Girl With a Past by Sherri Leigh James

he
yelled. He leaned across the passenger seat to open the door.
    Spitting mud and grass, I raised myself to
my elbows. Without success, I scanned the traffic to see if I could
spot the blue van. I searched the windows of the buildings opposite
the lawn. No sign of a shooter. I scrambled to my feet, dashed in a
crouch for the car.
    “What the fuck?” Steven reached over to
brush dirt and blades of lawn from my jacket. “What was that
about?”
    “Get outa here fast!” I yelled.
    Steven jerked the steering wheel, punched
the gas and forced his way into the stream of traffic to the tune
of screeched brakes, honked horns, and screamed expletives.
    “Someone shot at me,” I said, my heart
pounding to break out of my chest.
    “With a gun?” Steven’s look clearly said
that he thought I was up to what he sees as my usual drama queen
antics. I’m really not a DQ, but Steven is so damn mellow about
everything he makes me look, well, dramatic.
    “I didn’t hear a gunshot,” he said.
    “Well, I fucking felt it go whizzing past my
head.” I wasn’t dramatizing. “Where are you going?” I asked as he
sped down University Avenue.
    “Dad wants us to meet him in the courthouse,
in a conference room.”
    “We have to get Mom. Dad can wait.”
    “Where do we go?” Steven pulled the car to
the curb in front of a shop that sold Indian Saris.
    “Head for the city.” I punched numbers into
my phone to call Detective Schmidt. “Has my mother showed up
yet?”
    “I take it this is Miss Nichols,” the
detective answered. “No sign of her.”
    “She’s been kidnapped. Put out an all points
bulletin or whatever you call it for a blue van, royal blue
econo-van with white scrapes on the passenger’s side and for my
mother’s silver Lexus. Steven, do you know Mom’s license
plate?”
    Steven shook his head. He wove around
stoned, meandering drivers headed down University Avenue.
    “Hold on young lady,” the detective’s voice
grew snappish. “What makes you think she’s been kidnapped?”
    “My father has received threats,” I sucked
in a deep breath, exhaled. “I have a copy of a threatening letter
he got.”
    “Your father hasn’t reported any such thing,
hasn’t asked for protection.”
    “Look, I don’t know what the hell is the
matter with my father,” I yelled into the phone. “But my mother is
in danger. Seriously. And someone just took a shot at me.”
    “What?” That got his attention. “Where?”
    “On the Berkeley campus. In front of Kroeber
Hall.”
    “Did campus security notify the police?”
    “I don’t know if security is aware––”
    “Don’t tell me you left the scene?” the
detective said in a voice heavy with annoyance.
    “Of course I left the fucking scene––my
mother is––are you gonna help me or not?”
    “I’ll arrange for your mother to be located.
I need you to go back to where you were shot at and show the police
where it happened.”
    “My father wants my brother and me to meet
him before he has to go back into court. We’re headed to the
city.”
    Steven drove onto the overpass headed for
the freeway and the bay bridge. Ahead of us the choppy water of the
San Francisco Bay gleamed with afternoon sun but a threatening bank
of fog hung out past the Golden Gate.
    “Someone is liable to pick up that bullet.
That is, if it didn’t hit someone.” Detective Schmidt’s tone of
voice indicated patience wearing thin.
    “Oh, you’re right. Steven, turn the car
around.” I twirled my hand in a circular motion. “Detective, I need
to call my father. Can you go see him before he goes back to
court?”
    “I’m headed over there, to him. Come to
think of it, I’ll have an officer from the Berkeley PD meet you
outside Kroeber Hall.”
    Steven shot past the freeway entrance,
turned into the Berkeley Marina and flipped a U in the hotel
parking lot. For once, midday traffic going up to the campus was
light, but in my adrenalin pumped state every second seemed