My Hero

by Mary McBride

  Holly reached for her camera.

  “I'll be right back,” she told her companions.

  It had been a piece of cake getting into the print shop. One of the major benefits to a small town like Honeycomb was that nobody felt obliged to use dead bolts, so Cal had simply slipped the lock with a credit card. Once inside, though, he realized his first mistake, hoping it would be his only one. He didn't have a flashlight. Not only did that make it impossible to find Hec's stash of threaded paper in the cluttered shop, but it dramatically increased the odds that he'd stumble over something in the dark and break his fucking neck.

  He felt along the wall adjacent to the front door, and touched a plastic wall plate with four switches. Bypassing the first, which he figured would be the main switch to light the entire shop, he flipped the third switch, which brought on the fluorescent bulb above the copy machine. That was good. There was just enough illumination to do a thorough search while hopefully not arousing too much suspicion.

  He started with the locked cabinet behind Hec's cash register, silently congratulating himself for keeping a universal pick on his keyring all these months, thinking maybe his skills weren't quite as rusty as he'd feared. Hell, if he didn't pass the physical for the Service, he could always make a living by breaking and entering.

  He had just squatted down and started opening boxes and riffling through the papers inside when Deputy Jimmy Lee Terrell clicked on his fucking bullhorn.

  “You there in the print shop. This is the police. Come out with your hands over your head. Now.”

  Cal stayed where he was, low, behind the counter on the theory that Jimmy Lee would be only too happy to shoot first and ask questions later.

  “It's Cal Griffin, Jimmy Lee,” he called. “I'm in here on federal business.”

  “Cal? What do you mean? Federal business? Nobody told me. Does Hec Garcia know about this?” the deputy's voice boomed.

  Jesus. Cal groaned and rolled his eyes. He probably knows about it now. “No,” he said, and then added, “You want to turn that amplifier down, Jimmy Lee? I can hear you fine.”

  “You got a warrant, Cal?”

  “There's one on the way from Houston.”

  “You need a warrant.”

  “It's coming, Jimmy Lee.”

  “I don't know about this.”

  Holly was cutting through the dark vacant lot adjacent to the bank, heading in the direction of the police cruiser with its deck of flashing lights, when she heard the deputy's voice blasting over the bullhorn. He was talking to Cal! Hard as she tried, though, she couldn't hear Cal's replies. What was he doing in the print shop at this time of night? What was Jimmy Lee saying? Something about a warrant?

  What the hell was going on? Her ambulance-chasing instincts kicked into high gear and her nose for news began to twitch like crazy when she suddenly remembered that Cal had inquired about a fifty-dollar bill she'd gotten from Hec Garcia.

  Glad that she hadn't left her camera behind in the stands, Holly paused just long enough to pull it from the case.

  “I'm afraid I can't allow you to proceed, Cal. No warrant. No search. Now that's the law.”

  Okay. So maybe his other mistake had been not bringing Jimmy Lee into the bust, Cal grudgingly admitted to himself. But maybe there was still a way to bring Deputy Dawg into the operation.

  “I could use your help, Deputy,” Cal called out to him. “Turn out those damned lights and come in here so I can give you the deets. All right?”

  “Not without a warrant, I'm not. You come out and we'll wait for the proper paperwork. Do you hear me, Cal?”

  Christ. They probably heard him in Houston. “Okay. Give me a couple minutes, will you?” He started whipping off the tops on boxes under the counter, examining the papers they contained.

  “Cal?”

  “What?”

  “Are you armed? Because if you are, I need to ask you to hand over your weapon.”

  Continuing to scrutinize ream after ream of paper, Cal called back, “I'm a federal agent, Jimmy Lee.”

  “I know that,” he squawked. “But it's my jurisdiction, dammit, Cal. Now come on.”

  “Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Give me just a minute.”

  Holly hovered in the shadows of the bank door, still trying to figure out what was going on. A block to the south, the fireworks seemed to be building to some sort of deafening crescendo. Each successive boom nearly had Holly jumping out of her skin. She was debating edging forward toward the squad car and questioning the deputy about this weird standoff, when all of a sudden she spied Hec Garcia approaching the print shop from the north.

