Free When I Kill You by Michelle Wan Page B

forwarded to his address and drove out of Franks forever.
    After a couple of months, I let Jimmy know where I was newly settled. I never told him about the Beeklands, about my week in hell, but I did make him promise not to tell anyone how to find me, especially not a creepy, mouth-breathing accountant or a goon with a broken nose. I laid low, ate junk food, drank more wine than was good for me and grew my hair back. Sometimes I went jogging, not for fitness but because it was a way of running out on life. As I ran, I wondered how things could go so wrong. Mostly I sat around doing nothing.
    I could afford to. I was a wealthy woman. North American Life paid up, and my new bank account was richer by a quarter of a million bucks. Or two hundred and twenty thousand, after I’d settled Chico’s gambling debts. Because Bernie went after Jimmy when he couldn’t find me, and even though Jimmy told me to sit tight, I couldn’t let them work on him.
    But it was my experience with Marcia and Stanley that had really shaken me. It left me jumpy. It left me paranoid. If life had taught me one thing, it was that I couldn’t trust anyone. Monsters like the Beeklands lurked around every corner. Worse, I couldn’t trust myself. I hadn’t actually killed Marcia, but I’d made four attempts at murder and let myself be used by her. What kind of monster did that make me?
    Then one day when I was fast approaching bottom, my doorbell rang. I’d paid off Bernie’s people, so he was off my back. I figured it had to be the cops. They’d opened an investigation on Marcia’s death, Stanley had cooked up some convincing story to frame me and they’d tracked me down. I got up, feeling like my body was filled with wet cement. In a funny way, I was relieved. It would be good to have it over with.
    â€œYo, Lava!” It was Jimmy. He came through my door like a blast of clean air.
    â€œYou’re not lookin’ good, kid,” he said as he dumped his duffel bag on the floor. He said he’d had enough of Al and the pit. He said Bernie gave him a pain in the ass. He said he’d decided to put Franks behind him too.
    Over the next few months he gave me a lot of grief about my diet and my drinking, made me start working out seriously and began lining me up for mud-wrestling matches.
    I got back into things faster than I expected. I started feeling better physically. My self-confidence returned and with it, gradually, my self-respect. I regained my old fighting spirit, my desire to win. I did some promo bouts in Windsor and Toronto. I wrestled Detroit. I did tag-team events in Florida. In California and Chicago I perfected what has now become my victory dance.
    Al’s pit and the Beeklands are now a distant memory. My reputation and my purses have grown along with my string of wins. Jimbo and I are a couple now, not in the way you might think. He’s with me on the road as my manager, cheering section, fitness trainer and life advisor. Lady Lava now gets top billing. I don’t have to beg for matches. Jimbo’s grooming me for the Vegas championships.
    Tonight, July 10, I’m opening a new pit in Vancouver called Slurry’s. It’s a big venue with a huge purse because this is the premiere match. I go on in forty minutes. Jimmy’s with me in my dressing room, fussing like a mother hen. He’s worried on two counts. The date. It’s the second anniversary of Chico’s death. And my opponent. I’m up against—you got it—Wild Woman Wanda. I haven’t wrestled her since Al’s. She’s done well, too, with a string of wins almost as impressive as mine.
    â€œHow’s your head, kid?” Jimmy says.
    â€œMy head’s good,” I tell him. I’m fit, a couple of years older and lots smarter. I’ve left Chico behind me and I’m up for Wanda. “I’m going to wipe the pit with her,” I say.
    â€œThat’s my