Roll with the Punches (46 page)

Kandajay screamed. His own sign proclaimed, "Kandajay's Corner," with the same yellow
A
's and orange
N
's. The other colors matched, too.

"Hmm. I've seen his articles. But you really think he could be Jackson? He'd need some pull at Haverton Masters."

She shook her head. "Well, stranger things have happened. But Jeff? Oh, please. Jeff just doesn't have the panache to be Jackson. But Reynolds does. I heard he's living down south near Pala Casino now." Eye roll. "Little gambling problem."

All my tormentors seemed to have gambling problems. "My friend Marian gambles out there. She may have lost a CD of my manuscript there. Hmmm. I wonder. Do you know if Paul ever goes by Pablo Reynaldo?"

"Reynolds, Reynaldo, Reynard?" Her eyes gleamed. "Ooooh, I like it."

"Yes," I said. "Could he be getting manuscripts via many routes? Using the casino somehow?"

She looked thrilled. "Oh, yes. Maybe the housemaids get hold of people's laptops. Now
that
I could buy more than poor James doing all of that stealing. He's really such a sweetie." She opened the patio door and brought in a box of Dad's stuff.

I saw a new sign in the rose garden: "Joane's Crank Yard." With exactly the same letter colors as Nadja's other signs.

"Cool signs," I said, "Who's Joane?"

"Just some cranky cartoon character. Seemed appropriate. We bring the residents out here when they're cranky."

"Your colors are the same on all your signs," I said. "Have you ever heard of synaesthesia? A kind of permanent color-letter correspondence in your brain? I have it, and you just might. Hmm. Your colors look so familiar. Like a new restaurant sign I've seen recently or something. Can't place them exactly.”

She shrugged. "You know, I think I have Paul Reynolds’s address. Would you like me to help you find him? I have time now. I could introduce you. Boy, I’m really curious about this."

"Sure," I said, happy to finally have knowledgeable support in my plagiarism quest.

"It’s upstairs. Just a sec." She went up and returned with a gym bag. "I just feel so bad about James's antics towards you and your dad. Listen, could I make it up to you a tiny bit by taking you to dinner on the way to Pala? There's a new restaurant in Ladrona Beach that everyone loves."

"Sure." I said, feeling better already.

"We could eat first, then go on down and find Paul. I've got lots of stuff on him. He'll have to talk to me." She beamed.

The evening was looking up.

Her car was low on gas, so I drove, feeling lighter than I had in days. "You brought a gym bag?" I said.

She said shyly, "I heard that you skate. My back's way tight today. Too much sitting. Wanna go for a spin in Besker Park before it gets dark? It's right by the restaurant."

"Cool.”

I parked in the restaurant lot by the same skate path edging the ocean cliffs that I'd skated during the conference. We put on our skates and helmets. In my trunk there was only my orange team helmet and just one knee pad. I had some serious road burn from the wheel-chair race, so I turned the car upside down looking for the other one. In a last-ditch sweep under the driver's seat, I came up with another one of Yvette's business cards and pocketed it with barely a glance. But with it came something on a lanyard that had been stuck under there.

"Yee-haa!" I yelled, holding it up in a little dance. "The last nail in Reynard Jackson's coffin!"

"What is it?" she said.

"My backup flash drive! Proof that I wrote my own work! Jackson, whoever you are, take that!" I put the lanyard around my neck. "Let's go."

We took off down the path lining the sheer, dark cliffs. The breeze was cool on my skin, the sky mostly clear with traces of haze. A few sailboats and one large yacht broke the deep blue Hokusai horizon. A growing tide of people, dogs and bikes ignored the red sun approaching the long line of shimmery ocean. They were all heading toward the beach with murmurs of, "Paris Hilton. Nicky," and pointing at the yacht.

We swam against the crowd.

As the sun set in a long red band, I said, "Your place is really cute, Nadja. Your sofas, your signs. Everything's so colorful. Like second grade."

"Well," Nadja said. "I'm weird. Compulsive. I can't sleep unless I journal in color and exercise the same amount daily."

"God. Me, too! Colors and sports and writing. Except I'm miserable about journals." I breathed in the smell of salt water and confided, "But all my
R'
s and
6
's are red."

"Really?" she laughed. "Mine do dance steps:
R
does the rumba,
T
the tango,
F
the funky chicken."

