The sour cherry surprise

CHAPTER 16

“You’re not tripping,” he whispered after Des had finally agreed to remove her slender, clammy hand from his mouth. But, strangely enough, he was. Just being near to her, even in this darkness, Mitch could feel his skin tingling all over. Insane. It was totally insane.

“But what about… I mean, you and me. We’re not…” Des shook her head, unable to string the words together.

No maybe about that concussion. She definitely needed to get looked at by a doctor right away.

“Listen, if Cary Grant can come to Ingrid Bergman’s rescue in Notorious even after she’s been schtupping Claude Rains left and right for months, then I’m man enough to come through for you.”

Actually, Mitch was pretty proud of how adroitly he was handling himself. This was the first time he’d been face-to-face with the green-eyed monster since she’d stomped on his heart. And yet here he was being nothing but gallant. “The truth is that I still have feelings for you,” he went on, determined to say what needed saying. “I guess I always will. You can’t turn it on and off like a faucet. Besides, I figured I owed you one.”

“For what?”

“All of the times you’ve saved my life. So now we’re even. And everything’s good between us, okay? Ready to get the hell out of here?”

“No need to stick around on my account.”

Together, they crawled their way toward the air vent. Mitch locked his fingers together to form a step and gave her a boost up and out with ease. She reached for Molly and embraced her. The girl buried her face in Des’s collarbone, sobbing with relief.

Next it was his turn. He was able to hoist himself up to the air vent on his own, no problem. But getting out was a whole other plot. Des had to grab him under the armpits and pull and pull with all of her might. He’d forgotten how strong she was, concussion or not. Strong enough to yank him right through that opening.

And now all three of them lay there in the mud and broken glass under the deck, Molly wiping the tears from her eyes.

Mitch dug the wire cutters and Baby Terrier from his jeans and jammed them into Des’s back pockets. “You found these down there,” he whispered. “Got loose on your own. We were never here, okay?”

“Why?”

“Better this way. Much cleaner. Got it?”

She nodded that she did.

Now the three of them slithered out from the under the deck and back across the wet grass to the big maple. It was still raining out, though not with quite as much intensity as before. The thunder and lightning had passed over.

Once they were safely behind the barn Mitch pointed Des in the direction of those two state troopers in the driveway and gave her a quick shove. Then he and Molly dove back into the thorny thicket beyond the chicken wire fence and started their slow, hard journey back to Big Sister.

He could hear Des call out her name to the troopers. Hear them bark in response. Then came the urgent voices into walkie-talkies. Soon somebody with a bullhorn was ordering Clay Mundy and Hector Villanueva to come out with their hands up. Mitch and Molly had made it as far as the woods when all hell broke loose. A lot of shooting. An insane amount of shooting. So much that it sounded to Mitch’s ears like the bloody finale of Bonnie and Clyde.

The shooting was still going on back there when he and Molly cleared the woods and, hand-in-hand, dashed their way across the meadow for home.