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Okay. I’m calling you!! This is too much for texting.
Pixie’s phone rang a second later.
“Okay. Spill, sis. What the hell have you done with the Doug I know and often want to beat over the head?” Talia spewed.
Pixie laughed. “Okay. I’m going to give you the short version, but you’ll have to wait until you get back to hear the details. Agreed?”
“Under duress,” her sister grumped. “But yeah. Fine.”
“Okay.” Pixie took a deep breath and began. “Doug sat in his truck across the street from your house last night.”Was it just last night? “So I invited him in for supper and he slept over in the guest room. He got a call-out of some kind and left early, so I decided to drive back home and get some classwork. Peter, the dickhead, waylaid me in the school parking lot, but Harlan showed up and scared him off. I went to the coffee shop with Julie, who then noticed that Harlan was watching us from outside, so I called Doug because I was a little skeeved.”
“I have so many questions,” Talia howled unhappily.
“Yes, but you promised you’d wait.”
“Continue,” Talia reluctantly growled.
Pixie took another breath. “Doug drove to Skowhegan and decided to have a look around before he came in Mom and Dad’s house to get me and found that someone’s been sitting in a car in the field out back where they have a view of the house. He called the SPD, who are going to do some kind of forensics tomorrow.” She took a deep breath. “We left to head back to your place, with Doug following me in his truck, but stopped in Newport to get something to eat. Before we even got our food, a drugged-out junkie burst into the place waving his gun around. Doug tackled him. I grabbed the gun and told the guy to cut the shit, and that gave Doug time to knock him out. The NPD came and took statements while I ate the best lobster mac & cheese I’ve ever had, then we came here to Doug’s new house because he felt gross, having blood all over him.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Tallie?” Pixie prodded.
“Okay Pix. You got me. You’re making this up,” Talia came back with a laugh. “There’s no way you can sound so normal if all that really happened.”
Pixie grinned, even though her sister couldn’t see it. “Think again, sister of mine. It did, and…I’m feeling a lot better than I have in a long time.” She marveled at the rightness of it. “Helping Doug. Holding that weapon… You should have seen me. I wasn’t shaking or nervous at all.”
“Well, hell, Pix. I’m happy for you…I’m just, a little gobsmacked. You can understand that, right?”
“I’ll allow it,” Pixie snickered.
But Talia wasn’t through. “I just wish your change of heart had come from your therapy sessions, not from a shoot-out at the OK Corral.”
“No shoot-out, Talia,” Pixie laughed. “No bullets were fired.”
“But mentally, you were prepared for that possibility, weren’t you?”
Pixie was able to answer immediately. “Yes,” she admitted. “Yes, I was. I was worried for Doug when the guy managed to get on top of him, so I was ready.”
“What? Seriously?” Talia yelped. “The guy got on top of Doug? How did that happen? Lumous is one of our best hand-to-hand combatants.”
Now Pixie snorted. “I guess if you want to see it, you’ll have to go on-line. One of the patrons said they put it on the internet.” She hadn’t had a chance to look at it herself, but she was planning to.
Pixie named the site for her sister, also giving her the name of the restaurant to make the search easier.
“Okay. Wait one minute. I’m going to try to find it.”
There wereseveralminutes of silence before an uncustomary squeal sounded over the line, then Talia was back in her ear.
“Oh my God, Pixie! I can’t believe that happened. And yeah, Doug let his guard down for a second, but damn, that’s my boy. He got it right back. And then there’s you, Annie Oakley, brandishing that firearm like a freaking gun-slinger in the background. Holy hell, girl!”
Dammit.Pixie hadn’t knownshewas in the video that had been taken. But there was nothing she could do about it now. Maybe her colleagues at school wouldn’t see it…
Phht.Who was she kidding? As soon as the local newspapers ran their police blotter columns, everybody who knew her would be digging for more details, and the footage was sure to pop up.
“I’m never going to live this down, am I?” Pixie huffed.
“Nope. And when I get home, I want all the deets. Every freaking one. No excuses. And I’m gonna debrief Doug as well so I know you’re not downplaying anything.”
