Good morning and Happy Hump Day! If it's Wednesday, then it must be time for more flash fiction from the Wednesday Briefers! We're a group of authors who bring you our finest flash fiction every week, 500 to 1000 words, inspired by one of our prompts.
Someone has slashed the tires of Vinnie and Ethan's car! And Vinnie swears he saw Caroline St. Clair in the crowd at the rest area. Could he be right, or is he just a little paranoid? See what's happening in this week's chapter of Bad Karma and the Family Plan. Don't forget to visit the other Briefers and see what's up with them. Their links follow my tale! Enjoy!
If I’d been wearing a dress, I’d have followed Sarah
inside without a second thought. Okay, maybe it wouldn’t have been that easy,
even dressed as a woman. But not dressed as one, I had no option but to wait
outside, along with Ethan and Benny and Alex, and hope Sarah didn’t run into
any trouble inside. I’m sure Ethan felt the same way, the way he fidgeted,
rocking Alex back and forth, his eyes glued to the ladies’ room door. A few
minutes that felt like an eternity later Sarah returned, and she was not empty
handed.
“I found these inside one of the stalls,” she said,
handing the items to Ethan. I recognized them immediately as the coat and scarf
I’d seen on that woman earlier. Did that also mean I was correct as to whose
clothes they were?
“No one else was in there,” Sarah said. “Only
those.”
Damn. What did that even mean? I cast a worried
glance at Ethan, whose attention was fixed on the clothes and then on me. “It
must be a coincidence, Vin,” he tried to reassure me. “I mean, Caroline’s still
locked up, you know that. And if by any chance they would be willing to let her
out of the asylum, Troy would let us know, I have no doubt.”
I had no doubt either, but how to explain the
clothes being left behind? As if the wearer were afraid she’d been recognized?
Or was there something more sinister at work here? What if Chip, aka the
Florida Mangler, somehow managed to escape custody and was now stalking us?
Maybe I had talked about the insufferable actress after he’d kidnapped me and
drugged me and… was I becoming increasingly more paranoid or what? Chip being
on the loose would have definitely triggered an alert of the highest magnitude,
and Anderson would have called us straightaway.
Of course, that still left us with four slashed
tires. Luckily, our employer had us covered. We took seats on a couple of
benches in the lobby of the rest area while Ethan called the insurance company
and arranged for a tow to the nearest tire store. It was obvious that we couldn’t
go with the tow truck driver, there were just too many of us, but Ethan had a
solution for that too. Turns out Atkins had actual Uber drivers. We found one
with a mini-van who was willing to pick us up. Sarah had the forethought to
grab the car seat for Alex, luckily. Ethan asked the driver if she’d mind
waiting while we got the car squared away. The man behind the counter said it
would be ready in about three hours. What to do in the meantime?
We headed back to the Uber, unsure of our next move.
“Ma’am, we have some time to kill, what would you
recommend?” Ethan asked.
The young woman cocked her head thoughtfully. “I
like to go to the Settlers Museum when I have the time,” she confided.
The adults exchanged glances at the information. “Sounds
good to me,” I volunteered.
“I like museums,” Sarah said. “Obviously. I worked
in one.”
“It’s been a long time, I’d like to go,” Benny
admitted.
“I think that settles it,” Ethan said as we piled
into the mini-van once more. Off to the Settlers Museum of Southwest Virginia!
to be continued
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