by Nathan Field
“Does it involve a stripper who risks her life for the man she loves?”
She grinned. Because I was the only person CC could talk to about her incredible night of bravery, I’d heard the story many times before. How she’d driven back to Chloe’s apartment in SoMa after recharging her phone, only to find the Pipers bundling me into the back seat of my Corolla. How she’d tailed us all the way to Lake Berryessa, keeping her distance on the interstate and then turning off her headlights on the quieter roads. And then how she’d held her nerve when she saw Oliver pouring gasoline over the fishing lodge, waiting until they’d driven off before launching her one-woman rescue operation.
“I’m thinking Pretty Woman meets Cape Fear,” she said.
“A romantic thriller?”
“Exactly. In the final scene, the hero gives into his feelings and begs the stripper to move in with him.”
“I wouldn’t say I begged.”
“Oh you begged, Sam. Like a little dog.”
I sat down next to her. “That reminds me. I’m picking up our IDs tomorrow. We should start using our new names.”
She rolled her eyes. “Even in private?”
“Even in private. The more we use them, the less likely we’ll slip up in public.”
“God,” she groaned. “I don’t even like my name.”
“I don’t like mine, either. But you don’t get to choose. It depends on who’s died recently, and who has the same vital statistics…”
“–Yeah, yeah. I know the reasons already.” She sighed and threw her head back. From the side, with her cropped blonde hair, she looked just like her. She turned to me and said, “Okay, Johnny. Would you be a gent and fix me a martini?”
I smiled. “Of course, Lucy. It would be my pleasure.”