  Whatever Cal was doing inside, Hec's appearance didn't seem to be good news. He was carrying a rifle, too, which was definitely bad news. If she only knew the phone number of the shop, she could use her cell phone to warn Cal. But since she didn't have the number, she figured the next best thing would be to sneak around back of the place and try to warn him from there.

  The journalist in her suffered a brief and rather painful attack of ethics at the mere thought of inserting herself into a situation, but the half of her that was half in love with Cal Griffin quickly overcame her qualms.

  She slipped out of the bank doorway and crept around the corner.

  “Okay, Cal. That's it. Come on out. Toss your weapon out first.”

  “Yeah. Yeah.”

  Cal shoved aside a plastic file box under the counter, and lo and behold, just behind it was a flat gray metal box with a cheesy little padlock dangling from its hasp. He took his keys from his pocket, inserted his handy dandy pick, and plucked the open lock from the gray box. “Well, hello, Dolly,” he murmured pulling out a piece of pale green paper whose fine threads nearly jumped out and bit him.

  “Cal!”

  The hair on the back of his neck stood up when he heard Holly's voice, and turned to see her standing in the doorway of the shop's back room.

  “Get down,” he snapped.

  She dropped to the floor immediately, then whispered urgently, “Hec Garcia's outside. He's got a rifle.”

  Cal swore as he motioned Holly closer to him behind the counter. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked her once she was beside him.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Working,” he said gruffly while he undid the Velcro fastenings of his vest then shrugged out of it. “Here. Put this on. Hurry.”

  “A bulletproof vest?”

  “Put it the fuck on.”

  She stared at him stubbornly. “Well, what are you going to do…?”

  Before she finished her sentence, the glass in the shop's front window shattered. Cal shoved Holly's arms through the vest and snugged the fittings tight.

  “Just stay down, Holly. I mean it.” To emphasize his point, he pressed his hand into her back to flatten her against the tile floor, then he jerked the gray metal box from underneath the counter. “If anything happens to me,” he said, “make sure Jimmy Lee gets this, okay?”

  “What is it?”

  “Ssh,” he hissed.

  Jimmy Lee's bullhorn squawked again. “Did you shoot that window out, Cal? Dammit. I'm serious now. You're under arrest for destroying private property.”

  Another shot hit the fluorescent light over the counter, showering Cal and Holly with glass and plunging the shop into darkness.

  “Are you okay, baby?” Cal asked her.

  “Sort of.”

  “Just stay there. Don't move.” He swiveled to call out the front window. “Jimmy Lee, Hec Garcia's the one who's shooting. You need to take cover. You hear me?”

  “I don't care who's shooting, Cal. It's you who's under arrest, god dammit, and…”

  Another shot cracked, and judging from the squeal of the bullhorn, it hit the deputy and his amplifier as well.

  Time to stop playing sitting duck, Cal told himself.

  In the dark, Holly lay face down, afraid to move so much as a micron, not only because of the flying bullets but because there wa
s glass all over her, even in her hair. She was vaguely aware of Cal slowly edging away from her. “Where are you going?” God, her mouth was so dry she could hardly speak.

  “Just stay here.” He touched her cheek. How could his hand be so cool and steady? How could his voice be so calm? “Stay down and don't move, Holly. I'll be right back. It'll be all right.”

  “I don't think I can move,” she said. “My whole body feels like jello.”

  When he didn't answer, Holly realized he was already several yards away, his shoes crunching on broken glass as he headed toward the back door. She would've gotten up and followed if she'd been able to move.

  And then she didn't hear anything except the reverberations of the fireworks over at the high school. Boom! Ka-Boom! Boom, boom, boom! The grand finale. One final explosion that she could feel in her chest where it was squashed against the floor. Or maybe it was her own heart that was exploding again and again.

  While cheers and applause rose up in the distance, closer—somewhere near the front door of the print shop—she heard heavy footsteps. Slow and heavy footsteps.

