Gun Shy

by Lori L. Lake

  Jaylynn lay in the darkened room letting her eyes adjust to the faint light coming in the window. In the compact double bed, she was close enough to feel the heat Dez exuded. She would have loved to move closer to that warmth, but something held her back.

  A low voice said, “I can go up and sleep in my own place if you’d rather.”

  Jaylynn wasn’t sure what to say. She opted for honesty. “That’s okay. I’d like you to stay, Dez. You’re keeping me warm, you know. Even from over there.”

  “Are you still cold? How about your feet and legs?”

  “Not too bad. The food helped. I ought to be fine by morning.”

  “All right.”

  Dez slid onto her side, and Jaylynn heard the rustle as she tried get comfortable. Jaylynn felt fatigue coming on very quickly, and she wafted along half-awake for several minutes. Dez continued to toss and turn furtively. Finally Jaylynn put a hand out and found Dez’s hip. “Hey, if you’re uncomfy, you don’t have to stay. Do you need more room?”

  “No. I just don’t want to crowd you.”

  Jaylynn chuckled. “Please! I’ve got two little sisters who both crawl in bed with me every chance they get. I’m past the point of feeling crowded. Just relax, okay?” She turned on her side facing Dez, scooted over a few inches and snuggled into Dez’s side, settling her head against a warm shoulder and pressing her knees up to a toasty leg. “Good night.” No answer, but by then she didn’t care because she was already asleep.

  Jaylynn awoke a few hours later. The sun had risen and was casting rays of light through the window. She felt a thrill of contentment to find Dez pressed close behind, an arm around her waist and their legs entangled. She was warm and felt entirely protected. Shifting from her side, she looked back over her shoulder. Even in sleep Dez scowled. For some reason, Jaylynn found that endearing. Settling back on her side, the arm around her tightened and moved her closer. She took a deep breath and drifted back off to sleep.

  Two hours later, Dez awoke to the sound of pans clanking far off in the kitchen. She was not amused to find herself wrapped around Jaylynn. It was all she could do to resist leaping out of the bed. Instead she wormed away from the sleeping woman and slipped out, shaking her head with relief that Jaylynn hadn’t awakened to find she was being mauled. She wasn’t sure how she would have explained herself. As she tiptoed out of the room, Jaylynn woke and said, “Hey you.”

  Dez stopped in the doorway. “You’re awake. You feel rested?”

  Jaylynn stretched and yawned. “Haven’t felt this good in weeks. Bet my hair’s a mess though.”

  In all seriousness, Dez said, “Yeah, you’re giving Alfalfa a run for his money.”

  “Your braid is coming undone, too, so join the club.”

  Dez undid what was left of the braid, allowing her thick black hair to spill out over her shoulders. “I’ll be back with some clothes.” She turned on her heel and disappeared down the hall.

  Jaylynn grabbed the pillow from the other side of the bed, stacking it on hers, and reclined. She continued to snuggle in the warm covers. Being so cold the night before was almost like a bad dream, ethereal and hard to believe. In a few minutes, Dez returned fully dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved cotton jersey. Her hair was neatly brushed in its usual smooth French braid.

  “Hey, no fair. How’d you get tidied up so quick?”

  Dez shrugged and tossed Jaylynn a pair of red sweat bottoms and an oversized blue and green wool sweater. She leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed. Jaylynn wriggled her way into the sweater. The waist was fine, but the shoulders bagged ridiculously. “Too bad you didn’t run this wool thing through the washer and dryer for me. Maybe it would fit after it shrank.”

  “Sorry. Best I could do.”

  “One good thing though—it’s definitely warm.” She put on the red sweats under the covers, then rearranged the blankets and leaned against the pillows. “It smells fabulous in here!”

  Dez nodded. “She’s in there creating sumptuous delicacies. Bet you’ll love this.”

  “And you won’t?”

  “Like I said, I’d weigh three-hundred pounds if I let her feed me regularly.”

  “What’s she making?” Jaylynn asked, an expectant look on her face.

  “I can’t spoil her surprise. She’ll probably want to tell you herself. I’m not even sure how long she’s been at it.”

