Curl Up and Dye - Liliana Hart

Chapter One

Wednesday

It was a real scorcher, and the heat was so thick you could chew it while it cooked you from the inside out.

Hank paced back and forth across his lawn, walking a rut into his carefully manicured grass, while sweat trickled down his spine and into his cargo shorts. Good Lord, he’d never get used to the Texas heat, and summer hadn’t even started yet.

He looked over at Agatha with a scowl. She sat in the shade of a big elm tree sipping her lemonade without a care in the world. He hmmphed and kept pacing. Little did she know her world was about to be turned upside down. He’d tried to warn her, but she was stubborn as a mule. It served her right, in his opinion.

He rubbed at his stomach, his nerves and the heat making him feel slightly ill.

“Hank,” Agatha called out. “Why can’t we just wait inside? We might be out here for hours. They didn’t even tell us what time they were coming.”

“Oh, they’re coming,” Hank said, almost to himself. He’d felt the disturbance in the atmosphere. Either aliens had come to invade the planet or his sisters had crossed into Bell County.

On second thought, maybe waiting outside was a bad decision. That made Agatha a sitting duck. She’d never stand a chance.

“Why don’t you go back inside where it’s cool,” he said. “I’ll keep watch out here.”

“It’s not the National Guard,” Agatha said, laughing.

“That’s what you think.” Hank kicked at the ground and then immediately regretted it when a clump of grass shot across the yard. The muscles in his chest began to tighten. Maybe he was having a heart attack. Maybe he was dying. That wouldn’t be so bad. He swiped at the sweat dripping from his forehead.

“Why don’t you come sit by me,” she said. “I’ve got extra lemonade, and maybe you can explain to me why you’re terrified of your sisters.”

“I’m not terrified,” he said, snapping back. And then he closed his eyes and blew out a breath. “Sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you. But this is a bad idea.”

“Come sit and cool off,” she said again. “You’ll be no good to anyone if you keep standing there worrying to death. And you don’t want to be sunburned for the wedding.”

“All right, all right,” he said, heading toward the elm. He let the tension release from his shoulders and exhaled, long and slow.

“What in the world?” Agatha asked, coming to her feet. “What is that horrible sound?”

“Huh?” Hank asked.

“That noise,” she said. “It sounds like a cross between fingernails down a chalkboard and putting a car in a wood chipper.”

Hank stopped to listen, crossing his fingers he heard what Agatha was hearing. Too many years of gunfire and flashbangs had left him with permanent damage, and Agatha had not-so-subtly hinted more than once that he should get hearing aids. But he wasn’t old, so he sure as heck wasn’t going to get hearing aids.

Then he heard it. And it sounded exactly as Agatha had described. Neighbors were coming out of their houses and standing on the fort porches, looking for the source. The sound grew closer and more offensive, and Hank pulled the Colt .45 from its holster and held it down at his side so as not to alarm the neighbors.

A silver minivan ran a stop sign and squealed around the corner on two wheels, knocking over a trash can and a decorative lion someone had put at the end of their sidewalk.

“Holy smokes,” Agatha said. “They must be drunk. I’ll call it in. Make sure you get the license plate number.”

The van bore down on them, gaining speed, and Hank pushed Agatha toward the front porch so they weren’t so close to the street. Smoke blew from the engine of the van, and the windows were tinted almost black. Maybe it was a hit job. Or a bomb. It wasn’t impossible that his past had followed him to Texas.

The van swerved as it passed by them and did a U-turn in the middle of the street, leaving black tire marks and a trail of black exhaust. Hank pushed Agatha behind him and aimed his weapon, and then the van drove onto his lawn and came to a sudden stop.

The license plate was hanging off the front by a single screw, and Hank closed his eyes and said a quick prayer. Pennsylvania plates.

“Please, God, no,” he said.

The driver’s side door opened and a short, round woman