They stayed on the floor.
Then came sirens and the loud whap-whap-whap of a police helicopter low overhead. The front draperies were bright with flashes of red and blue. Dad had crawled to the window and looked out. “Holy Jesus,” he said, “there must be twenty cop cars out there.”
It turned out that the shots had been fired at a family in a duplex across the street. Both parents, and three children, had been killed by automatic fire from an Uzi. Only an infant had survived the shooting.
Lane hadn’t known the family. That was another thing about L.A. — even most of your neighbors were strangers. But the fact that they’d been gunned down, right across the street, was shocking.
Just too damn close.
Dad had reminded them about a family gunned down by mistake a few years earlier. It was a drug hit. The killers had gone to the wrong house, the one next door to the residence of their intended victims.
“We’re getting out of here,” Dad had said, even while the street outside was still jammed with police cars.
Two weeks later they were on the way to Mulehead Bend.
They knew the town from having vacationed there just a month before the shooting. They’d spent a night in a motel, followed by a week in a houseboat on the river. They’d all enjoyed the area, it was fresh in their minds, and it seemed like a good place to find sanctuary from the mad, crowded hunting grounds of Los Angeles.
Sometimes the wind and heat were enough to drive you crazy. You had to watch out for scorpions and black widow spiders and several varieties of poisonous snakes. But the chances of catching a bullet in the head or getting abducted by a pervert were mighty slim.
Lane looked upon L.A. as a prison from which she and her family had escaped. The freedom was glorious.
She swung her car onto the dust and gravel in front of Betty’s place and beeped the horn once. Betty lived in a mobile home, as did the majority of Mulehead Bend’s population. It was firmly planted on a foundation. A porch and an extra room had been added on. It looked pretty much like a normal house from the outside, though the interior always seemed narrow and cramped when Lane visited.
Betty trudged down the porch stair as if laboring under the burden of her weight — which was considerable. She managed to raise her head and nod a greeting.
Leaning across the passenger seat, Lane opened the door for her. Betty swung her book bag into the backseat. The fabric of her tan shirt was already dark under the armpits. The car rocked slightly as she climbed in. She shut the door so hard that Lane winced.
“Well, look at you,” Betty said, her voice as slow and somber as always. “What’d you do, mug Dolly Parton?”
“Who’d youmug, Indiana Jones?”
“Yucka yucka,” she muttered.
Lane steered onto the road. “We picking up Henry?”
“Only if you want to.”
“Well, is he expecting us?”
“I suppose.”
“You two aren’t fighting again, are you?”
“Just the usual grief about my culinary preferences. I told him he’s no prize himself, and if he thinks he can do better, he should go ahead and try, and good riddance.”
“True love,” Lane said.
She swung around a bend and accelerated up the road to Henry’s house. He was out in front, sitting on a small, white-painted boulder next to the driveway, reading a paperback. When he saw them coming, he slipped the book into his leather briefcase. He stood up, ran a hand over the top of his crew cut, and stuck out his thumb as if hoping to hitch a ride with strangers.
“What a dork,” Betty muttered.
“Oh, he’s cute,” Lane said.
“He’s a nerd.”
That was a fact, Lane supposed. In his running shoes, old blue jeans, plaid shirt, and sunglasses, he could almost pass for a regular guy. But the briefcase gave him away. So did the rather dopey, cheerful look on his lean face. And the way his head preceded the rest of his body made him look, to Lane, like an adventurous turtle.
He was a nerd, no doubt about it. But Lane liked him.
“Good morning, sports fans!”
“Yo!” Lane greeted him.
Betty climbed out, shoved the seat back forward, and ducked into the backseat. Henry got in after her. Hanging over the seat, he managed to pull the door shut. Then his head swiveled toward Lane. “Foxy outfit there, lady.”
“Thanks.”
“ ‘She had a body like a mountain road,’ ” he said. “ ‘Full of curves and places you’d like to stop for a picnic’ ”
“Mike Hammer?” Lane asked.
“Mack Donovan, Dead Low Tide.” He dropped backward, or was yanked by Betty.
“You never talk to me that way,” the girl grumbled.
He whispered something that Lane couldn’t hear over Ronnie Milsap. She turned the radio down, and heard a giggly squeal from Betty. Making a U-turn, she headed down the hill.
“So, you have a big weekend?” Henry asked after a while.
“Okay,” Lane said. “Nothing special. I went shopping yesterday.”
“No dream date with Jim Dandy, King of the Studs?”
“He had to go out of town with his parents.”
“Toobad. And I bet he didn’t even have the courtesy to leave you his biceps.”
“Nope, I had to go without.”
“Rotten luck. Should’ve come to the drive-in with us. Saw a couple of dynamite films. Trashedand Attack of the S.S. Zombie Queens.”
“Sorry I missed them.”
“Sorry Isaw them,” Betty said.
“Well, you didn’t see much of them, that’s for sure. Between your forays to the snack bar and the John...”
“Hush up.”
“We think she got a bad hot dog,” he explained.
“Henry!” she whined.
“On the other hand, could’ve been a bad burrito or cheeseburger.”
“Lane doesn’t want to hear all the gruesome details.”
“What’s going on with your dad?” Henry asked, leaning forward and folding his arms over the seat back. “Have they started filming The Beast?”
“Not yet. They just renewed the option, though.”
“Terrific. Man, I can’t wait to see that one. I’ve got rubber bands holding that book together. Read it five, six times. It’s a classic.”
“I would’ve liked it better,” Lane said, “if it hadn’t been written by my father.”
“Ah, he’s cool.”
“And apparently somewhat demented,” Lane added.
Henry laughed.
At the bottom of the hill Lane turned onto Shoreline Drive. Most of the shops along the road weren’t open yet, and the traffic was light. The station wagon ahead of her was filled with children on their way to the elementary school, which was across the road from Buford High at the south end of town. Quite a few older kids were on the sidewalks, hiking in that direction.
Henry, still resting on the seat back, swung his arm toward the passenger window. “Isn’t that Jessica?”
Lane spotted the girl on the sidewalk ahead. Jessica, all right. Even from behind there was no mistaking her. The spiked hair, dyed bright orange, was enough to give her away.
Her left arm was in a cast.
“Wonder what happened,” Lane muttered. “Anyone mind if I offer her a lift?”
“Yeah, do it,” Henry said.
“Terrific,” Betty muttered.
Lane swung the car to the curb, not far behind the swaggering girl, and leaned across the passenger seat. “How about a ride?” she called.