  Alarmed, Jaylynn said, “She hasn’t been up all night, has she?”

  “Oh, no. She can whip up these two-thousand-calorie snacks in less than fifteen minutes. You wait and see. Are you lying there all day or what?”

  Reluctantly Jaylynn tossed the covers back and swung her legs over the side of the bed. Dez glanced down at her feet. “You want some slippers?”

  “Nah, I’m good in these wool socks, but thanks.”

  Still slouching against the doorjamb Dez said, “So, no bad after effects from last night? You feel warm enough?”

  “I do. But who wouldn’t with such a great furnace emanating heat all night.”

  Dez stood up straight, trying to hide the blush spreading from her neck all the way to the roots of her hair. Before she could say anything, Jaylynn popped off the bed and put a hand on her forearm. “Desiree Reilly, that’s a good thing. I’m thankful you exude heat like a pottery kiln. Sure made my life less miserable.”

  Dez ducked her head and shifted away, moving around to the other side of the bed. “You want to help me here?” She took hold of sheets and covers and fluffed them in place, smoothing the spread. Jaylynn took hold of her side and evened it up.

  “How do I ever repay Luella?” Jaylynn asked.

  “You don’t. She wouldn’t think of taking money. She loves to entertain and cook for people, but she’s getting to the point where friends and relatives are old and infirm or dying off, so her circle is shrinking.” Dez arranged the pillows, then picked up one of the blankets to fold. Jaylynn took the other. “She’s a very social person, but all she’s got left is her sister Vanita who lives on the other side of the lake near you. Neither one drives anymore, so I run them back and forth every so often. You’ll have to meet Vanita sometime. They’re like two peas in a pod.” Dez opened the bottom drawer of the dresser and they put the two blankets away.

  “She never had a family?”

  Dez stood and pushed the drawer shut with her foot. “Yes, she did.” She stepped back and picked up the photograph from the top of the little desk. Jaylynn stood next to her and looked at an old studio picture of two adults and two boys. A stately black-haired, dark-eyed man sat in the upper left corner of the picture. His smile was wide, an obvious twinkle in his eye. He wore a dark suit with wide lapels and a black tie, and he was balancing a laughing boy of about six on his right knee. The boy was a miniature version of his father and was also dressed in a handsome dark suit. To the man’s left sat a beautiful mahogany-skinned woman, her hair coiffed high. She wore a flowered dress and long white gloves on elegant arms, one of which was steadying another laughing child in her lap. The second little boy was a toddler dressed in light-colored slacks, a white shirt with a high collar, and red suspenders. He looked toward his brother, and they seemed to be sharing a moment of total hilarity while their parents attempted to fight back laughter themselves.

  Jaylynn leaned closer to peer at the photo Dez held. She put an arm around Dez’s waist and leaned her head on her shoulder. “If that’s Luella, she was drop dead gorgeous!”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “She’s still a good-looking woman now, but wow. Look at her.” She studied the photo a moment longer. “I bet she was a corker of a mom. What happened to her husband?”

  Dez sighed and nervously stepped away from Jaylynn’s embrace. She replaced the photo on the desk. “They all died in a house fire in the Sixties—smoke inhalation. Luella was staying at her sister’s to help with their new baby.”

  Jaylynn gasped. “Oh, that’s terrible. Such a beautiful family.” She paused a moment. “Now I kn
ow one of the reasons she seems to take a person under her wing.”

  “Wish I’d known her back then,” Dez said. “I don’t know how she ever got over it.”

  From the doorway came a voice, “I don’t know how I got over it either.” Both women spun around, startled. Luella gazed at them thoughtfully. “No doubt their deaths were the worst thing that ever happened in my whole life. Every other rotten thing pales in comparison. But it happened thirty-five years ago.” She looked at Dez. “It does get better over time. I’d have to say you never quite get over it, never forget, but after a while it feels like less a burden.”

  “Luella,” Jaylynn said. “It brings a tear to my eye to think of it.”

