Live in Person

by Lynda Fitzgerald

  Len grinned. “Deal. Jesus, Allie, you don’t know what this means to me. This will save my life.”

  For a while, but if things didn’t change… “Maybe you can convince Ella Faye to spend less. Maybe—”

  She broke off as the front door swung open.

  “Look who I found in your front yard,” Rand said, as Vivian Grainger swept past him and into the room. Allie and Len just stared at her, their mouths open.

  Vivian rushed to Len and embraced him. “You’re all right. Thank God, you’re all right. Why in God’s name didn’t anyone call me? I didn’t know until this man told me.” She looked at Rand as if it was his fault she hadn’t been told and sat on the sofa beside Len.

  “We just got home from the hospital, Mother,” Len said.

  “Hospital! Were you injured?” she demanded. Then, she reached up and touched his swollen face. “Oh, my Lord, you poor thing.”

  “Not me,” Len said, pushing her hand away. “Allie. She was shot.”

  Vivian turned and looked at her daughter. “She seems all right.”

  Len’s face flushed. “She got shot saving my life, Mother.”

  Vivian sat back as if she’d been slapped. “Well, none of this would have happened in the first place if it weren’t for her, would it? That man was after her, not you. You wouldn’t have been in Florida if she’d been fair-minded about that inheritance. You—”

  “Mrs. Grainger,” Rand said, his voice icy with rage, “Your daughter was shot when she threw herself in front of a bullet to save your son’s life. I think she deserves a measure of gratitude for that, don’t you?”

  Vivian blinked rapidly. “Well, I— I— well, yes. But the facts remain—”

  “The facts remain that your son is alive and sitting here beside you today because your daughter made it possible.”

  He advanced a step, and Allie jumped to her feet. Startled, Spook ran behind the sofa, and Vivian squealed. “Was that a rat?”

  Allie smothered a laugh. “No, Mother. That was a dog.”

  “A dog?” She stood and took several steps away. “Filthy beasts, covered with fleas and—”

  “He is,” Allie said, seizing on it. “The whole house is crawling with fleas… and who knows what else? I have the exterminator coming tomorrow, but you know it does no good. They’ll be crawling all over everything again in no time.”

  Vivian edged toward the door. “Come with me, Len.” She looked at Rand. “I want you to drive us to the Hilton to pick up my daughter-in-law and then to the airport. We’re flying back to Atlanta as soon as possible.”

  Allie waited for the explosion.

  Rand regarded Vivian with raised eyebrows. “I’ll be happy to call you a taxi. You can wait outside or in here. It’s your choice.”

  Vivian’s mouth opened and closed. Tossing her head, she stormed out the front door.

  Len looked after her, shaking his head. He rose from the sofa, stuffing the check in his pocket. “Allie… I’m sorry.” He made a helpless gesture.

  Her big, strong, arrogant brother, or that’s how he’d always seemed to Allie. Now, he just looked whipped. Defeated.

  “It’s OK,” she told him. “Some things will never change. Just—just take care of yourself. OK?”

  Len put his arms around her. “You, too, Sis. Don’t stop anymore flying bullets.”

  Allie smiled. “I’ll try not to.”

  The taxi must have been in the area because it was only a matter of minutes before they were gone. Allie sagged against Rand. “Thank you for trying,” she said, looking up at him.

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. “It was my pleasure. But promise me one thing, will you?”

  “What?”

  “Promise me you won’t grow up to be like her.”

  Thirty

  The Monday morning sun shone on Allie as she lay on the rooftop deck, Spook on the chair beside her. Rand was in Orlando clearing his schedule for the next few days and picking up some clothes. He told Allie he’d be back in a couple of hours. They were overdue for that long-awaited weekend they’d promised each other for six months, and they’d both decided the waiting was over.

  Allie arched her back, stretching her arms and legs and loving the warmth of the hot sun as it soaked into her aching muscles. Her arm didn’t hurt much. Not too much. She smiled. Nothing was going to stop them this time.

  The construction noise was muted today, as if Frank and his crew were using tools wrapped in felt. They must be working on the other side of the building. She wondered how long it would be before they finished it. She’d have to remember to ask Frank.

  The quiet was—unusual—and Allie embraced it. The waves on the beach below whispered sweet nothings to the sand. Gulls circled overhead. Judging by the rolling cloudbank to the north, a front was moving in. It was hours away, and who cared if it came? She and Rand didn’t plan to spend much time outside. Let it rain. Let it snow, for all she cared.

  “I’m proud of you, Allie.”

  “For what?”

  “For how you handled all of it.”

  “You mean Sidney?”

  “That, and Vivian and Len.”

  “She was right. It was my fault what happened to Len.”

  “She was not right. What happened was Sidney’s fault. Or it was Len’s fault. But it was not in any way your fault.”

  “It wouldn’t have happened if—”

  “Allie, stop with the should-have-been and would-have-been. Focus on the what-is. This situation happened because Sidney targeted you and because Len was down here pressuring you. Neither of those things were your choice or your doing. You have to stop taking responsibility for other people’s actions.”

  “I know, but it’s hard.”

  “I never told you life was easy.”

  “You were wrong, you know?”

  “About what?”

  “You said she loved me.”

  “She does love you… in her own way. It’s wrong to ask more of someone than she can give. It just leads to disappointment.”

  “I know. You were right about another thing, though.”

  “I’m right about a lot of things. Which one?”