"Does
B
do ballet?" I laughed. "Sometimes I just wish I were color blind. Other people's colors can really annoy me. Do your color-letter associations drive you crazy?"

"Nah," she said. "Hey, we're here."

We came to a split in the paved trail. The right fork curved up by our restaurant, but Nadja pointed us toward the lower fork that was carved into the cliff face under some very lush hanging ice plant and aloe, which made it invisible from the path above. The spectacular, secluded view of silvery ocean from this path had inspired its romantic reputation all over the county.

"Lover's Lair. They've taped it off," I said.

"Oh, it's fine, as far as we need to go for the view. I was here just a few days ago. Let's go see the view. It's my favorite." Nadja lifted the yellow caution tape and motioned me to go under first.

We skated under dense growths of succulents and ferns that hung from the overhang on the left, muffling sounds from above. Eighty feet below us, dramatic black rocks jutted up through swirling water at low tide. The panoramic view on our right was indeed fantastic, and as I skated, the huge yacht moved into view. But looking out at the water became hazardous when I ran into a narrowed place where recent mudslides below had undercut half the asphalt path. The normally four-foot wide path was now less than three, leaving a substantial gap between the path and the steel railing, which hung in the breeze.

"Watch out," I said. My hands and feet tingled as I stepped past the gap with a too-clear view of churning water and rocks below.

I was gliding along happily again when suddenly, a big chunk of the path in front of me was just gone. Less than a foot of ledge remained. I braked fast right before it and grabbed the railing, which still stretched the six or seven feet across the chasm between the two skatable sections of asphalt, though it sagged some in the middle. Breathless, I stopped inches from the ragged asphalt edge.

"Whoa!" I yelled, looking dozens of feet down. Those rocks looked black and jagged. My hand went to the flash drive at my neck. Still safe. My little security blanket.

Nadja buzzed up behind me fast, too fast.

"Hey!" I yelled, as she slammed her bulk into me, pushing me off balance, knocking me right into the gaping hole. I somehow kept hold of the railing with one hand, sliding a couple feet down the sagging section of steel, but the rest of me swung crazily in mid-air for a harrowing second before I caught the railing with the other hand.

A leaf fluttered down toward the foamy water. My tummy followed it. Okay. Not to panic. The rail where I dangled was just a couple feet from the cliff edge.

"Whoa! Here, help me." I reached out toward Nadja.

She was on the phone. Chatting.

"Nadja! Help!" I swung around toward the cliff face and found I could easily touch the slope with my toe stops. "Nadja!" With great effort, I managed to shift my hand positions and scrabble my toe stops up the rockslide area to rest my skates on that leftover foot of asphalt ledge next to the cliff. It would barely accommodate my giant skates, but I balanced there, hands clinging to the rails, feet on the little sill, thanking my morning pull-ups. Then, with a huge burst of energy, I flipped over and hoisted myself up to a jackknife position with my butt in the air over a broad expanse of nothing, both hands still gripping the railing over the mudslide area. Whoa, I was awesome.

Until I looked down. Spiky black rocks and roiling ocean waves. Fear snaked up from my belly. I edged right and held a hand out to Nadja. "Nadja. Grab my hand."

She put away her cell phone and stepped back. "Shit. You're a gymnast."

"What? Nadja! Help!" I said, panic blooming. I kicked a foot out towards the path she stood on, and she kicked it back towards me. Oh, man. The horizon had gone leaden.

Then someone sauntered up in a dark wig and sunglasses on the other side of my temporary perch. "Hi, Rhonda.”

"James?" I kicked out at him and yelled, "What the—?"

"Don't move, Rhonda." A gun clicked in his hand. "Shut up."

I could see where this was going. I'd soon get tired and lose my grip on the sagging rail or lose my balance and end up—no, I wouldn't think about tumbling down the rocky cliff face like a heavy load of dirty laundry, leaving grated shreds of myself behind with each excruciating bump. There just had to be another way out.

Nadja said. "That yacht's coming back. James, on three, squirt the rail with olive oil.”

"I don't have any olive oil," he said irritably.

"Well, whatever's in your pocket then," she said. At his clueless look, she threw a small bottle at him, which fell short and bounced a few hundred times down the hill before splintering into a million pieces on the sharp black rocks below.

That would be me in ten minutes.