  She squeezed her eyes closed and hoped like hell that the bulletproof vest Cal had thrust on her was muffling the sound of her thudding heart.

  Another footstep. Then the harsh metallic click of a rifle cocking. Another footstep, crunching glass, coming her way.

  Holly curled her fingers around the box that Cal had placed beside her. She stopped breathing for a second, tried to focus inward, to find an iota of strength, and then, suddenly, her fear seemed to evaporate like a red mist around her. What took its place was an anger that poured through her veins and a voice hammering at the back of her brain.

  After a Bronze Medal burst of heroism, her father had just lain down and quit in the face of adversity, but she wasn't Bobby Ray Hicks. She was Hollis Mae Hicks, who didn't know the meaning of the word quit. And she just plain refused to die in the dark on a dirty linoleum floor in fucking Texas!

  And, by God, there was no way in hell she was going out without getting the story first.

  She tightened her fingers on the metal box, drew in a lungful of air, and got ready to get up. She'd throw the box at her attacker, and if that wasn't enough, then she'd throw herself. With all the glass in her hair, she could probably do considerable damage.

  Cal was coming up behind Hec when he saw two shadows shift inside the print shop.

  But which was Holly's?

  Unable to fire for fear of hitting her, he did the next best thing.

  “Hec,” he yelled, stepping out into the streetlight, holding up his hands with his pistol high over his head, and praying—Jesus!—that his reflexes were still intact, still there, even at ninety percent, eighty percent, seventy-five.

  One shadow moved. Turned. And as it turned, light glinted off the rifle's barrel.

  Cal brought down his weapon, locked his arms, and squeezed off one, two, three, four shots. All to the head before it hit the floor.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Holly had had a mike in her hand and a live feed, she would have looked directly, even gamely, into the camera and said, “All hell broke loose in Honeycomb this evening after the fatal shooting of alleged counterfeiter, Hector Garcia.” But she didn't have a mike and her camcorder had disappeared. All she had were Cal's arms wrapped tightly around her, which was pretty much all she wanted in the world at the moment.

  The reports from his four pistol shots had emptied the grandstand at the high school and brought everybody, including Bee, running to Ye Olde Print Shoppe on Main. There, without his bullhorn and suffering a minor flesh wound to his cheek, Deputy Jimmy Lee Terrell was hard pressed to control the milling throng.

  Cal let go of Holly only long enough to hug his sister, who looked at first as if she'd rather slug him before she threw her arms around him and held him tight, muttering, “I swear, Calvin Griffin, you're gonna be the death of me yet.”

  Dooley shook Cal's hand and slapped him on the back. So did Ellie and bald Bobby from the bank and Ramon and even Tucker Bascom, who ground out an apology of sorts along with his congratulations. Coral kissed him, right on the lips.

  And while all this was going on, a black SUV turned onto Main Street and pulled up right behind the deputy's cruiser. Agents Reed and McGovern jumped from the vehicle and, their faces grim, took Cal aside.

  Ellie grasped Holly's arm. “Honey, let's you and I go back to my place and see if we can't get some of that glass out of your hair,” she said. “I wouldn't mind pouring a little snort of whiskey, too, while we're at it.”

  After half a bottle of shampoo and nearly a whole bottle of conditioner, Holly's hands were bleeding from tiny cuts, but she was reasonably sure that every last shard of glass was gone. She put on her robe and joined Ellie on the front porch, where the two of them shared a nightcap.

  “Some night,” Ellie said. “I don't think we've had this much excitement in town since my great-great-grandfather, Augustus, shot the mayor and two councilmen for refusing to put in a proper sidewalk. 'Course, he only winged 'em.”

  Holly squinted in the direction of Main Street. “I hope Cal's all right. I thought he'd be back by now.”

  “Oh, I suspect there's a lot of red tape to be hassled with after something like this.” Ellie took a sip of her whiskey, and laughed. “Speaking of tape, Jimmy Lee had the print shop wrapped up like a birthday present in yellow tape, didn't he?”

