2 Dancing With Death

Copyright 2012 Johnston Media LLC All Rights Reserved

CHAPTER 1

    
Betty’s eyes itched. It was driving her crazy. Well, crazier. Ever since she’d been diagnosed with diabetes, it seemed like her life had become one big maelstrom of chaos and change. Not only was she dealing with changes in diet and mood-swings, learning to monitor her blood sugar, and so many other details that it made her head swim, but her tiny town of Lofton was still reeling from the aftershocks of murder. A couple of months ago the quiet, quirky town of Lofton, North Carolina, had been host to three murders.

    
Betty was the only one who knew about the third murder. Or rather, she was the only one who believed that it
had
been a murder, and not just a horrific car crash. The last victim, Andy, had also been the murderer of the first two victims. When Betty had discovered his guilt, he’d kidnapped her. During the police chase, Andy’s truck had crashed.

    
Betty was the only one who’d seen the red dot on his forehead before the crash… the only one to see him slump over his seat before the truck careened wildly out of control and off the road. She was the only one who believed there was still a murderer on the loose in Lofton.

    
The rest of the town had lost its air of fear and suspicion. The column run by the Gossiping Grannies in the town newspaper was back to dishing out details of romance and gardening competitions, and the police tape had long been removed from the Lofton Community Theater. But Betty was still on the watch for anything suspicious. She was still looking for clues.

    
Or she would be, if she could see. Betty pulled her bike over to the side of the road, and braced one hand against the handlebars so she could rub her itching eyes. Little spots of light remained in her vision when she was finished. They danced about for several seconds before turning grey and fading away, leaving a blurry world in their wake. Betty squinted both ways up and down the road before continuing on her way, pedaling slowly against the burn in her calves and harsh breathing. Yesterday, instead of the normal clarity of sight she’d been born with, Betty had awoken to a world of blurred shapes and fuzzy colors. She’d stayed close to home, and hoped that when she awoke the next morning the loss in vision would have disappeared just as quickly as it appeared. Instead, she’d awakened still unable to focus.

    
So she’d called an optometrist and hopped on her bike to pedal across town. Biking was safer than driving, right?

    
Betty hadn’t reckoned on the temperature. In February, even North Carolina was cold. And, no matter how much she was trying to get in shape to help combat her disease, Betty still wasn’t in what she would call “peak condition.” She wasn’t fat. Just… pudgy. By the time she’d gone two miles, Betty’s shirt was stuck to her back with sweat. Gasps of cold air froze her throat. Her brown curls were frizzed and tangled by the wind. Still, she had an appointment to make. She refused to go blind. Flat out refused. Betty pedaled harder. The blurs sped up.

~

    
The eye doctor’s office had a cozy feel to it, Betty thought. At least, it had a cozy feel to it if you discounted the giant chair with cold metal machines coming out of it at eye-level… okay, not so cozy. It was all the carpet’s fault, Betty decided. Carpets usually meant comfort. They were trying to fool you. Stupid carpets.

    
Why was she angry at carpets again?

    
Oh, Betty realized. Her blood sugar must be low. She hadn’t had time to run to the restroom and check it after her bicycle ride. She’d checked into the office and been off on her merry way to the retina scanner. Betty pulled a hard candy from her purse and popped it into her mouth. Sour apple. Mmmmmm.

    
She was just crunching through the last sliver of candy when the door to the office opened and the optometrist entered. He was a short, round sort of blurry man. When he spoke, his voice was nasal.

    
He reminded Betty of a mole. Except that moles were blind.

    
Blind. Betty didn’t want to lose her vision, but stupid, stupid diabetes might be making it happen anyway. She felt her pulse speed up at the thought… No sight…
 

    
No, Betty thought. No panicking allowed.

    
“Miss Crawford,” the optometrist said, taking a seat in the chair across from Betty, “there’s good news and there’s bad news.”

    
Why did he have to start the conversation that way? Betty thought. Now she was left on the hook. Should she be panicked or relieved? Just once, it would be nice to have a doctor who could sum up everything that was right and wrong with her in one simple, short sentence. She hated cliffhangers!

    
“The good news is you aren’t going blind. Once your vision finishes adjusting, you’ll see just fine with a pair of glasses.”

    
That was something. Glasses weren’t that bad. Annoying, awful looking, and embarrassing… but not terrible. It was the “once” part of the statement that worried her.

    
“Finishes adjusting to what?” she asked.
  

