Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

almost out of her low cut blouse. She squinted at the slip again. “That’ll be one hundred and fifty dollars and fifty-five cents, please.”

I tried not to look horrified, but it wasn’t easy. I wrote out a check and handed it over with a silent farewell. It would have been nice if I could have peeked inside, just to see if I was buying something besides repairs for a typewriter I didn’t own. She gave me a receipt and for better or worse, it was mine. I went to grab it, Dag didn’t offer to help because gallant wasn’t in his programming, but before I got my hands on it, another voice halted my escape.

“Isabel?”

Flynn Kenyon. All we needed now was Muir to complete the set. I really hated playing happy former families. I turned, summoning up a stiff smile for him.

“Flynn.”

He came out of the shadows of the closing store, his smile visible first. He wasn’t wearing white, but he should have been.

“You’re picking up Mrs. Macpherson’s typewriter?”

What? I almost said it out loud. How could this be Mrs. Macpherson’s typewriter? Had they given me the wrong one? I was tempted to tell him, but something, maybe Dag coiled next to me, stopped me.

“Is it?” I asked. “I just told Reverend Hilliard I’d pick it up for him.” I felt guilty using the Reverend to perpetuate a lie. Okay, I didn’t feel guilty, but I felt like I should feel guilty.

“The numbers on the slip matched,” Mimsie whined.

“If she wants her typewriter, she must be feeling better.” His face was expressionless.

“I hope so. I’ve been covering for her at the organ.” I hooked my hands round the handle and started to lift.

“Perhaps I should check it before you go. We want everything to be in order for her, since she’s not quite up to par.” His tall, thin figure loomed over me, almost sinister as his hands reached for the typewriter.

“Check it?”

“That’s right. It’ll only take a moment to open it up.” He paused, seemed to home in on my fear. “Unless you have some reason why you don’t want me checking it?”

18

“Reason? I don’t think so.” My mind limped this way and that, looking for an out. “I was just surprised. I thought you checked everything before you brought it out. If you don’t think this typewriter was properly fixed, then by all means check it.”

I felt I’d lobbed his serve quite neatly back into his own court and allowed myself a small smile.

“I did check it before I brought it out, Mr. Kenyon,” Mimsie plaintively asserted.

Which probably meant I’d just bought a pig in a poke.

Flynn smiled. “Then I’m sure everything is in order.”

I grabbed the typewriter and staggered out the door. After slinging it into the passenger seat, I scrambled behind the wheel and squealed away from the curb. At the first light I dug at the latch of the little door. It fell open and a sheaf of papers fell out.

Computer sheets with diagrams of several buildings, boxes of figures next to each one? Not the “blinding light of discovery” clue I was expecting, but certainly something that shouldn’t have been in a typewriter that apparently belonged to Mrs. M.

Someone honked behind me and I tossed the sheets down, accelerated, then braked to make the turn onto the freeway ramp. I sped up again, then made the mistake of switching to that same auto pilot that had landed me in the middle of a shootout. The straight stretch of highway made it easy to worry at the problem of what I’d got hold of. What was Mrs. Carter doing with the claim slip for Mrs. M’s typewriter? And what were the diagrams? Something about them buzzed at the edge of my mind. I stole a quick peek and realized that over each diagram someone had drawn circles, small in the center, then gradually widening.

Like a target.

Traffic was flowing smoothly, so I took another quick look. The buildings weren’t identified, though there was something sort of governmental about them. Anybody watching the war on television knew all about smart bombs and heat-guided missiles. Security measures had been stepped up at the airports and it was common knowledge there were Patriot missiles guarding government buildings because of the threat of terrorism. I wasn’t great at math, but I could put two and two together and get an ominous four.

A car ahead of me swerved into my lane, startling me out of my sleuth-like musings. I braked hard. The rear of my car slued in a half circle. The horizon blurred to rainbow hues as it went past. I missed the braking Datsun by inches. A Ford by millimeters. The guard rail by less than that.

No one was more surprised than I was when I found myself unharmed, heading straight and true down the road again. In my rear view mirror, I saw the Datsun swerve off an exit. Idiot, I thought, pressing down on the gas. I couldn’t wait to show Kel his clue. If he was nice, I wouldn’t even gloat.

Yeah, I would. I’d earned the right.

By the time I got home, my date was my mother’s date, which shows that life can’t ever be all bad. I don’t think either of them noticed when I slipped away to call Kel about my find. I was reaching for the telephone when something moved just right of my peripheral vision.

Since everyone I knew, including my dog, was downstairs, I opened my mouth to scream. Nothing got out because someone grabbed me and covered my mouth with their hand. I struggled. I was tired of getting grabbed. We staggered and reeled a bit, then tumbled onto the couch. Before we landed my senses had nailed him as friendly and I’d quit struggling.

I gave him a severe look from my spot on the bottom. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“You surprised me,” Kel said.

“I guess coming home is a nasty habit. I’m trying to stop,