Chapter 19
Nineteen
“Holly?” A hand taps my cheek. “Holly! Speak to me.”
My throbbing head lolls from side to side. I crack open an eye. There’s a giant blurry face looming above me like the moon.
“Am I dead?” I ask. “Is this the afterlife?”
Elliot’s concerned face comes into focus. His hand gently brushes my cheek. He grasps me by the chin, turning my head from side to side. Only then do I realize that he’s propped on an elbow above me, cradling my head in the crook of his arm.
“Are you alright?” he asks.
“My head,” I mumble, remembering the punch to my skull… my bloody hands. “I’ve been hit.”
“Me too,” Elliot says.
“Oh my God!” I tentatively touch his back. Wet. He’d been shielding me with his body. “You’re hurt…”
“I’m okay,” he says.
“Okay?” I frantically touch his back. All wet. “How many times…”
“Once or twice,” he says.
“You took two bullets for me?” Sitting up, I push on his shoulder to examine him. My hand is coated in blue.
Huh?
Blue?
Elliot waves away my fussing. “Balls… not bullets.” He holds up a tennis ball drenched in blue paint, then twists around. His back is splattered with blue and yellow. There’s a red splotch on his shoulder and a green splat on his leg.
“But my…” Picking up a red-paint splattered tennis ball, I touch the back of my head and wince. “We were struck by balls?”
Elliot nods. “See what I mean about the abysmal security detail?”
The dam opens. Relief and hysteria floods in. I fling my arms around him. “We’re alive! We were struck by balls!”
There’s paint in my hair. My dress is stained red. I can feel a giant lump forming on the back of my head, but I’m alive. And Elliot…
With a gasp, I pull away, my hand trailing over his paint smeared trench coat. If these had been actual bullets instead of tennis balls, he would be riddled with holes. But he didn’t care either way. He literally dove into the line of fire and got pummeled by a barrage of balls to protect me.
I sniffle, touched beyond comprehension. A sob lodges in my throat. “Elliot…”
“Oh no…” Elliot says, looking around, embarrassed. “This crying is highly unproductive.”
I hiccup. “You could’ve been killed.”
“Not by a few tennis balls,” he says, ducking his head bashfully.
“But they could’ve been bullets.”
“They weren’t,” he says.
“This is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” I wipe my nose and, on impulse, I clasp his face in my hands and plant one on his lips. It was a quick, closed-mouth kiss, but when I pulled away, Elliot’s face was covered in my red handprint.
“Ahem.” His ears were steaming and his neck was as red as the paint on his cheeks. “All in a day’s work,” he mutters, avoiding my eyes. He swats down one of the deflated penguins and holds his hand out to me. “Let’s get out of here.”
Even though I was perfectly capable of getting up on my own, I didn’t want to get up just yet.
I just kissed Elliot and while it was only a three-second kiss and he probably had his eyes open the entire time, it was the kiss of my dreams because he’s now the man of my dreams. He ran into a tennis ball firing squad to save me.
“Holly?” Elliot crouches down in front of me and snaps a finger in front of my face. “Are you okay? Can you stand? Did you twist your ankle?”
I sigh and gaze at him with a dreamy half-smile. “I think I’m in love… with you.”
“Oh brother.” Rolling his eyes, Elliot touches the lump on the back of my head. “I think you’ve got a concussion and you’re probably in shock. Come on…” He scoops me up, and, I kid you not, sweeps me off my feet. “Let’s get out of here.”
Would it be cheesy to say that I’m literally swooning?
I’m lightheaded and dizzy. Swooning feels like a concussion.
It’s like I’m living something out of The Bodyguard.
Maybe it’s because I just got hit in the head with a tennis ball, but Whitney Houston is belting I Will Always Love You in my head.
We emerge from the float aimed cheers (Yeah. Cheers) from the onlookers. What can I say about Mapledale? We’re an enthusiastic bunch.
“What are you cheering her for?” Ivan emerges from his hideout spot unscathed. He holds up his sleeve, stained with the thinnest line of yellow paint. “I got hit too!”
His complaints disappear in a cloud of apathy.
“Holly!” Sarah, the photographer for The Mapledale Sentinel, catches us by surprise with her camera flash. “Smile for the front page!” She snaps another photo of us. “You two are so cute!”
We are, aren’t we?
“Really?” I utter meekly. “We’re going to be on the front page?”
“This is the biggest news Mapledale has ever seen!” The photographer snaps another photo. “Holly, look this way!”
I emerge from my swoon/concussion and deliver my most winsome smile. Front page!
“Holly!” Mom runs up to us, halting to let Elliot maneuver himself down the float. “Is she hurt? Holly! Aiya! Why you have that stupid look on face?”
“She’s in shock,” Elliot says. “She got quite a knock on her head.”
“We saw how you dove in to save her…” Aunt Cherry fans the tears from her eyes, her faux gold bangles clinking up and down her wrist. “This one…” she nods at Elliot, “this one’s a keeper.” Suddenly, she whirls on Uncle Tony. “Would you do the same for me?”
