After more exclamations of mutual delight, we agreed to get together before the rally to rehearse. I downed the last of my chocolate, because it’s a Commandment—or should be—not to waste chocolate, and watched them leave. The combined heat of their cute and my hot chocolate surged through my body like the rising tide. I think my eyebrows were steaming. I was on my way to being my own weather system as the heat spread out, seeking those parts of my body encased in thermal and wool. I needed to remove some layers, but stripping in a church was the fast track to hell. I was all about the slow track.
I headed for the door, but got cut off at the pass by Reverend Hilliard. I was dripping in sweat and he looked like he couldn’t sweat and never would. His blinding smile featured two rows of gleaming, reverential teeth. He looked like he’d been born with the clerical collar around his neck. I fought back a sudden urge to confess something. It wasn’t a lack of material, you understand, but fear of bursting into flames. Didn’t seem like a good plan to incinerate a man of God.
“I can’t thank you enough for helping us out, Miss Stanley. I pray it didn’t inconvenience you too much?”
He probably had prayed. So glad he was keeping God updated on my movements.
“It wasn’t a problem. I’m glad to help out the kids.” I didn’t think he was actually interested me, because I’d seen me in the mirror, but it didn’t hurt to be honest. Just in case God was listening in. He smiled again, upping my guilt level by a factor of something times something else. I taught English, not math, before I quit to write roaches. I added, before he could pile on more guilt, “I really have to be going. I have Rosemary’s car and she likes it home by ten.”
He looked at me like I’d kicked a puppy but he forgave me because that’s just the kind of preacher guy he was. I fled because that’s the kind of girl I was.
Outside the cold air sizzled against my hot cheeks. Just prior to spontaneous combustion, I stripped off the jacket, hat and gloves, and tossed them into the back seat. I’d have taken off the thermals, too, but I didn’t want to get arrested in the church parking lot. I slid behind the wheel and started the motor. The heater blew cold. Before it could change its mind, I switched it to cold vent and opened the sunroof, welcoming the combined rush of frigid air across my steaming face and neck. As I kicked it into gear, cold began a slow seep into the thermal covered areas.
Earlier, snow had mixed with rain. Clouds still obscured the stars, but the air was now dry and devoid of flakes. In the fitful light of the street lamps, the road gleamed slick and empty. I drove with caution—because it wasn’t my car—enjoying the feel of fresh air, sweet solitude—a rare commodity in our over-stocked household—and a great car. Pleasantly tired and full of chocolate, I drove on auto-pilot, my thoughts drifting to my current romance novel with its impending love scene that I still didn’t know how to write.
“Get a better imagination or a lover, Stan,” my agent had advised, the one time I’d let her read a draft.
“Maybe I should get a new agent,” I muttered. About then I saw the stop sign and hit the brakes. Across the intersection, an unfamiliar street retreated into murk, lit only by the faint glow of the street lamps.
“Great.” I’d taken a wrong turn again. I crossed the intersection, straining to read the signs. The one I managed to pick out was sort of familiar, but I couldn’t place myself relative to home—
To my right, several firecrackers went off, one right after the other.
Then a man burst through the bay window of a house.
2
At the sight of him, my mind switched to automatic stupor. With Orphan Annie eyes, I watched flying glass shards sparkling in the fitful light as they showered the fast moving figure doing a movie stuntman roll across the ground. He sprang to his feet in a crouch, a cornered animal caught against the faint shimmer of wet grass.
More fireworks? No, shots. Gunshots, I realized. They spurted from the shattered window as the man darted for the street, his coat billowing out behind him like Count Dracula’s cape.
Automatic reflex had me easing my pressure on the gas pedal. On a subliminal level I knew I didn’t want to drive into a shootout. More shots. The man vaulted onto a car parked by the curb. I drew level, lost sight of him, then heard a thud. The car rocked.
What the—
Streetlight filtering down through the sunroof was blotted out. I looked up just in time to get a face full of him as he slid through the narrow sun roof head first, his entrance into the car hastened by my instinctive stomp on the brakes.
My mother had waited a long time for a man to fall into my lap, but I don’t think this was what she had in mind.
Enveloped in his coat and buffeted by his knees, the muffled sound of gunshots came closer. I heard him shout, “Get us out of here!”
Get us out of here. It seemed like a good idea, so I reapplied pressure to the