    
The doctor shifted in the chair. Betty tracked the movement. “Your eyes are adjusting to your new blood sugar,” he said. “As your blood sugar goes down, your blood thins out. As your blood thins, your eyes change shape. It takes your eyes time to finish changing shape. In your case, the changes occurring mean that your vision will be worse than it was. You’ll need glasses for distance.”

    
“So, I’m not going blind.”

    
The doctor shook his head. “Absolutely not. But it may take a few months for your vision to settle. Until then, your vision will probably continue to change without notice.”

    
Betty felt panic being to rise up again. She didn’t know if she could handle going to sleep every night without knowing if she’d be able to see when she woke up. And what if it got so bad that she couldn’t read her computer screen? She had an online business to run! She had to be able to read e-mails!

    
“Isn’t there anything I can do in the meantime?” she asked. “A temporary pair of glasses I could use, or something?”

    
“We can get you a pair of glasses,” the doctor said, “They might be useless in just a few days, but I’d recommend them.”

    
Oh. Well, that wasn’t good. She could hardly afford a new pair of glasses every week.

    
“I see,” said Betty.

    
“Would you like to do that?” the doctor asked.

    
“No,” said Betty. “I’ll muddle through somehow.”

CHAPTER 2

    
“Road trip!” Clarise yelled through the phone. Betty yanked the receiver away from her ear, but it was too late. Now she was blind and deaf. “Want to come?”

    
Betty rolled her eyes and moved from the living room onto the front porch, letting the screen door slam behind her while she settled onto the front porch swing. The white paint was peeling, the cushions faded and scattered with an odd dried leaf or two. It was still her favorite spot in the house to sit, just as it had been when she was a teenager. She might as well get comfortable. This would be a long conversation.

    
Ever since Clarise had been cleared of murder charges, she’d been on an exploration kick. According to Clarise, “I was locked up in the big house for far too long. I need to see the world!”

    
Right. Thanks to Betty, Clarise hadn’t even been in jail for a week. Clarise had a flair for the dramatic. Which, considering that she was the director for the Lofton Community Theater, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. However, given that her last surprise location road trip had wound up with Betty stuck at a weekend-long Chia Pet convention…

    
“Where would we go?” Betty asked warily.

    
“Well, I was thinking,” Clarise continued in a rush. “We should go dancing. All four of us. Me and Wes and you and Bill.”

    
Dancing. That didn’t sound too bad. A double date could be fun…
 
A small red blob that Betty supposed was a cardinal pecked at seeds in the bird feeder hanging from the large tree in her front yard. A door slammed, and the cardinal darted up into sunlit branches.

    
“There’s this professional ballroom dance competition a few counties over.”

    
And the proverbial shoe dropped. A ballroom dance competition? Dancing where there weren’t any steps to memorize was one thing. The good old two-step was a challenge, but she could manage it. But ballroom dancing? In front of judges? No.

    
“Clarise,” Betty said flatly, “I don’t know how to ballroom dance.”

    
“Oh come on, it’ll be fun! We can dress up for the guys and do some twirling, and then watch the really good dancers go at it. Please? Wes and I are competing. We could use the company, and the support. Please come? It wouldn’t be the same without you.
 
And…” Clarise lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper, “it’ll be a chance to get away from prying eyes.”

    
Betty had to admit, Clarise had a point. It’s not that she and Bill were an item… yet. But dating the police chief wasn’t exactly low profile in Lofton. And Clarise was an ex-murder suspect dating a cop. There had already been three articles in the Lofton Town News social section about the two of them. The Gossiping Grannies smelled scandal.

    
Thankfully, Betty wasn’t on their radar yet. She intended to stay that way. Going with Wes and Clarise made it look like a weekend away with friends instead of a romantic getaway. The Gossiping Grannies could speculate, but as far as they knew Wes and Bill were friends, and Clarise and Betty were friends. It made perfect sense that the four of them would hang out.

    
 
Well it had to be better than the Chia Pet convention. Betty was still having nightmares about the giant green Chia Pet Puppet that greeted all convention goers at the door. She never wanted to be hugged by a twelve-foot neon green bunny rabbit again.

    
Betty lay back on the swing and put her arm over her eyes, letting the rocking motion lull her into relaxation.

    
“Oh, why not,” she said.

    
“Yes!” exclaimed Clarise. “That’s great! And can you drive? Because my car’s in the shop and Wes only has the cruiser.”

    
“Sounds good,” Betty said without thinking.

    
It was only when she hung up the phone and removed the arm from her eyes that she remembered the world was one big blur.