Lucinda obediently crooked two fingers into a billow of her mother’s dress, seizing the edge of a patch and pinching it, hard. She would have preferred to toy with a lock of the never-cut black hair, fanned out as it was across her mother’s slim hips, the edges swaying in the breeze to tickle Lucinda’s small, bare wrists and test her resolve. Lucinda had overheard other ladies call the hair “indian” in hushed tones that were envious and clannish in more or less equal amounts. As far as she knew, her grandfather had claimed no Indian ancestry since they’d begun the mountain circuit. Read the rest of this entry »

Knowing that the camp music coordinator was stamping out staccato beat of irritation in the waiting room, Director Artie Waldheim held up his hand to forestall the latest repetitive protestation from camp “Science Guy” Samuel Coburn. Read the rest of this entry »

Nathanial Mondecorde wiped his mouth with the linen napkin, taking great care to avoid soiling the University of Pennsylvania crest. It would be steam washed and cleaned, of course, made to look as good as new and pressed into service for countless other faculty club diners until it faded and wore thin enough to warrant replacement. Mondecorde doubted even the kitchen manager was counting, probably rolled a cartful of linen naps under a spotlight and determined that the off-white color was too far off, and that was that. It was nothing like the reserve, where all sums, great and small, had equal importance as the building blocks of economy. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunblock-nosed Michelle stopped Evan on his way to the recharging pads. “Don’t go on the mail run just yet. We need to go down to the beach and get Granola.”

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French surprised Hector by showing up before noon. He was dehydrated, hungover, and probably unaware of the red wine stain on the yellowed collar of his once white shirt, but present nonetheless.  Since Hector and Andrea had been moving boxes from the house to the u-haul truck since eight that morning, their clothes had already accumulated rich patterns of sweat and grime.  So French’s outfit and theirs had that in common, at least. Read the rest of this entry »

The hog boss struck a bored but dutiful pose and waited until all of the others had departed. Last to leave was the boy hunter who irked him so, especially now that he was walking into her house with the birdcage in one hand and the gaff in the other. Read the rest of this entry »

Arnold Polmer was still seething when he came back from the file room, hoping his interrogation subject wouldn’t figure out about the dressing down he’d just received from a trio of interagency types who all outranked even St. Petersburg, Florida’s most senior ATA official. To his annoyance, he found Jay leaning against the doorframe of the interrogation room and chatting up his normally reserved assistant. Jessamine was laughing and leaning forward, and toying with a stray lock of hair, as if all of those signal flags and more could be strung about Tampa bay to communicate ‘dock here, please.’ Read the rest of this entry »

I think he knew we were waiting for him. What I couldn’t think – and I dearly hoped the Minister and Secretary could – was why he would come back at all if he knew we were lying in wait. We were not an entirely peaceful people, of course. Not anymore. Read the rest of this entry »

We found April Fool easily enough. She was a six-foot tall shorthaired blonde wearing a conquistador helmet and standing on a box, so approaching her was akin to circling the Foshay Tower in downtown Minneapolis. You might have obstacles between yourself and the edifice, but you always knew how far she was and in what direction you’d have to go to reach her. Read the rest of this entry »

Sheriff Faber held his tongue until the silent henchman Gray drove two of Gruesome’s most prized possessions out of the crumbing mission gate. Getting the convertible out of the line of fire made sense, of course, but he was positive that the marshal Hall had taken a shine to Molly while a reluctant guest at Gruesome’s hacienda. Read the rest of this entry »