  “Mine, too, at times,” Luella said. “But we’ve still got lives to live, things God set us on earth to do. You keep on keeping on, that’s what you do.” She picked up the two mugs from the TV tray near the bed. “A body’s got to enjoy what the good Lord provides today because it may not be there tomorrow. I loved those little boys and their father, and I’m happy to have had them in my life, even if only for a while. That’s how I feel about things nowadays. People, too. They’re only in your life a while, so live it up while you can.”

  In the doorway she called back over her shoulder, “And speaking of living it up, come on in the dining room. As soon as the timer rings, apple panny-cakes will be on the way to the table, and you definitely need to see them all puffed up in their splendor and glory.”

  Jaylynn wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. She looked up at the passive expression on Dez’s face, and when Dez met her eyes, Jaylynn said, “What?” She glared at her. “Are you making fun of me?” Dez shrugged and Jaylynn punched her upper arm. “I can cry all I want right now—I’m not a cop at this moment.”

  Dez protested. “I didn’t say anything!”

  “Huh, but you probably wanted to.”

  “Let’s go try out her latest recipe.” Dez led the way out of the small room. She stopped abruptly in the hall and Jaylynn nearly ran into her. “Wait. You go on,” Dez said. “I’ll run down and bring the laundry up. There are a couple of items I’m sure you’ll eventually need.”

  “Like underwear?”

  “Yup.”

  “Good deal. I was wondering where they’d gone.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Dez steered past the well-lit River Centre convention hall, which was ablaze with light because of a Self-Esteem Psychology Conference taking place there. She and Jaylynn were assigned away from their regular sector due to all the activities in downtown Saint Paul, which included the play Jekyll & Hyde at The Ordway Theater at night and a dental convention during the day. She didn’t know why it was so apparent, but even without white coats and drills, she thought she could recognize the dentists out on the streets. They looked quite different from the rabid-looking pack of people waiting outside the theater for Jekyll & Hyde.

  Dez slowed and scanned the area past the theater and across Washington Street near the private Saint Paul Club. Walking away from her was a tall slender young man dressed in a baseball cap, ratty jeans, and a light tan jacket. Hmm, that guy is totally out of place. He doesn’t look like he belongs with the esteem attendees, the dentists, or the Jekkies. Her eyes narrowed as she slowed the car and concentrated on him, and she felt Jaylynn do the same. A man dressed in a suit and a woman dolled up in a wool coat and very high heels strolled toward the police car, obviously headed for the theater. A football-sized purse trailed from the woman’s shoulder.

  Jaylynn shot a glance at Dez and back to the couple. “You know what—”

  Before she could finish, the tan-coated man darted forward, snagged the dangling purse, and took off. “I knew it!” She reached for the radio and reported what was happening, calling for backup and giving a block-by-block account of their location.

  Dez gunned the car engine and sped ahead to Kellogg Boulevard. The man cast a brief look over his shoulder and saw them. He tucked the purse under one arm, and, like a wide receiver, cut out across the street, dodged around a honking car, and raced to the left.

  He had nowhere to go on the Boulevard but down the hill. He was penned in on the river side, along the bluff, and if he were to cross back over to the side he had just come from, he must know the officers would be out of the car and on him. As long as he stayed herded on the wide sidewalk, they would drive parallel on the street, lights flashing. All they had to do was wait for him to reach the freeway overpass ahead. At the overpass, Kellogg Boulevard became a gradual uphill incline. At that point he would surely run out of energy and they could capture him easily, especially since by then another unit would be heading toward them to cut him off. Every so often he craned his head around, desperately looking for a safe exit.

  “Where the hell does he think he’s going?” Dez asked.

  “He could change course and run across the Robert Street Bridge.”

  “Unless he jumps, which I doubt he’d do unless he’s crazy, we’ll have no problem grabbing him there.”

  “What about those warehouses up ahead?”

  “But he’ll have to cross the street—” He chose that moment to cut across the boulevard. “Yippee-ki-yay! Our boy’s outta the chute!” Dez slammed on the brakes, and Jaylynn smacked open the door and peeled out of the car after him. Dez hit the siren and sped ahead, intending to cut him off at the next street.

