the final page.”
Mike scanned the last page. It was earliest of the articles on the accident, he realized. The dateline was December 26, three days after the accident. He scanned the article, stopping short at the fourth paragraph.
Miss Bearden was last seen at the Headhunter Bar on Middleburg Road close to midnight,
accompanied by another teenager, Charlotte Winters of Bagwell.
“Charlie Winters was with Alice when she died?”
“That seems to be the big question,” Heller answered. “Nobody seems to know what happened between the time they left the bar and when Alice’s body was found in the middle of the road a couple of hours later.”
Mike’s gaze narrowed. “Charlie refused to talk?”
“Worse,” Heller answered. “I talked to the lead investigator interviewed in the article. He’s still with the county sheriff’s department and remembers the case well. According to him, Charlotte Winters claims to have no memory of leaving the bar at all. As far as she’s concerned, almost the whole night is one big blank.”
“And what does he think?”
“He thinks Charlie Winters might have gotten away with murder.”
Making four copies was overkill, wasn’t it?
Charlie looked at the flash drive buried at the bottom of the gym bag’s inner pocket. Were four copies a sign of paranoia?
“I wonder if Mike is married.” The voice was female, conspiratorial and close by.
Charlie looked up to find one of her fellow students applying lipstick using a small compact mirror. Midthirties, decent shape, softly pretty. Kim, Charlie thought, matching the name from Monday’s roll call to the face. She’d tried to memorize all the names and faces from the class. Partly as a game to relieve her boredom, but partly because the knowledge might come in handy someday.
Like during the zombie apocalypse?
Oh man. She was paranoid, wasn’t she?
“I didn’t expect him to be so hot,” Kim said, punctuating the statement with the snap of her compact closing. “I didn’t see a ring.”
“Maybe he doesn’t like to wear it when he’s engaging in self-defense activities.” Charlie grimaced at her lame response. Kim was clearly trying to be friendly, seeking to engage Charlie with a topic they might both find intriguing. And her response was to cut her off at the knees?
“Maybe.” Kim’s smile faded. “Probably. A guy that good-looking is either married by this age or gay.”
“Or commitment-phobic,” Charlie added.
“Honey, that can sometimes be a feature, not a bug.” Kim finger-combed her honey-blond hair and smiled. “You ready?”
“Sure.” Charlie walked with Kim out of the locker room into the gymnasium, where about half the number of their Monday classmates were already waiting. Today, the gymnasium floor was covered nearly wall-to-wall with padded floor mats. Apparently they were going to do more than just take notes today.
Thank goodness.
Mike Strong stood against the front wall, flipping through papers secured on a clipboard, his brow furrowed with concentration. The light slanting in from the east-facing windows bathed him in golden warmth.
Beside Charlie, Kim released a gusty sigh. “Lord have mercy.”
Mike put the clipboard on the floor beside him and looked up at the students gathering in front of him. His gaze settled on Charlie for a moment, and he smiled at her. To her surprise, her stomach turned an unexpected flip.
“Oh, wow,” Kim murmured. “Probably not gay, then.”
“This is crazy,” Charlie muttered, as much to herself as to Kim.
Mike checked his watch, the movement flexing his biceps and sending her stomach on another tumble. “It’s time to get started. Everybody remember the stretches?”
Charlie’s heart was beating far more quickly than her exertion level warranted. She forced herself to keep her gaze averted from Mike Strong’s lean body and focused instead on maximizing the flex of her muscles.
But when she looked up again, Mike was walking slowly through the small clump of students, observing their efforts. He stopped in front of her and crouched, his voice lowering to a rumble. “You’ve done this before.”
“High school gym,” she answered, trying not to meet his gaze.
“Not college?”
Her gaze flicked up despite her intentions. “College, too. Core requirement.”
His lips curved. “So I hear.”
“You didn’t have phys ed classes in college?”
“I went straight from high school to Parris Island,” he said with a smile. “Lots and lots of phys ed, you could say.”
She dropped her gaze again, but it was too late. Now she was picturing him in fatigues, out in the hot South Carolina sun, sweat gleaming on his sculpted muscles and darkening the front of his olive drab T-shirt...
When she risked another peek, he’d moved on, walking from student to student, offering suggestions to improve their stretches. She let go of her breath, realizing her exhalation sounded suspiciously like the gusty sigh Kim had released earlier as they entered the gym.
“All right,” Mike said a few minutes later, “I’m going to pair you up and we’re going to talk about some of the basic escape moves. This really shouldn’t be the first thing we do, but I can tell by the low attendance today that maybe you want a little less talk and a lot more action.”
A few laughs greeted Mike’s words, along with a few murmurs of agreement. Then everybody fell silent, watching with interest as Mike paired them up.
He left Charlie for last. There was nobody left to pair up with, she realized with a flutter of dismay. It was fifth-grade kickball all over again.
“You’re with me,” Mike said bluntly, nodding toward the front of the pack. She followed him with reluctance, revising her earlier thought. It wasn’t kickball. It was Public Speaking 101, and it was Charlie’s turn at the front of the class.
Heat flooded her cheeks, no doubt turning her pale skin bright red. Her hands trembled so hard she shoved them in the pockets of her sweatpants and tried not to meet the gaze of anyone else in the gym.
“If you’ve read any books or watched any movies or TV shows, you’ve probably heard of the vulnerable spots on an assailant and some of the ways to target them. Knee to the groin. Foot to the instep or the knee. Fingers to the eyes or heel of the hand to the cartilage of the nose.” There were soft groans at the images those words invoked. “Those are all vulnerable targets on an attacker, true. But how easy is it for a small person
