After she found herself on the seventh lap inside the house, on a mission to tidy up and reorganize nick-knacks, Cami resolved to clean her pistol one more time. If the kids weren't back by the time she finished, she’d go find them.
Now the parts lay in front of her, shiny in the sun and freshly cleaned again. All she had left to do was reassemble it, and she could head out to look for Amber and Mitch. As her hands hovered over the parts, she found herself unable to complete the task. It was as if some part of her recognized that once she assembled the pistol, she fully admitted that something had gone wrong. That her daughter was in danger. That very soon she might need to use the pistol. Cami frowned.
“No more hesitation.”
Cami set to work with sure, confident hands. She reassembled her pistol in a matter of minutes and checked to ensure she had one round in the chamber and a full magazine loaded. She considered a drop holster for her thigh but decided that the situation in the neighborhood hadn’t quite reached Boogaloo status, yet. Instead, she opted for her favorite concealed carry holster and slipped it behind her waistband at the small of her back.
Unwilling to walk out the front door and announce to the neighborhood that no one was home, Cami made sure all the doors were locked except the back door, then stepped outside, locked it, and walked around the side of the house. Before she could clear the corner, she ran straight into Amber.
"Thank God!" Cami said as she jumped back. "Wait—what happened? Have you been crying?"
"Mom! It was awful!" Amber blurted. She lurched forward and wrapped her arms around Cami's neck.
Mitch appeared next, with a glaring red patch of skin on the side of his head, and the beginnings of a wicked shiner. The hangdog look he wore appeared to Cami as part embarrassment-part anger.
"You two better explain to me what happened right now.” Cami paused and glanced across the street at Harriet's house. "Hold that thought—let's get inside and take a look at Mitch, and then you guys can tell me what happened."
Once safely ensconced in the kitchen, away from prying eyes, Cami pulled out the first aid kit and took a closer look at Mitch. She tilted his head back into the beam of light from the kitchen window. "What happened?"
Mitch tried to turn away, but Cami's hands held his head tight. He struggled for another second or two, then relaxed in her unyielding grip. He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “It's my fault.”
"It is not!” Amber snapped as she dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “The only people to blame are those two jerks that robbed us,” she snarled.
Cami recoiled, Mitch’s bandage still in her hand. “Robbed you?”
"Yeah,” Amber began. “We’d just crossed the bridge up the street and were only a block or two away from Mia’s house.” She exhaled. "We were just walking along, you know—talking, waving at a few people that were out in their yards. It was really no big deal."
Cami let go of Mitch's head and moved to the freezer to get ice cubes for the swelling. "These two guys you mentioned, where did they come from?” she asked. “Do they live in the neighborhood?"
Amber shook her head. "I've definitely never seen them before. They look real rough—like they'd been sleeping in a gutter or something."
"Yeah, a big fat one, and a shorter, skinny one. Skinny dude looked like he was a drug addict. He was constantly scratching at his neck and his hands twitched the whole time."
Cami wrapped some ice cubes in a cloth and handed it to Mitch for his face. She looked at him for a moment, then glanced at Amber. "Hang on, I think Marty needs to hear this, too." She crossed the kitchen and picked up a little radio from its charging stand that their neighbor had loaned them. She held it to her mouth and clicked the transmit button. "Marty, you there?"
The reply was instant. "No names!" he hissed. "And yes, I’m here."
"There's been an incident…”
Static crackled through Marty's reply. "Anybody hurt?"
Cami shook her head. "Not bad."
"Good. No more details. Come on over."
Cami gathered the kids and a couple bottles of cold water and shepherded everyone across the side yard to Marty's place. He met them on his back deck. The old man showed them to seats in the shade. Cami was amazed to feel the difference in temperature from the afternoon sun out in the yard to the cool deck under the canopy of trees behind Marty’s house. Once everyone sat and opened bottles of water, Kirk, Marty's retired vizsla hunting dog, made his rounds to greet everyone properly.
Only when the cinnamon-colored dog settled at Marty's feet did he clear his throat and gesture for Cami to begin. "So, let's hear it." He leaned forward, layered his hands on the cane propped between his legs.
"Well," Amber said, "we were taking some vegetables from the garden over to Mia Stevens—you know her?"
Marty shrugged. "Don't know. Get to the point," he said.
Amber glanced at Cami, nodded, then continued. "We were almost to her house when we noticed this car parked down the street. It was a couple houses down from Mia’s place. As we got closer, two guys got out."
Marty held up a hand. "The car, what’d it look like?"
“Uh…an older Toyota sedan, I think," Mitch said.