  The man had a half block advantage, but he was slowing in fatigue from the eight-plus blocks he’d already run. He huffed and puffed up the side street next to a row of rambling, broken-down warehouses. He slowed to wrench at a door handle, but no luck. Jaylynn was within yards of him when he grabbed another door and, much to his obvious surprise, it opened.

  “Shit!” Dez said. She grabbed the radio and called in the address for backup.

  Before the heavy metal door shut, Jaylynn had disappeared through it. Dez drove up on the sidewalk, threw the car into park, and got out of the car. She pulled out her gun, raced to grab the door handle and went in low. Pausing for a heartbeat, she heard the clatter of footsteps on stairs and holstered her weapon, grabbing her flashlight in its place. She ran ahead, passing piles of trash and heaps of unrecognizable junk. The warehouse smelled foul and musty, like there were dead things present. She found the stairs and started up them two at a time.

  “Jay!” She no longer heard footsteps and focused on powering her way up. After seven flights of stairs, her thighs burned. She rounded another flight and saw the steps ran out at the fourth floor. Another door was closing at the top. Hitting it with her shoulder before it clicked shut, she burst into a large cavernous room illuminated only by the streetlamps outside. Shafts of light shone in through tall casement windows, which stretched from Dez’s waist to near the top of the high vaulted ceiling.

  Thirty yards across the warehouse floor, the man stood leaning against the far wall, doubled over and trying to catch his breath. Dead end. Jaylynn held her gun, braced on her left arm.

  “Police,” Jaylynn panted. “Put your hands up . . . turn around . . . face the wall. Don’t move, and . . . I won’t shoot.” She gasped the words out, but the man understood because he dropped the purse and followed her directions. She advanced slowly, stepping cautiously across the old wooden floor. Dez kept her flashlight down and drew her weapon.

  When Jaylynn reached the middle of the floor, Dez felt an odd vibration followed by a cracking and a roar. Jaylynn disappeared. One second she was standing, crouched, her back to her partner; the next moment she vanished.

  Dez’s vision was obscured by a plume of dust shooting up from the floor. Their suspect let out a shriek and fell to the floor, cowering against the far wall. Dez holstered her gun, dropped to her knees, and scrambled forward. “Jay!” she shouted. She breathed in powdery dirt and choked back a cough.

  She heard a sound, muffled and wheezing, but she recognized Jaylynn’s voice. “Dez!”

  “I’m coming! Keep talking so I can find you.”

&nb
sp; “I’m afraid to move.”

  “Stay still then,” was Dez’s gruff reply.

  Dez crawled to the middle of the floor and rolled back just in time to avoid sliding into a gaping seam.

  From below Jaylynn said, “I could almost jump up and grab the edge—but I’m not so sure how secure this is.”

  Dez lay on her stomach and kamikaze-crawled to the edge to look over. “Definitely stay still. It doesn’t look secure at all.”

  The fourth floor supports were rotted away and the brittle planking resting on them had broken, creating a crease in the floor six feet wide. It ran from one wall of the warehouse to the other. Jaylynn was perched at the point where some of the cracked boards met but hadn’t quite given way. Any minute, the entire jumble of timbers looked like they would go crashing to the floor below.

  Dez was aware of the creaking sound of stressed wood separating. “Jaylynn,” she said in a low, level voice. “Can you see me clearly?”

  “Your head, I can see that.”

  “See my hand? I’ll reach down as far as I can. I want you to stand very slowly and grab on.” With her right hand, Dez gripped the edge of the hole, and with her left she strained to reach as far as she could, angling her body a little to the side. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jaylynn’s hand, then felt it on her wrist. With strong fingers she clenched Jaylynn’s arm, grasped cloth and skin, and heard a crunching, crashing sound. The planks under Jaylynn crumbled. A shock of cold air and dust blew into Dez’s face, blinding her. She bore Jaylynn’s weight, feeling for a brief instant as though she’d dislocated her shoulder. But she held on and didn’t lose her grip. With a growl of exertion, she rolled away to leverage the dangling body upward. She grabbed Jaylynn’s belt with her right hand and practically threw her across her body and away from the hole.