  Holly could barely mount a smile. “Cal could've been killed. He gave me his bulletproof vest, and then he stepped out into the streetlight, practically asking Hec to shoot him.”

  “I'm sure he knew what he was doing.”

  “Even so…” Holly shivered.

  “You're pretty fond of him, I gather. I mean, more than just business associates.”

  “Pretty fond,” Holly said, then, “Very fond.” She almost said half in love.

  “Yeah. I can tell. With Cal, too. You've been good for him.”

  “Think so?”

  “I know so,” Ellie said. “And let me give you a little piece of advice even if you're not asking for any. Don't let Ruth scare you off. You hear?”

  “It isn't that serious, Ellie.”

  Even as she spoke the words, Holly was wondering if she meant them. How serious was that serious? Was it being so frightened for Cal that she'd been willing to risk her own life to protect him? God. Tonight when he'd stood in the street light, calling Hec to distract him away from her, all Holly could think was that she ought to do the same thing—yell out to Hec to turn him and his rifle away from Cal. She had just opened her mouth to scream “Here I am” when the four shots rang out.

  Just what that said about her feelings for Cal, Holly wasn't sure. Maybe it was simple instinct. Maybe she would've done the same for anyone. For Ellie. For Ruth or Dooley. Hell. Even for poor ol' Bee.

  But she did know that if Hec had fired into the light, if Cal had died…

  “If he died…” she said out loud, her voice cracking all of a sudden.

  “But he didn't,” Ellie answered. “No use wasting time with might-have-beens or should-haves. Maybe the Man upstairs figured he owed him one for what happened last year.”

  “Maybe.”

  They finished their nightcaps in silence, each staring through the darkness toward Main Street where they could see lights going out one by one, until the only illumination remaining was in the vicinity of the print shop.

  After Ellie went to bed, Holly carried a second glass of whiskey upstairs, then sat at the top of the fire escape waiting for Cal. When he appeared suddenly, as if out of nowhere, she had just enough ninety-proof fuel in her system to call down to him, “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou?”

  He stood there a moment, his hand pressed to his heart, grinning up at her. It was so ridiculously romantic that Holly thought her heart might break, just crack right down the middle. Suddenly everything seemed to catch up with her—life, death, love or whatever it was she was feeling—and tears began st
reaming down her cheeks.

  “Hey, don't cry.” Cal took the rusty steps two at a time until he was beside her.

  “I'm not crying.” She swiped at her face with the back of her hand. “My eyes are just leaking.”

  “Uh-huh. Bourbon, no doubt.”

  He took the glass from her hand and finished it off in one gulp, then sighed with a weariness that sounded bone deep. “God, I needed that.”

  “Ellie's got more downstairs. Shall I…?”

  “No,” he said in a voice roughened by the liquor, and more. “Now all I need is you.”

  They made love as if they were alone in the Lone Star State, as if they were the last two people on the planet, as if it might never happen again because death seemed very real and all too close, merely a block away, a few hours back.

  They made love as if they were celebrating life and the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day all wrapped into one.

  They made love as if they were delirious just to be alive, together, in a big walnut bed in a room full of roses.

  They made love as if they were wholly—not half—in love with each other.

  And they slept, finally, deeply, wrapped in each other's arms like two lovers clinging tightly to life.

  The bleep of her cell phone tugged Holly out of her warm blanket of sleep. She eased out of Cal's arms, trying not to wake him, then reached for the phone on the table beside the bed.

  “Hello?” Her voice sounded like sandpaper.

  “Kid?”

  “Hi, Mel.”

  “I've got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”

  “Neither,” Holly said.

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “Sort of.” She stretched out her foot a languid few inches across the mattress, encountering Cal's warm calf. “Okay.” She sighed. “What's the bad news?”

  “They cancelled Hero Week.”

  “What?” Holly sat up so fast that she pulled all the covers off her bedmate, whose reflexes, even asleep, kicked in and had him sitting up nearly as fast as she did. Both of them were blinking.

  “What's the matter?” Cal asked.

  Holly shushed him, and yelled into the phone, “They what?”