Page 2 of The Man I Hate

Deciding what to do with their home wasn’t a simple task. I had two options: stay in Oklahoma and pay a mortgage or move to California and live mortgage free. To many, the decision would be easy. Personally, I couldn’t find many redeeming qualities about Los Angeles. The only one that repeatedly came to mind was the weather.

I meandered through the living room. The furnishings were in complete contrast to what I was accustomed to seeing in my mother’s home. I imagined her explaining how much she enjoyed choosing each thoughtfully positioned contemporary piece that was placed in the room.

I gazed through the window that faced the street. According to my mother, the view was picturesque.

Compared to the one-acre tree-filled lots I was accustomed to seeing, the sight was far from scenic. The view consisted of the neighbor’s two-story home on a postage stamp-sized lot, four unhealthy-looking palm trees, a shallow driveway filled with cars, and a neon green AstroTurf yard.

I couldn’t help but wonder what drew my parents to California. Or, what drew anyone to California for that matter. The sky was hazy and never quite clear, the traffic was horrendous, and everything was overpriced. People didn’t wave, they rarely spoke, and everyone was in a hurry. The streets weren’t lined with palm trees, they were littered with homeless.

Hungry, frustrated, and uncertain of where I was going to call home, I snatched my purse from the end table and sauntered toward the front door. In the ten days I’d been in Los Angeles, eating out had become a guilty pleasure. It saved me from being alone in a home that did nothing but remind me of losing my parents much earlier than I had expected. Eager to beat the morning rush, I locked the front door and turned toward the driveway.

The sun peeked over the top of an adjacent salmon-colored Mediterranean-style home. Positioned midway between Beverly Hills and North Hollywood, along what the locals called the four-oh-five, Sherman Oaks was filled with two-story homes situated on lots barely large enough to encompass them. Many had swimming pools. Very few were fitted with garages. None could be obtained for less than seven figures.

I rolled down my windows and drew a long breath of the cool morning air. After tossing my purse in the passenger seat, I adjusted the rearview mirror and started my playlist. With Lada Gaga’s Shallow my morning’s inspiration, I reached for the gearshift.

“Get out of the car!” a gravelly voice demanded from my left side.

Paralyzed by fear, I gripped the steering wheel like a vise. The smell of pot and stale sweat wafted into the car. My stomach convulsed. Ever so slowly, my eyes drifted toward the voice.

A bald man in a black hoodie loomed over the side of the car. A five o’clock shadow covered his sunken pale cheeks. His neck was littered with awful looking tattoos. With a gun in one hand and my door handle in the other, he glared right at me. His massive pupils made one thing perfectly clear.

He was a wacked out lunatic.

“Get out of the fucking car,” he said through clenched teeth.

Overcome by the thought of what might happen if I didn’t relinquish my vehicle, I stared mindlessly at my attacker. The bitter smell from his clothes and fear of the inevitable merged. Bile rose in my throat. Despite my desire to thrust open the car door and run as far and as fast as possible, I couldn’t convince a single muscle to move.

Frustrated at my lack of compliance with his concise demands, he yanked against the door handle. “Now, bitch!”

Be it a blessing or a curse, the automatic door lock prevented him from opening the door. If I couldn’t figure out how to release the steering wheel and let him have the car, the tattooed psychopath was going to plaster my guts all over the interior of my new Mercedes-Benz.

Less than two weeks after the death of my parents, I was destined to draw my last breath in their driveway. The fact that no one was going to attend my funeral came to mind. Crippled by that thought, I choked the steering wheel and stared straight ahead.

He pressed the barrel of the gun against the side of my neck. “Get. Out.”

“I’ll give you one chance, asshole,” a second voice said, enunciating each word clearly. “Drop the gun in her lap and take two steps away from the car.”

Relief tickled its way up my spine. In hope of the lunatic complying with the stranger’s demand, my eyes darted to the gun. The carjacker’s knuckles went white as he gripped the gun firmly in his shaking hand.

Obviously, he had no intention of releasing it.

I peered over my left shoulder. The distracted hoodie-wearing thug blocked my view. I glanced in my rearview mirror. A black Range Rover was parked in the street behind me.

The carjacker took a step back. A long shadow darkened the concrete beside him. I conjured up the countless possibilities of what was going to happen next. My heart raced to the point of making me sick.

While I fought the urge to vomit, the carjacker was yanked away from my car. A flurry of movements followed. The dull thud of someone’s head being hit with a fist caused me to cringe. A gun skidded across the driveway.

My eyes darted to the left. A well-dressed man stood behind my would-be assailant with his right arm wrapped tightly around the car thief’s neck. Immobilized by the chokehold, the bug-eyed lunatic flailed for an instant and then went limp.

A sickeningly handsome suit-wearing stranger had singlehandedly disarmed and subdued my attacker. In sheer disbelief of what I was seeing, I stared mindlessly.

My gray-haired protector lifted his chin slightly. “Would you open the trunk, please?”

The sincerity in his eyes diffused the situation enough that I was comfortable complying with his request. I glanced around the car’s interior, completely lost as to what I should do. I’d opened my trunk countless times. Despite that fact, I couldn’t seem to recall how to do it. Being held at gunpoint in my driveway had taken a toll on my ability to reason.

I craned my neck toward the street. My savior was dragging the unconscious man toward his SUV.

I swallowed a baseball-sized lump of nervousness. “My trunk?”