"Are you sure it was a gunshot you heard?"
"Yes, of course." Please. This was the south, North Carolina, specifically. Of course I knew how gunshots sounded. I had even shot a.22 rifle myself. Grampie-my grandfather on my mother's side-used to take me with him squirrel hunting when we visited them in the country. He died from a heart attack when I was ten, and no one ever took me squirrel hunting again. Still, that isn't a sound you forget, even if a television program weren't reminding you every few seconds.
Now, cops don't go blithely walking up to a car where supposedly an armed psycho-bitch is sitting. After ascertaining that the white Mustang was indeed still parked out back, Officers Barstow and Spangler talked into their cute little radios that were attached to their shoulders somehow-Velcro, maybe-and very shortly another black-and-white unit arrived, from which emerged Officers Washington and Vyskosigh. I had gone to school with DeMarius Washington, and he gave me a brief smile before his chiseled dark face once more set into businesslike lines. Vyskosigh was short and broad, mostly bald, and he was Not From Around Here, which is how southerners describe Yankees. To a southerner, that phrase explains everything, from taste in food and clothing to manners.
I was told to stay inside-no problem there-while the four cautiously went out into the darkness and rain to ask Nicole what the hell she was doing.
I was so very obedient-which shows how rattled I was-that I was still standing in exactly the same spot when Officer Vyskosigh came back inside and gave me a very sharp once-over. I was a bit taken aback. This just wasn't the time for ogling, you know?
"Ma'am," he said politely, "would you like to sit down?"
"Yes, I would," I replied, just as politely, and sat down in one of the visitors' chairs. I wondered what was going on outside. How much longer could this take?
After a few more minutes, more cars arrived outside, lights flashing. My parking lot was beginning to look like a cop convention. Good Lord, couldn't four cops handle Nicole? They'd had to call in reinforcements? She must be even more psycho than I'd realized. I've heard that when people go nuts, they have superhuman strength. Nicole was definitely nuts. I had a mental picture of her tossing cops left and right as she strode toward me, and wondered if I should barricade myself inside my office.
Officer Vyskosigh didn't look as if he would let me do the barricade thing. In fact, I was beginning to think Officer Vyskosigh wasn't so much protecting me-as I'd originally thought-as guarding me. As in, making sure I didn't do... something.
Uh-oh.
Various scenarios began racing through my mind. If he was here to prevent me from doing something, what could that something be? Peeing? Paperwork? Both of which I did actually need to do, which is why they were first on my mental list, but I doubted the police department was interested in either of them. At least I hoped Officer Vyskosigh wasn't interested, particularly in the first item.
I didn't want to go there, so I jerked my thoughts back on track.
Neither were they concerned I might suddenly go berserk, rush out, and attack Nicole before they could stop me. I'm not the violent type, unless I'm extremely provoked; what's more, if any of them had been paying the least attention to me, they'd have noticed that I had a fresh manicure-the color was Iced Poppy, which was my newest favorite color. My hands looked really nice, if I do say so myself. Nicole wasn't worth a broken nail, so obviously she was safe from me.
By now it must be fairly clear that I can mentally dance around a subject for pretty much eternity, if there's something I really don't want to think about.
I really didn't want to think about why Officer Vyskosigh was standing guard over me. I really, really didn't.
Unfortunately, some things are just too big to ignore, and the truth cut into my mental do-si-do. The shock was almost like a physical blow; I actually jerked back in my chair.
"Oh, my God. That shot wasn't fired at me, was it?" I blurted. "Nicole- The man shot at her, didn't he? He shot-" Her, I started to say, but instead nausea welled hot and insistent in my throat and I had to swallow, hard. My ears started ringing and I realized I was about to do something ungraceful, such as fall out of the chair flat on my face, so I quickly bent over and put my head between my knees, and took deep breaths.
"Are you all right?" Office Vyskosigh asked, his voice barely audible above the ringing in my ears. I waved a hand at him to let him know I was conscious, and concentrated on breathing. In, out. In, out. I tried to pretend I was in a yoga class.
The ringing in my ears began to fade. I heard the front door open, heard multiple footsteps.
"She okay?" someone asked.
I waved my hand again. "Just give me a minute," I managed to say, though the words were directed at the floor. Another thirty seconds of controlled breathing pushed the nausea away, and cautiously I sat up.
The newcomers, two men, were dressed in street clothes, and they were each peeling off plastic gloves. Their clothes were damp from the rain, and their wet shoes had made tracks on my nice shiny floor. I glimpsed something red and wet on one glove, and the room spun around me. Quickly I bent back over.
Okay, I'm not usually such a fragile flower, but I hadn't had anything to eat since lunch and the time now had to be ten o'clock or even later, so my blood sugar was probably low.
"Do you need a medic?" one of the men asked.
I shook my head. "I'll be okay, but I'd be grateful if one of you would get me something to drink from the refrigerator in the break room." I pointed in the general direction. "It's back there, past my office. There should be a soft drink, or a bottle of sweet tea."