Free Buried Biker by KM Rockwood

forklift driver and told me to report. Then I’d work my regular hours and get the vacation at another time.
    I sat down across the table from Ramon to wait for the shift to begin.
    “They didn’t think they’d have a driver at all this shift,” he said. “That’s why they called me in. I can always use the overtime.”
    “Really?” I asked. “Jim said Kelly’s dad called in, but why did he think I wasn’t going to show up?”
    Ramon flipped open his lunchbox and pulled out a newspaper. “You see the front page of today’s paper?” he asked.
    “No.” I reached for the paper he was holding out. This couldn’t be good.
    There I was. Staring right into the camera, my face covered with blood. I looked totally deranged. My hands were pulled behind me, and a burly cop with a grim expression on his face had me by the elbow. It looked like I was trying to break away and he had to actively restrain me.
    The caption had my name slightly misspelled, “Jessie Damon,” and said I was being arrested on charges of rape, kidnapping, and assault. The brief article below noted that I was on parole for a murder conviction and considered armed and dangerous. It primly stated that the paper did not name the victims of sexual assault.
    But everybody here at work knew it was Kelly. My status as a paroled murderer was no secret to anyone. The first time I’d made the newspaper had been when I’d been arrested for murder at age sixteen. But that had been in the Baltimore Sun , a much bigger paper, and the article had been tucked back on page five or something. Now I was in the news again, and this was on the front page. While I told myself it didn’t matter and I shouldn’t care, it did bother me.
    I remembered the car that had pulled up on Friday when I was being hauled in. It must have been a reporter. With a camera. Probably listening to the police calls and hoping for a dramatic front-page story for the Sunday paper. He—or she—got it.
    “My parole officer is gonna love this,” I said, rubbing my rough cheek. I still hadn’t shaved—I figured it covered some of the bruising, and no one at work cared what anyone looked like as long as the work got done.
    “You’re not locked up,” Ramon said. “Did you post bail?”
    I shook my head. “You really think they’d set bail for somebody with my record? On a rape charge? Or that I’d find a bail bondsman willing to post it, even if I could come up with my ten percent?”
    “I guess not.” He took the paper back. “You look kind of rough in that picture.”
    “True, that.”
    “Truth be told, you don’t look that much better now.”
    I grinned and nodded toward the newspaper. “That why Jim thought I wasn’t gonna be coming in?”
    “Yeah. Everybody figured you’d be in jail.” His eyes opened wide. “You didn’t escape, did you?”
    I laughed. “And come into work, where they could just swing by and pick me up? I don’t think so. They never charged me.”
    “But the paper says…”
    “I see what the paper says. The reporter overheard the cops talking about those charges. But when Kelly came to and they talked to her, she fingered someone else as the attacker. So they cut me loose.”
    “Can’t they test for DNA or something?”
    “I’m sure they will. And it’ll come back it wasn’t me.”
    “So who was it? Do you know?”
    I shook my head. “No. I tried to go see her, but she wasn’t in any mood to talk to me.” Slight understatement.
    “She still in the hospital?”
    “I think so.”
    “Gonna be okay?”
    “As far as I know. But she got a dislocated shoulder or something, so she’s gonna be off work for a bit.”
    The other workers were drifting in. Most of them glanced over and did a double take when they saw me sitting there. Did they all get the Sunday paper?
    Ramon leaned forward. “You know that picture was on the news on TV, too?”
    Great. Anybody who hadn’t seen the paper had probably watched the news.
    No point sitting