Uncle Tony takes a long time to answer. Finally, he shrugs. “Yeah.”
Aunt Cherry turns to me with a look that screams, You see what I have to deal with here?
Manny and Dennis jog up to us, panting. “We almost caught ‘em. Him, I think.” Manny braces his hands on his sinewy thighs, trying to catch his breath. Despite the cold, his UPS-issue button down is drenched with sweat.
Dennis’ usually messy mullet looks even messier. “Could have been a large chick or a very slender man. That motherfu — ahem,” he glances guiltily at my mom and aunt, “that creep sure is fast. I think I pulled a muscle chasing him.”
“Did you see his face?” Elliot asks.
“Nah, man,” Manny says, “he or she was wearing a ski mask. Ran like Tom Cruise.”
Dennis massages his hamstring. “Dude’s not even human. He jumped two buildings…”
My eyes widen. “Wait. Wait. Wait. You chased him over the rooftops?” Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Jen and Paige jogging toward us. “Paige! Are you hearing this? These guys were in a rooftop chase! Just like in the movies.”
Paige checks out Manny’s sweaty uniform. “You’re like Jason Bourne.”
Manny flushes and waves off her compliment. “Only over three stories… Working at the UPS keeps you limber.”
Not to be outdone, Dennis sweeps back his mullet. “I dabble in a little parkour myself.”
“Did you fight him?” Paige asks. “Or her?”
“Nah,” Manny rubs the back of his neck, “ski mask dude gave us the slip. He got lucky,” he bumps his partner on the shoulder, “Right, Dennis?”
“Yeah, man.” Dennis cracks his knuckles. “We would’ve messed him up. Or her. I don’t beat up chicks, but I’d put her in a headlock… for you, Holly.” He winks at me.
“Aw,” I coo. “You guys are so sweet.”
Elliot exhales impatiently. “So the perp is a fast runner—”
“Like Tom Cruise, man,” says Manny. “Tom freaking Cruise!”
“No, man,” Dennis holds up his hands to illustrate, “T-1000.”
Manny shakes his head. “Imagine if Tom Cruise was the T-1000…”
Dennis shuts his eyes. “Whoa.”
“Right,” Elliot interrupts, “so the perp is unusually fast and may be a woman.”
“Or a slender man,” Dennis says. “Kind of hot,” he coughs, “if he were a chick, that is.”
“Any identifying marks?” Elliot presses. “Jewelry? Hair color? Tattoos?”
Dennis contemplates the sky. Manny rubs his chin, his brows furrowed. “Nah, man,” they say in unison.
“Wore black from head to toe,” Manny says.
Dennis holds up his hands. “Leather gloves.”
“If the perp is a woman,” I venture, “boobs?”
“Leather jacket,” Dennis says.
“And ski mask,” Elliot repeats, frowning. “Did you see anything that can help us identify the shooter?”
Manny perks up. “We found his lair…” He points to the 3rd floor of the Mapledale antique shop. “He or she had a tennis ball launcher aimed right at your float. Buckets of paint all over the attic.”
“Inside Mrs. Day’s attic?” I asked, rendered speechless by what I was hearing.
Mrs. Day, the owner of the antique shop, is pushing eighty. Due to mobility issues, she hasn’t been up to her attic in over a decade. Also, she lives for the Christmas parade. I can’t imagine her involved in a plot to take down the mayor’s float.
“Mrs. Day is over there!” My mom points to the old lady with the garland decorated stroller.
Elliot nods somberly. “It’s likely the perp broke into her attic…” Without a second to waste, he dumps me unceremoniously into Manny’s arms. “Dennis, show me the hideout.”
“Elliot!” I sputter at the prospect of being discarded like a bag of potatoes. “Where are you going? What are you going to do?”
He spares me a glance over his shoulder. “What I do best,” he says, the answer obvious, “investigate.”
“But what…” I rub my temple. “What about…”
What about me?
“What if the shooter returns to his lair?” I say instead. “What if you have to fight him?”
He’s lips curl into a smile of supreme self-assurance. “I can handle myself against slender ski mask man,” he says. “Get yourself a waffle and an aspirin. I’ll be back.”
Handle himself? He’s an insurance fraud investigator. Has he ever been in a fight?
“Is your thug boyfriend going to bust some skulls?” Mayor Thornberry brushes past me.
I shoot him a dirty look. “Where are you going?”
Looking very put upon by my question, Ivan straightens his bolo tie. “To the waffle truck that you didn’t believe existed.”
“Can you get me a waffle?” I squeak.
His gaze travels over my disheveled hair and paint-splattered dress, probably taking pity on me after all I’ve been through and feeling pretty rotten about how he’s treated me so far. At last, he squares his shoulders. “No.”
“I’ll get you a waffle,” Aunt Cherry touches my arm, “what kind?”
“A hot one.”