"Stop!" I gulped. Damn. I hadn't told anyone I was coming here. White-knuckled, I leaned toward the unstable rail, but the metal just bent down further. I steeled my arms against it, praying for it to hold. "They'll find my backup drive on my lanyard if I …" I felt sick looking down. "Fall."

Nadja said, "It will only help our case. All twelve of Reynard's books will be discovered on your laptop, well, the one they'll find in your car. We killed your purple one.”

“Noooo!” I shrieked.

“It's why we planted all those tabloid stories,” Nadja said. “You'll have the fame and funeral of a nationally bestselling queen."

Gulp.

James said, "But Nadja, Reynard's such a good income—"

Nadja dug in her pocket. "And his, or her, suicide will be mourned worldwide, and sales on Jackson books will skyrocket. And everyone will wonder at Rhonda's acting skills and sympathize with her poor father's ailment that drove her literally over the edge."

"But James, they'll get you for trying to murder Dad," I squealed, my hand slipping a little more on the rail. I gripped it tighter, arm muscles quaking. The rocky slope swayed below.

"Murderer? Crazy James? Hardly.
We
saved your father from
you
." Nadja smiled.

"Rhonda, you were Jackson, as well as your dad's jailor." James grinned.

"But you sank that house!" I said. "You tried to kill Hippo and me!"

Nadja looked up from her pocket search. "What? James, you told me—"

"He knocked out the stilts!" I yelled.

James waved the gun at me. "Quiet. You were the last person out of it, Rhonda. They'll blame you."

Nadja sighed. "And the roller girls attacked our rescue van. Poor, crazy James and I will sue every last one of them."

So these two would wiggle out of everything? Of course they would. Fiction was Reynard's gift. "But Hippo saw it all. And you tried to kill her and me.”

Nadja dug further, tossing lipstick and Kleenex on the path. "She's got a criminal record. We'll buy her off."

"Yvette—" I tried.

James sang, "Immigration breathing down her neck.”

Oh, God.

Hmm. Nadja or James? Which one could I take on from this position? I tried to wiggle toward Nadja on my right, but the ledge crumbled and my left skate slipped off it, sending a spray of rocks down the cliff face. My muscles screamed. That leg was so tired, I couldn't seem to raise the foot back to the ledge. The slope swayed below me, and the rail bent another inch under my weight.

I played for time. "But why Dad? Oh, my God. He must have seen you break into my laptop and take my book."

James grinned. "First Sunday in August. Your mom's house. Key in the watering can."

Oh, yeah. Dad had been dizzy that day and hadn't gone to Disneyland with us.

"I thought he was demented," James said, "but he remembered me way too clearly the night your mom broke her hip." He checked his watch. "Nadja, it's not too late for an evening visit to Mr. Hamilton in the hospital after this. All hospitals make mistakes. He could get the wrong medicine and die."

"Damn it, don't you hurt my dad! Help! Help! Heeeeelp!" Slowly, I lifted my left toe stop up to the ledge again. Then I willed my legs to be titanium.

A bullet whizzed over my head.

"Shut up, Rhonda," James said, "You stupid girl. If you'd just handed out full manuscripts like I told you, we wouldn't be here now. Scads of people would have had access to your stupid story, and you'd never have known it was me."

"Just do it, James." Nadja turned to go.

"Help!" I yelled. No one answered. I inched left. My hands and arms were numb.

"But Nadja, how did Jeff get them to publish my book so fast?" I yelled at her retreating figure, inching left again. Then my mind flashed on the Jackson book cover and Nadja's signs, both with those damned yellow
A
's and orange
N
's.

"Dammit! Nadja,
you're
Jackson!" I screamed.

She came back a few steps, an orange tube in her hand. Her big glasses made her resemble an evil alien, a bulbous Mars bug on skates. How could I have misjudged her so badly?

She rolled her eyes. "Duh.
Reynard A. Jackson
is an anagram of
Nadja Kay Crosner
. And
A
is yellow!"

James said, "And,
Nadja cons Karrey.
Damn it! You owe me money, Nadja! I want my share!"

I heard something, a low thundering. Crap. Slippery rain on the railing would spell my doom.

She said, "James. With our care home chain and the book income, you can retire at forty. Screw that asshole Karrey, telling the world I wasn't publishable." Nadja threw the orange tube at James and disappeared.