Very reliable. You can fire hundreds of rounds, until it's almost too
hot to touch, and it still won't jam. I think you should have one,
Heather.
You should be ready.'
Heather felt as if she had followed the white rabbit down a burrow into
a strange, dark world. 'Ready for what?'
Alma's gentle face hardened, and her voice was tight with anger.
'Luther saw it coming years ago. Said politicians were tearing down a
thousand years of civilization brick by brick but weren't building
anything to replace it.'
'True enough, but--'
'Said cops would be expected to hold it all
together when it started to collapse, but by then cops would've been
blamed for so much and been painted as the villains so often, no one
would respect them enough to let them hold it together.'
Rage was Alma Bryson's refuge from grief. She was able to hold off
tears only with fury.
Although Heather worried that her friend's method of coping wasn't
healthy, he could think of nothing to offer in its place. Sympathy was
inadequate.
Alma and Luther had been married sixteen years and had been devoted to
each other. Because they'd been unable to have children, they were
especially close. Heather could only imagine the depth of Alma's
pain.
It was a hard world. Real love, true and deep, wasn't easy to find
even once.
Nearly impossible to find it twice. Alma must feel the best times of
her life were past, though she was only thirty-eight. She needed more
than kind words, more than just a shoulder to cry on. She needed
someone or something at which to be furious--politicians, the system.
Perhaps her anger wasn't unhealthy, after all. Maybe if a lot more
people had gotten angry enough decades ago, the country wouldn't have
reached such perilous straits.
'You have guns?' Alma asked.
'One.'
'What is it?'
'A pistol.'
'You know how to use it?'
'Yes.'
'You need more than just a pistol.'
'I feel uncomfortable with guns, Alma.'
'It's on the TV now, going to be all over the papers tomorrow--what
happened at Arkadian's station. People are going to know you and Toby
are alone, people who don't like cops or cops' wives. Some jackass
reporter will probably even print your address. You've got to be ready
for anything these days, anything.'
Alma's paranoia, which came as such a surprise and which seemed so out
of character, chilled Heather. Even as she shivered at the icy glint
in her friend's eyes, however, a part of her wondered if Alma's
