and, without so much as looking at the shelves, snagged a carton of milk from the case and dumped it into his cart, on top of several 12-packs of beer and a half-dozen bags of beef jerky.
Walt recognized him immediately from his driver’s license photo: Dominique Fancelli, stepfather of Dionne Fancelli, the pregnant highschooler. A dozen options crowded Walt’s mind: confrontation, arrest, intimidation. Maybe he could steer him out back and just beat the shit out of him and take his chances with voters. Paying no attention to the string cheese, Walt placed it into his cart, his eyes never leaving the man.
He pushed his cart, following the man down the paper aisle. Watched him load up on paper towels and toilet tissue and consider an air freshener. Stood there watching, hoping the man might turn and provoke him. Not much could test his patience, but this man had Walt’s heart going arrhythmic in his chest.
Fancelli continued toward the checkout lanes and Walt followed as if on surveillance, holding back yet fully focused on the target. Reminding himself how unprofessional it would be to confront the man, Walt turned his cart away and headed for the fresh bread beneath the Country Bakery sign. He was considering a loaf of raisin bread when Fancelli appeared in his peripheral vision, leaving with a bag of groceries in hand. A teenage girl, no older than thirteen, passed him on her way into the store, and Fancelli ogled her bare legs and tank top. Before Walt could even make sense of it, he’d abandoned his cart and rushed through the swinging door.
Fancelli was halfway across the parking lot, zeroing in on a tricked-out pickup truck, swinging the bag like a schoolboy.
“Fancelli!” Walt marched in long, stiff strides, reaching the man as he turned around. Fancelli’s eyes flared at sight of the uniform. His brow furrowed. The bag slowed its pendular motion.
Walt invaded the man’s space, putting his face to Fancelli’s, unbothered by their height difference.
“How’s Dionne doing?” he asked, a bit breathlessly.
Fancelli leaned away but did not take a step back, his eyes creased, his lips suddenly bloodless and thin. His nostrils flared.
“Give her my best.”
The man’s head nodded, nearly imperceptibly.
Walt stepped away and offered him his back as he returned to the store.
“No problem,” Fancelli croaked out.
Walt stopped and looked over his shoulder at the man, visions of Emily and Nikki playing before his eyes. For all the reasons bullets were manufactured, this seemed a way to put one to its best possible use. He caught his hand actually touching the grip of his sidearm. He turned back and walked on, a fraction of a second gone, but a lifetime passed.
He arrived at the top of Fiona’s driveway to the yellow profusion of the Engleton flower beds, the air gauzy and charged with a glow of late afternoon. He was slightly out of breath and light-headed, anticipation roaring in his ears.
Knocked on the cottage door. Stepped through as she answered.
“I’ve missed you. You’ve been awfully quiet.” The hopeful yet sad look in her eyes prompted him. He took her chin in his right hand, placed his left on her hip as if dancing. She didn’t object, and though he saw distance in her eyes as he kissed her, she returned his offer as if he was somehow the answer she’d been awaiting. As they spun, she shoved the door closed with the palm of her hand and they crashed across the coffee table and fell to the couch, this time without a hint of amusement. She infused the act with a seriousness, a disconnected commitment, and he sensed the danger of the moment, but was unable to hold himself back. If talk had been required, it was too late for both of them. If he’d thought himself bulletproof, he was not. She closed her eyes tightly as he joined her, a mask half of pleasure, half of pain that caused him to reconsider, but again, he couldn’t stop. He fell atop her with a gasp, surprised and alarmed by his urgency and the unshakeable knowledge that somewhere in the middle of their frantic actions she might have asked him to stop if she’d been so inclined.
“Wow,” she said, confusing him, because she sounded so happy. “I ought to answer the door more often.”