A Bad Day for Sorry

of them get inside.

“Okay,” she finally said. “Down on the docks, see?”

Chrissy looked where Stella was pointing. “Yeah, they got a speedboat. Couple a those Wave Runner things. What do you want to do, hop on one and drive it up on the lawn?”

“No, not exactly… do you know where they put the gas in on one of those things?

“I guess. I been Wave-Running with my cousin Kip, and we pulled up along the pumps at the marina to get gas. There’s a gas cap up there near the front, just like on a car.”

“Huh. Okay, I think I have an idea.”

“A good idea?”

“Not really, kind of a piss-poor one, but we don’t have a lot of options.”

Or a lot of time, either. Stella considered checking her watch and decided she was nervous enough already. She got the bolt cutters out of the backpack and knelt at the edge of the flower bed, rummaging through the impatiens with her hands until she found what she wanted. She gave the irrigation system’s drip line a yank and came up with a loop of black tubing, then pulled carefully and followed where it snaked along the edge of the bed, back along the fence, and toward the host pipe. She snipped off a six-foot section and wrapped it around her palm.

“What the hell are you up to?” Chrissy demanded.

“You’ll see in a minute.” She got two water bottles out of her pack and twisted off the caps. She handed one to Chrissy. “Drink up now because you won’t have another chance.”

After Chrissy obliged, Stella took the bottle back and upended both, pouring the water out on the lawn.

“What’ja do that for?”

“We need the bottles,” Stella said. “Come on.”

In the moonlight she took the stairs, slowly and carefully. To the sides of the steps, long grasses and weeds stirred as they went past, making an otherworldly whispering sound.

At the bottom Stella took a breath and set one foot on the dock, nearly jumping back when the thing swayed under her weight. “Shit,” she said. “If I fall in, pull me out, girl. I can’t swim.”

Chrissy snorted. “Know how my dad taught me to swim?”

Stella made her way gingerly toward the closer of the two Wave Runners, a sharp little craft that looked as if it would seat a couple of bikini-clad nymphets. “No, how?”

“Took me down to the reservoir and threw me in when I was eight years old. I set to dog-paddlin’ for my life. Made it to the side and swore I’d never forgive him, but when I managed to haul myself out he was standin’ there with tears in his eye telling me how proud I’d made him.”

“Wow, sounds like a setup for hundreds of hours of therapy if I ever heard one.”

“Ain’t no Lardner ever had therapy,” Chrissy said, with a note of pride.

Stella figured that was a discussion for another time. She found the gas cap right on top, conveniently located where she didn’t even need to lean far over the open water. She twisted it off and slipped one end of the black plastic tubing inside.

“Let’s hope they left the tank full,” she said. She let the hose loop down so that it touched the deck, then lifted the other end up to her lips and made a face.

“Wow, I’ve sucked all kinds of stuff in my day,” Chrissy said, giving Stella a leering grin, “but I’m glad that’s you about to put that in your mouth and not me.”

“Well, honey, the idea is not to get any in your mouth.”

“How you gonna manage that?”

“It’s a physics thing.” She sucked on the hose until she figured the liquid had traveled as far as the dock, then pulled her lips away and whispered, “Here goes nothing.”

After giving the gas a minute to make its way through the tube to level, she put the open end in one of the water bottles and then held the bottle down along the side of the dock.

Liquid began to fill the bottle.

“Yes!” Stella exclaimed, pleased, a little surprised the technique actually worked.

“Damn,” Chrissy said with admiration. “That’s quite a trick, but it smells nasty.”

“Well, we’re a couple of nasty girls,” Stella said as she filled the second bottle.

When it was full, she coiled up the tubing and dropped it on the deck. She handed a bottle to Chrissy and they started back up the steps.

“So now what, we ask them fellas to drink this shit and hope they pass out?” Chrissy asked when they got back up to the lawn.

“No, darlin’, we’re gonna set this place on fire.” She led the way to the side of the house, running her fingers along the stucco and the trim, trying to judge flammability.

“Stella, I don’t think we better burn the house down,” Chrissy whispered, clearly worried. “I mean, Tucker’s in there. And if, you know, if we get blown away or something, I still want him to get out. Even if it’s with, you know… them.”

Stella turned to Chrissy and saw moonlight creamy on her pale, broad cheeks, eyes miserable with worry. That was a mama for you, putting aside thoughts of her own safety, her own life even, for her baby. It gave Stella an extra little burst of determination. “Ain’t gonna happen,” she promised. “No one’s getting blown away today—at least, none of the good guys. Besides, I’m talking about a little bitty fire, just on the outside of the house. Just enough to set off the alarms and get their attention.”

She settled on a stretch of flower bed that ran along the back of the house. A row of shrubs had been planted out of reach of the sprinkler system and had died and dried up into sticks. Stella slowly poured the gasoline out of the bottles onto the shrubs and the wood trim, and up along the side of the house. She wasn’t sure what stucco was made of these days—probably Styrofoam—and hoped to hell it would burn.

“Okay,” she said. “Moment of truth.”

She dug her lighter out of the bottom of the backpack and then reached for Chrissy’s hand and gave it a squeeze.

Chrissy squeezed back. “What are we going to do when it lights?”

“Well, first of all, try not to set ourselves on fire. Then I guess let’s stay close to the house, maybe around the corner. That way we can see around but we’ll be out of the fire. This ought to smoke up good, so it should set off the alarm and they’ll be able to see it out the windows. You gotta figure they’re gonna come out the back to see what happened.”

“But what if they go out the front?”

“Well… whoever comes out, it’s going to be my job to take them down, so all you need to worry about is getting in. Don’t wait around to see, just go. If no one shows up back here, I guess I’ll go check on the front door. But I got to think they’ll come around to the back once they see nothing’s burning out front, don’t you think?”

“Sounds like a lot of guessin’ and hopin’ to me,” Chrissy said.

“ ’Fraid so. But I’m plum out of alternatives.”

“Okay. So you get the guy outside, I go in and find Tucker—”

“Upstairs, I’m thinking. There’s probably three, four different bedrooms up there. I’ll be right behind you, soon as I can, and I’ll try to cover you. But there’s a chance you’re gonna be on your own until you find him. So you just concentrate on finding him and then you grab him and go. I’m not kidding, Chrissy, you come out of there and you fly. Back to the Jeep, unless you get hurt or something, then I guess you’ll have to get to a neighbor’s house and call the cops.”

Shot, she meant, or stabbed or clubbed or any other manner of violent reckoning—and then it would be a matter of great good luck if Chrissy got out of there at all.

But Chrissy just nodded calmly. “Then what?”

“Throw Tucker in the Jeep and go. Don’t wait on me. Here, you’re going to need these.” She got her car keys and Patrick’s phone out of the backpack and handed them to Chrissy. “Give me a call when you’re safe. I’ll take care of myself until I hear from you, okay?”

Chrissy took the keys and stuck them in her pocket, then flipped open the phone. “Okay. Give me your number.”

As she recited it and Chrissy keyed it into the phone, Stella tried not to think about how flawed the plan was. What if the fire didn’t catch? What if the flames outdoors weren’t enough to set off the alarms? Or if the smoke