  “You can’t protect people from life. They have to live it their way. I only hope Ella Faye doesn’t break his heart.”

  “Hearts heal. You’ve seen that with your own eyes.”

  Allie thought of Sheryl and Del and smiled.

  “You gave Len money.”

  “Are you angry about that? I know you said I shouldn’t.”

  “I said you shouldn’t let him bully you out of it, and you didn’t.”

  “So I was right to give it to him?”

  “It won’t last long.”

  “Then, I was wrong?”

  “Right and wrong aren’t as simple as what people make them out to be. Life is full of gray areas. This was one of those.”

  “I just wonder what’s going to happen to him when the money runs out.”

  Silence, but she’d expected it. Lou didn’t predict the future. Allie didn’t know if it was because she couldn’t or wouldn’t. It didn’t matter. The future would come when it was ready.

  She must have dozed, because the next sounds she heard were footsteps on the wrought-iron steps leading to the deck. Her heart stuttered, but then she relaxed. It was over. Sidney was dead.

  First, she saw his head appear, then his shoulders. As the rest of his body appeared, she drank in the sight of him. Finally.

  Things had changed. She no longer felt like a schoolgirl; she felt like a woman, and she intended to show Rand just how much of a woman she was.

  She met him halfway, and they melted into a long, deep kiss. When she surfaced, she asked, “Got everything? Clothes? Toothbrush?”

  He stroked her face. “They’re in the car. I’ll get them later. Right now…”

  As he pulled her back against him, Allie heard a whistle from next door. She took Rand’s hand and led him toward the stairs. “I don’t think
we need an audience.” He grinned and followed her.

  In the living room, they picked up where they’d left off. Just as Rand started to pull Allie’s top over her head, the front door burst open.

  “Look!” Sheryl cried, waving a piece of paper at them. “I had a sonogram today. It’s a picture of Rocco. Can you believe it?” She held it out for them to see. It looked like a picture of an alien, and the photo had the quality of a bad negative.

  She collapsed on Allie’s sofa. “Isn’t he beautiful?” Then she noticed how Allie and Rand were standing, Allie’s shirt half over her head. “Oh. Oops.”

  “That’s it!” Allie pulled down her shirt and grabbed her purse off the floor by the sofa before running into the bedroom and returning a moment later with her Glock. “We’re out of here, Sheryl. You lock up. Take care of Spook. Don’t call my cell phone, and don’t even think of trying to follow us.” She waved the Glock in the air. “If you do, I’ll shoot your tires out. I swear to God I will.”

  As she raced to the car dragging a grinning Rand behind her, she heard Sheryl say, “I never saw a broad who wanted to get laid so bad.”

  Epilogue

  Allie stretched her arms over her head and yawned. She could hear Rand in the bathroom. Thinking back over the last few days, she smiled. When he asked her if it was worth the wait, she felt compelled to show him her answer. She wasn’t even sorry they had to go back in a couple of hours. If they kept at it for much longer, they’d both die of exhaustion, albeit with silly smiles on their faces.

  When she’d dashed out of the house dragging a willing Rand by the hand, she had no idea where she was headed—somewhere Sheryl couldn’t find them easily. Out of instinct, she pointed the car south. About halfway down A1A between Melbourne Beach and Sebastian Inlet, she saw a motel that was perfect—Tiara by the Sea. It looked respectable, and the parking lot was U-shaped, meaning her Jeep couldn’t be easily spotted from the road.

  The nice woman who owned the place gave them a key and left them alone, which earned her Allie’s everlasting gratitude. On top of that, there was a restaurant almost across the street, the New England Pub and Eatery. Exactly what a New England Pub was doing on the east coast of Florida, she had no clue, nor did she care. They could walk there for food when their energy flagged, further minimizing the risk of her Jeep being spotted.

  Their only physical activity other than the obvious consisted of long walks on the deserted beach. There were few motels down this far and fewer high-rise condos. The area was populated instead with single family homes, many of them shuttered now. For the first two days, the only footprints they encountered in the sand were their own. Once, she saw a woman walking her dog about a quarter of a mile away. It was heaven.

  “Just like Cape Canaveral used to be.”

  “Will it go the way of Cape Canaveral? Will these people sell out for big bucks to land developers?”

  “Not a chance.”

  Allie blinked. “So now, you can see into the future?”

  “I’m not looking into the future. Most of these homes have been here forty years or more, and many are passed down from generation to generation. Besides, what would draw land developers to this area?”

  “What do you mean? It’s perfect.”

  “For you, maybe. And for me. And for the people who live here, but think of it. There’s only one grocery store within twenty miles. It’s almost thirty miles to the nearest mall or theater. No swinging bars and nothing to entertain vacationing kids. Just the sea and sand and the pelicans.”

  “Which is all I want.”

  “Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “What do you intend to do about it?”

  About the Author

  Lynda Fitzgerald currently lives and writes in Snellville, Georgia, a small town just east of Atlanta, but she hails from Central Florida, where she spent most of her formative years. Florida still holds a special place in her heart, and you can see that influence reflected in her writing. Her most recent novels (If Truth Be Told, LIVE Ringer, LIVE Ammo, and LIVE in Person) have been set there.

  She studied creative writing at both Georgia Perimeter College, where she was awarded a Creative Writing Scholarship, and through Emory University.

  Lynda is an Active member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Atlanta Writers Club and the Florida Writers Association. More information can be found on her website. www.fitzgeraldwrites.com.