LITMIR.BIZ

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come on, Molly. I really don’t want to break my neck.” As soon as the words left his mouth, the guttering gave a horrible groan and began to buckle. “Molly, get the goddamned ladder. Now.”

      “I’m getting it.” There was panic in her voice now rather than amusement. “Here. Let me just…”

      “Dammit. Never mind.”

      Dan tried, not all that successfully, to launch himself away from Molly and the useless ladder as he and ten feet of metal guttering came crashing down.

      “The last time I saw you, Danny, I think my dad was treating you for a broken nose.” Dr. Richard Pettigrew Jr. shoved the X ray into a slot on the light box and studied the black-and-white picture that emerged. “Well, you’re lucky this time. It’s not broken.”

      “Lucky me.” Dan looked at his throbbing ankle. Bullets didn’t hurt half as much, he thought.

      “I’ll just wrap it,” Rich Pettigrew said, “lend you a pair of crutches and let you go. You’ll have to stay off of it for a few days, though. Keep it iced and elevated as much as possible. And stay away from roofs.”

      Molly flew out of her chair in the waiting room as soon as he angled the crutches through the door.

      “Is it broken?” she asked.

      “Sprained,” he answered through clenched teeth.

      “Oh, that’s good. Well, I don’t mean it’s good. I meant sprained is a lot better than broken.”

      “I know what you meant.”

      She was fluttering around him like a gnat.

      “Look out. You’re gonna make me trip over the damned crutches now.”

      She stepped back, hands on hips, her chin thrust up into his face. “Are you implying that I made you fall from the roof?”

      Dan hobbled past her. “You just could have been a mite quicker with that ladder, is all,” he grumbled.

      He could hear her muttering all the way to the parking lot, mostly about handymen with a pretty snide emphasis on the handy.

      “What are you stopping here for?” he asked when Molly pulled into a parking space on Main Street.

      “I’ll just be a minute.” She reached around his crutches for her handbag in the back seat.

      Dan looked out the window. This stretch of Main Street didn’t have a single store. It was mostly offices, real estate, insurance and—hello!—the telephone company.

      “You need to pay your phone bill?” he asked innocently.

      “Yes. That’s right. It’ll just take me a second.”

      Dan watched her disappear through the door. “People in WITSEC pay their bills through the regional offices, babe. But you don’t know I know that. Who called you last night, Molly? Who?”

      Chapter 3

      “Here, Hopalong. Take these.” Molly jammed two capsules into his left hand and a glass of water into his right. “And don’t look at me like I’m trying to poison you. They’re pain pills.”

      “Shackelfords are suspicious by nature,” Dan said, tossing back the capsules while casting another bleak look at his throbbing ice-packed ankle on Molly’s foot-stool.

      She hadn’t said much after their stop at the phone company. She was being a good little witness, keeping her own counsel. He guessed that she’d run into a bureaucratic brick wall trying to find out where that phone call had come from.

      “Hand me those crutches, will you?”

      “Why?”

      “Because I need to go out to the trailer and get something, that’s why.”

      “I’ll go,” she said. “What do you want? A beer?”

      Dan felt a shameful anger rip through him. It wasn’t even noon, for God’s sake, and she figured he was ready for a bender. What he wanted from the trailer was his gun. He leaned sideways and snagged the crutches himself.

      Just as he managed to get them comfortably under his arms, the phone rang. Molly jumped as if she’d just put her foot down on a hot coal, then simply stood there, staring at the ringing hunk of plastic.

      “Are you going to get that?” Dan asked.

      “I wasn’t expecting a call,” she said nervously, stepping back to put a little more distance between herself and whoever was on the other end of the line. She had every reason to fear the terrorists of the Red Millennium. Did she know that most or all of them were dead?

      Dan made a mental note to pick up a caller ID box just as soon as he could get into town. It surprised him that she didn’t already have one, actually. But then maybe the powers that be in the service had told her and assured her that she was safe.

      “Do you want me to answer it?” he asked on the seventh ring.

      “No. That’s all right. I’ll get it.” She approached the phone as if it were a rattlesnake. “It’s probably a wrong number, anyway. Nobody ever calls me.”

      Somebody, baby, Dan thought as he watched her pick up the receiver and whisper a tentative hello. Her whole body relaxed then and she turned to him, smiling.

      “It’s Raylene.”

      “Good. Give her my love,” he said, gripping the crutches and stabbing his way toward his temporary home.

      Inside the trailer he figured that the only way to get his Glock secretly into the house was to put it in a gym bag. As long as he was doing that, he tossed in his toothbrush, too. It wasn’t such a bad idea, spending a night or two close enough to Molly to do her some good if it came to that. It wouldn’t. But what the hell? Being close to Molly had an appeal all by itself.

      “Raylene wanted us to join her and Buddy tonight at the Sit and Sip,” she said when he reentered the living room. “I told her we couldn’t because of your ankle.”

      “Good move.”

      “She said…well, wait a minute.” Molly stood up, slung out a hip and expanded her chest about three inches. “Take care of that poor baby, hon. You hear? We’ll all go two-stepping some other time. Danny used to do a pretty hot two-step. My Lord.” Molly’s Texas twang dissolved into giggles.

      “Believe it or not, I did used to do a pretty hot two-step,” he said, trying to juggle the gym bag and the crutches. “Don’t let my current situation fool you.”

      “Oh, it doesn’t,” Molly said. “What’s the bag for, Handy Andy?”

      “I’m going to sleep in here for a couple nights, if you don’t mind. That way, when I wake, screaming in pain, you won’t have so far to run.”

      He was prepared for one of her sharp little barbs, but instead she gave him a look of such sweet sympathy, such warm concern, all of it tinged with such innocent, ineffable longing, that if he hadn’t been on crutches, he might very well have fallen to his knees and begged her to marry him right here, right now.

      “You can sleep in my bed,” she said, sending his entire nervous system into a momentary frenzy before she added, “I don’t mind sleeping on the couch.”

      “I don’t want to put you out, Molly.”

      “You’re not. I’m really happy for the company.” She gave a little shrug. “I probably shouldn’t say so, it makes me sound like such a jerk, but I really don’t have any friends here.”

      “Why not?” Dan could have kicked himself. He knew why not. A secret past and an unknown future, that’s why. Plus the service had probably given her that song and dance about not trusting anybody. She probably shouldn’t have trusted him.

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