Part 21 (2/2)

Sally screamed again and Vince didn't hesitate. He swung hard and put that bat right through the window. The crash of breaking gla.s.s resonated through the night, and somewhere in the neighborhood a dog started to bark. Across the street, a light went on. Good. The sooner the police got here, the better.

He reached through the broken window, unlocked the door, and went inside, trying his best to sidestep the broken gla.s.s, which was pretty much impossible.

”Don't come in,” Vince warned Charlie, but of course, she ignored him again. Thankfully, she had slippers on as the gla.s.s crunched underfoot.

”Who the h.e.l.l are you?”

No doubt about it, Vince had definitely caught the attention of Sally's friend. The man was wearing a disheveled but otherwise gleaming new Air Corps uniform with a first lieutenant bar on his shoulder. He was an officer but clearly no gentleman, and obviously far more than three sheets to the wind. He wiped his bleeding lip with the back of one hand as he sized them up, his gaze lingering on Charlie's thin bathrobe.

Vince stepped in front of her, planting himself and praying that his knees wouldn't give way. Not now, please, Lord. Her fingers tightened on his arm and he knew that she'd just realized how big this guy was.

”I'm a Marine who fought hand-to-hand on Tarawa,” Vince told him evenly, told Charlie, too. No doubt she'd forgotten exactly how he'd received those wounds that had kept him confined to her bed for so many days. ”I suggest you leave, Lieutenant. I believe you've worn out your welcome here.”

”Oh, you do, do you?”

”Sally, are you all right?” Charlie raised her voice to be heard through the bathroom door. But all they could hear was the sound of the woman sobbing.

”That f.u.c.king wh.o.r.e stole my wallet,” the behemoth said as if, even if it were true, that gave him the right to beat her.

”Watch your mouth around the lady,” Vince countered sharply.

”Yeah, if she's friends with Sally, that ain't no lady you're with tonight, pal. Make sure you bang her hard and get your money's worth. That's all I'm trying to do here. Get my money's worth.”

Vince didn't raise his voice. ”Listen carefully to me. You are not worthy of breathing the same air as either of these two womena”both of whom have lost husbands in the war, and neither of whom have ever stolen anything in their livesa”a fact I would swear to on my sainted mother's grave.

”So I'm going to start to count. And if you're not on your way out the door and down those stairs by the time I get to three, I'm going to kill you.”

”Oh, yeah?” the man scoffed.

”Yeah,” Vince said. ”Look into my eyes. I will kill you. I'll probably even enjoy it. G.o.d knows I've killed far better men than you.

”One.”

The behemoth stared from Vince's face to the bat and back.

”Two.”

Whatever darkness he saw in Vince's eyes apparently worked. The man moved, fast, but it wasn't an attack. He headed for the door, skidding slightly on the broken gla.s.s, and slamming it closed behind him.

Charlotte rushed for the bathroom door. ”Sally, he's gone. Open up!”

Vince sank down into one of Sally's kitchen chairs, exhausted and aware that even though he hadn't been forced to fight, he'd revealed far more of himself to Charlie than he'd ever intended.

He stared at his feet, cut from the gla.s.s and bleeding. Funny how it didn't really hurt.

”Vince bluffed him into leaving,” Charlie told Sally through the door, but as she glanced back at him, he could tell from her eyes that she knew the truth. It had not been any kind of bluff at all.

He would have killed that man. Without blinking.

Mary Lou was on her way in to work, dropping off Haley at Mrs. U.'s, when she saw it.

She was getting the stroller out of the trunk of her car because Mrs. U. and her four-year-old, Katie, wanted to take a walk with Haley down to the doughnut shop.

Of course, another doughnut was the last thing both Mrs. U. and Katie needed, but Mary Lou kept her opinion about that to herself. Particularly when, after setting up the stroller on the sidewalk, she went to close her trunk and saw it.

It was wrapped in some kind of fabrica”oilcloth, she thought it was calleda”and pushed way into the back, behind the jumper cables she always carried and had used on more than one occasion.

She reached in and pulled it toward her and unwrapped it.

And found herself staring at a deadly looking automatic weapon with a spare banana clip.

”Someone wants to give her mommy another kiss,” Mrs. U. said from right behind her, and Mary Lou quickly wrapped the big gun back up, shoving it behind the cables and slamming the trunk closed.

G.o.d d.a.m.n Sam! What was he thinking, leaving a gun like that lying around where anyone could take it? Her trunk didn't lock. Anyone could just open it up and help themselves.

Inwardly fuming, she forced a smile and gave Haley another hug and kiss good-bye.

She headed to work, remembering Ihbraham's words from last night, when they'd talked on the phone.

”If you don't tell him that you are unhappy,” he'd said, as they talked about Sam, ”then how will he ever know?”

She'd told him she'd been working overtime the past few months to be compliant and agreeable. She was trying hard not to stir things up, for fear of driving Sam away.

”But is this thing you fear,” Ihbraham had asked, ”this being alone again, is it really so much worse than the being alone that you already have?”

She'd thought about little else all nighta”especially when Sam finally did come home. He climbed into bed beside her and fell immediately asleep. And Mary Lou lay there, still as completely alone as she'd been ten minutes earlier.

This gun in the trunk had to be mentioned. There was no doubt about that.

The guard at the gate of the base waved her in. And Mary Lou parked in her usual spot alongside the Dumpster.

She marched into the McDonald's, tired as h.e.l.l of being alone.

Chapter 11.

JOAN WAS SLIPPING into a clean blouse when there was a knock on her hotel room door. She peered through the peephole and saw Muldoon standing in the hall.

”What are you doing back so early?” She left the door open so that he could come in as she b.u.t.toned the last of her b.u.t.tons, heading for the car keys that she'd put on top of the TV cabinet.

They'd stayed so long at Donny's, Muldoon had gotten to the base a mere four minutes before an important meeting starteda”a meeting that he couldn't tell her anything about. Instead of taking the time to drop her here, they'd gone straight to the base and she'd dropped him instead. He'd insisted that she take his truck and drive herself to the hotel.

”May I come in for a minute?” he asked now, still planted securely out in the corridor.

”Of course,” she said, tucking her blouse into her pants and grabbing the keys. ”But I'm a little crunched for time right now, so I can really only spare a minute.” She tossed him the keys to his truck as she swept into the bathroom and raised her voice so he could still hear her. ”I'm meeting Commander Paoletti and his fiance for lunch, and I seem to have misplaced my fairy G.o.dmother, so I'm going to have to rely on makeup and this curling irona”ouch!a”to transform myself into something presentable.”

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