“Murdered?” I frowned. Last night had been a bad night for the neighborhood.
“That's right. Shot.” She spoke with that morbid relish that people, even nearly perfect people like my mother, use when faced with tragedy. “Mildred says the killer crashed through Elspeth's bay window and fled in a Mercedes-Benz.”
I should have seen it coming. How many shoot-outs could there have been in our subdivision last night? Only I didn't, on account of my under-developed sleuth gland. I gave a tiny squeak. My mother's face floated in front of me, her mouth opening and closing as she shot words, details at me like rockets—coals of fire being heaped on my head for helping a murderer to escape. But even as I assigned the label to Kel, my mind rejected it. I'd looked into his blue eyes. I'd been kissed by him. He couldn't have killed—could he?
“It's an outrage that something like this could happen in our area. Mildred says he trashed her living room, but her sister says she doesn't think anything is missing except a purse.”
I squeaked again, my mind forming the words that my mouth couldn't get out. Purse?
“Apparently there was some kind of wild car chase through the streets when a citizen in a minivan tried to stop them—”
No way was the round-headed man a citizen.
“—Carol Williams, the Neighborhood Watch chairman, saw most of it. They drove across her lawn and right through her bushes. Hooster Crandall saw them, too, when he was walking his dog. He says they actually stopped to—” she stopped, a bit of color creeping out from under the circles of rouge in her cheeks, “well, never mind. Mildred says they have a partial number on the car and it shouldn't be long before the police get them.”
Was I right about that trickle-down theory of news? I always hear—even when I wish I hadn't.
My mother was so taken up with the sordid demise of Mrs. Carter she didn't notice my shocked reaction, so in a way my situation got me out of my situation—an irony I could appreciate despite my state of panic.
I don't remember Dom coming downstairs, let alone us going out to the van. Next thing I knew I was driving down the street with Dom seated beside me. I managed to pick up all the kids I was supposed to, but in the wrong order. Then I took them to the wrong school, which made them late for the right school. And I didn't notice that they'd all buckled themselves in upside down until the school monitor opened the van door and gasped.
I gave her a wan smile. “A gravity experiment—”
I managed to maintain enough focus to make it home, pulling the van into the garage and slipping upstairs to my apartment without checking in. It was possible my mother had pulled herself together. And I hadn't yet.
Work had gotten me through past trials, so I tried to work on my latest Cochran, but it wasn't easy, wondering when the police would arrive to arrest me for aiding and abetting a murderer. Would they believe I thought he was one of the good guys because he had a cute dimple and a nice butt? And what about the round-headed man? Where did he fit in?
I quit pretending to draw Cochran when I realized I'd given him Kel's head. It's a bad habit, this absent-minded sketching of mine. I thrust my pencil away and turned to Elvira, my computer. But Kel invaded my romance novel, too, turning my burly and boring hero, dashing and slightly preppy. I reread the love scene I'd just written and decided I needed to cool off. It was amazing what I'd picked up in just one night. My agent, Marion would be pleased—unless I had to finish the book from jail.
I whistled for Addison, taking him for a walk seemed preferable to sitting and gently simmering in front of a computer, and a brisk walk might clear my head.
Addison and I have this system worked out, whereby he chooses where we go and I follow him. Then he will trot along beside me like I’m in charge. It works pretty well as long as no small, foreign cars drive by, flashing their mirrors at him. Not a surprise when he led me to the same park in which Kel and I had played “drive and shoot” last night. I let Addison off his leash and he took a moment to poke his head down a hole, before romping off to play with a couple of small children near the swings.
I stood with my hands shoved in the pockets of my soft, baggy jacket, the slight chilly breeze ruffling the edges of my skirt, and looked around. The grass, brown and damp from last night’s precipitation, still showed the crisscrossing tracks we’d made. The pale winter sunlight gave the whole park a forlorn air which suited my merry-go-round thoughts about last night. I followed our tracks around the playground, my mind replaying each turn and jolt.
What was I going to do? I should go to the police, but what could I tell them that wouldn’t get me locked up? I didn’t have answers to the ethical or the practical questions and finally put them aside. Which freed my brain to do a homing pigeon to what I really wanted to think about. Kel. Would I see him again? Did I want to? Okay, I did, but did I dare see him again? I made it as far as the slab of cement, the smooth surface marred by two sets of tire tracks.
Addison bounded up and covered my face with huge, wet licks, almost knocking me over. I knelt down and buried my face in his smooth coat for a moment, letting the warmth of his body seep through to my chilled scared center.
