lucky to be alive—the shots were at close range.”
“I’ll stop by her house tomorrow and see if I can help her husband in any way. He’s such a nice guy.”
“How well do you know Michelle?”
“She goes to my church and her boys come over to play sometimes. This is just awful. How are you?”
“Tired. Can we finish talking tomorrow?”
“Si, Signora. I’ll talk to you both after I run my morning errands.”
The clock on Roz’s dash read 2:31 a.m. when we pulled onto White Willow Circle. The neighborhood was void of law enforcement and emergency vehicles. All signs of turmoil were gone. So was my van. Howard’s car was parked on the street though. Roz wanted to walk me up to the front door, but I insisted that she just let me out in the driveway. I might have run over a dying woman and tried to decapitate myself with a tree limb, but I wasn’t an invalid.
Chapter Eight
SEEING HOWARD’S CAR PARKED OUT front had brightened my mood. I hadn’t been surprised that he didn’t make it to the hospital. His work always took him longer than he predicted. It was the curse of being an FBI wife. More often than not, two hours could become two days or even two weeks.
Expecting to find him in the house, I searched each room quickly. He wasn’t downstairs, so I leaped up several stairs at a time while calling his name, fully certain he’d be in our bed, waiting to welcome me home with a kiss and a hug and other displays of affection worthy of an R rating. Maybe if I was really lucky, X rated activities would follow.
So much for censored fun. He was nowhere to be found. For good measure, I checked each of the girls’ rooms, but Howard was a missing entity. It seemed odd that his car was home and he wasn’t, but I was just too tired and achy to think about it anymore. My body needed a bed to lie down on. My mind needed sleep. Back in the husband-free room, I sat on the edge of the bed, slipped off one shoe then the other and let myself fall back. I’d strip down and get into some jammies in a minute, after giving the ol’ eyeballs a momentary rest . . .
I’m at the Cannes Film Festival. I’m there to review selected screenings but am driving down a seaside road in my van looking for a place to park. Crowds of A-list stars cover the sidewalks while paparazzi swarm like ants at a celebrity picnic. It’s a dream within a dream. Without warning, I lose control of the van—it’s driving itself and there’s nothing I can do. It swerves fast to the right, then again fast to the left. People are screaming and running every which way.
“Get out of my way!” I holler. “I’m a menace behind the wheel! They should revoke my license!”
Now I realize the van has turned into a Mini Cooper and Matt Damon is sitting next to me.
“Drive it like I did in the Bourne Identity,” he says.
“But Matt, that wasn’t you—that was a stunt driver.
He looks upset. “Really? Oh, Pooh Bear.”
Before I know it, Matt is gone and Winnie-the-Pooh sits in his place eating from a honey jar.
“Pooh Bear,” I say to myself. “Why does that sound so familiar?
When I look up, the Mini-Cooper is about to plow right into the entire cast of Porky’s Revenge.
My eyes opened before I witnessed the pigs fly.
Pooh Bear. Michelle’s last words before she lost consciousness. In all of the mayhem, I’d forgotten. Was it a message? Like Orson Wells whispering “Rosebud” just before he dropped the snowglobe then kicked the bucket in Citizen Kane? Or did she just have a thing for silly ol’ bears? My head started to pound as I relived the grisly scene from last night. I touched the throbbing spot and felt a nasty knot where the tree branch had struck me. Wouldn’t I be a lovely sight? The clock on my bed stand told me it was 7:05 in the morning. Not exactly a full night’s restful sleep, but I was awake now and sounds drifted from downstairs. Someone was home.
When I pulled the quilt away to sit up, I remembered I had fallen asleep uncovered. Then I noticed the note on the bed next to me. Shower before you come down. You don’t want to scare the girls. Came up with a story—just play along. The handwriting