the Shadow Ridge Inn
“All I’m saying is, things happen for a reason. Sometimes, the paths change, but the destination is the same. It’s no accident you ended up here when you did.”
She’d said something similar that night in the kitchen when I was working late. That I was meant to be there. That was the night I’d met Steve.
“What did you see the night you touched my hands, Jessie?” I asked.
Her eyes clouded. “Everything.”
“Will you tell me?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Is this a test?”
“No, I need to know what happened the night I was attacked,” I said sincerely.
She blinked, surprised. “You mean, you don’t remember?”
I shook my head. “No. I get glimpses sometimes in my dreams. Well, nightmares really. But there are huge gaps. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.”
She slid her arms halfway across the table, palms up, and I hesitated, remembering what had happened the last time.
“Maybe now’s not the best time to do that,” I said. “You’re recovering.”
She nodded and pulled back. “You’re right. It’s already up here anyway.” She tapped her temple.
She sat back, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.
“It started with you in a car. You were in the driver’s seat, your head against the wheel. You weren’t feeling well, and you worried about driving home. A woman appeared and rapped on the window. It’s the same woman who came here the other day. You knew her, but you were surprised to see her. Surprised and relieved. You couldn’t see the black aura of malice clinging to her, but your guardian angel did.”
I gasped. “You know about my guardian angel?”
“Well, of course,” Jessie said, as if I’d asked a silly question, then went back to relaying what she’d seen. “You ignored your angel’s warnings because they didn’t make sense to you. She was your friend. You trusted her. At her request, you unlocked the doors. She helped you out of your car and into another.”
“Wait. Are you saying I was conscious for this?”
Jessie nodded. “Conscious, yes, but not cognizant. You couldn’t take a step without her support. I suspect you were drugged at some point before then.”
“Go on,” I encouraged, needing to hear the rest.
“She drove away with you in the car. There was a period of darkness; you must have fallen asleep. When you woke up, the car was parked in a wooded area. She pulled and tugged on you in an attempt to get you out of the car. You resisted. You just wanted to sleep, but she was persistent. She told you that you were probably roofied and that you needed to stay awake. That you needed to walk it off.
“She led you farther into the woods, along a trail. The moon was nearly full, but the trees filtered the light, making it hard to see where you were going. She told you to stop for a moment and drink water to flush the drugs out of your system. You did. She propped you against a wooden post, a trail marker or something. You were so tired. You closed your eyes, just for a minute. The next thing you knew, pain exploded in your skull, and you felt yourself falling. You reached out to stop yourself, but you couldn’t. The next image I have is of you regaining consciousness as you rolled down an embankment during a thunderstorm.”
Jessie opened her eyes and looked at me, sympathy swirling in her silvery eyes.
“She really hated me, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
“How could I have been so blind?”
“You have a good heart, Casey. A pure soul. That level of evil wasn’t on your radar. But… there’s more. I saw what happened through her eyes too, when she attacked me,” Jessie said quietly.
I inhaled deeply, not sure I wanted to hear what she had to say, knowing I had to. “Tell me.”
“She left you on the trail, expecting someone to find you, but when Monday came around and there were no reports of a woman’s body being found, she went back and discovered you weren’t where she’d left you. Then she spotted you in a ditch below with the water rising and figured she was safe.”
“She just left me there. She wanted me dead.”
“Yes.”
