Frame Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 5) (19 page)

She walked up the stairs, peered into the cylindrical Bannister Canister and saw neither mail nor messages nor flyers nor small animals, reached into her purse, withdrew her key, and inserted it into the gleaming silver lock.

The door swung open easily as she pushed upon the key.

The shop was unlocked.

“Huh.”

A strange thing. Nina was nothing if not a creature of routine, and she
always
locked up upon leaving. Which she had done a little more than five hours ago.

Oh well.

She stepped inside the darkened shop, reached to her right, and flipped the light switch.

Everything was as she’d left it. The hanging ferns over to the right, the row of paintings on the street-side wall—none of hers were hanging now, but a spot stood ready for
Owl
, which she would finish probably day after tomorrow—the cash register directly in front of her, the displays of silverware on tables in the middle of the room, several clay pots standing like dusky-brown fat soldiers behind them…

…no, nothing had been changed.

So she crossed the room and walked up and down the various aisles and crannies and semi-nooks and hallowed spaces that made up the store.

An urn by Amy Phillips. A display of books about backpacking in Mississippi. An embossed punchbowl.

She looked up at the ceiling light; a large, doped-up fly was buzzing around it.

Have to kill it tomorrow.

But, other than that, everything seemed to be in place.

So she turned, walked to the door, opened it, and walked outside.

No sound from anywhere in winter-sleeping Bay St. Lucy.

She got on the Vespa, started it, and pulled away.

Ten seconds later, she’d gone about fifteen yards down the street.

And the bomb went off.

Carol Walker heard two things almost simultaneously: the first was what seemed like a sonic boom that came from the direction of downtown Bay St. Lucy; the second was a knock at the door.

She opened it and saw standing before her, a beaming Tom Broussard, dressed in dungarees and a battered black sports jacket.

“Did you hear a noise?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Yeah. Sounded like a jet broke the sound barrier.”

“Are there any military air stations around?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Huh. Well, anyway, hi Tom!”

“Hi yourself. Nina around?”

“No, she had to go into town. We got a phone call, and––well, it doesn’t matter. How’s Penelope?”

“She’s great. And that’s what I’m here about.”

“Ok, how can I help you?”

“I want to buy one of Nina’s paintings for her. I think it would make a great pre-pre-shower gift. I went over to Elementals today, though, and she told me she’d sold the last one, but there were a couple here that she’d finished.”

“That’s true. Nina and I just finished
Owl
today. I was going to leave it out on the deck, but the air is so cold and wet I put it in the bedroom.”

“Could I see it? I don’t have my truck with me—I’ve just walked over here from my place—but if it isn’t too big, I could give you a check for it and just carry it down to the wharf.”

“Sure, come on it.”

He did so, then made his way through the living room and into the bedroom.

The painting rested on the floor, leaning against Nina’s bed.

“It’s an owl all right. I like the way it’s kind of hidden in that green leafy background.”

“Yes,” answered Carol. “Nina worked hard getting the colors right. It’s a small painting, too, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble carrying it.”

“How much is she asking?”

“She always sells her paintings for the same price: three hundred and fifty dollars.”

“The way the things are selling, she’s going to have to start asking more.”

“Yeah, I know. Well, if…”

There was another knock at the door.

“We seem to be popular these days. Look, Tom, there’s some wrapping paper over in the corner, if you want to make the painting look like a present.”

“Good idea. You get the door; I’ll wrap the thing up.”

“Right.”

She turned; left the bedroom, crossed the living room, and opened the door again.

A very well dressed—charcoal gray business suit, red tie superlatively tied—tall blond man with ice blue eyes, was standing in front of her.

She’d seen only a few people dressed so well in all her life, and they were all doing the same thing.

He was, she could remember thinking later, selling bibles for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

“Carol Walker?”

“Yes?”

“May I come in?”

She almost automatically took a step back into the living room.

Then a second.

Soon they were both standing in the middle of the room.

“How may I…” she began.

But he interrupted her, saying simply:

“Lorca Reklaw.”

Then, very carefully, and with all circumspection, as though he were retrieving his sunglasses from the inside pocket of his Armani jacket, he took out a gun.

It was a small gun, hardly bigger than his hand, which was not a small hand.

It shone, oily and black, the light overhead reflecting upon its cylinder.

She remembered thinking it might have been a toy gun.

She also remembered thinking that she was not at all frightened. That she was watching a film. That she was watching an action scene in a made-for-TV movie starring actors very few people recognized, except that one of them was herself, Carol Walker.

The man stepped forward so that he was hardly a good stride away from her. Then, crossing his chest with his right arm, he removed the gun from its shoulder holster, and began to cock it.

She sensed movement behind her.

At this moment, Tom Broussard hurtled like a missile across the room, almost knocking her down and barreling into the gunman. The two bodies shattered against the wall just beside the door, cracking the plaster and then falling to the floor in what immediately became a writhing tangle of thick limbs, clutching hands, bellowed obscenities, and shoes—black shiny ones on the assailant, combat boots on Tom—scuffing the floor boards.

A part of her wanted to turn and escape onto the deck, but another part prevented movement at all, and so she merely stood, fixed as a statue while the gun slid across the floor and came to rest at her feet.

She stared at it while the two men fought.

Its hammer, she noted, was cocked and ready.

The fight could not have lasted more than fifteen seconds, and it was soon over, for, although Tom was big and brawling, and had obviously been in bar room scuffles for most of his life, his opponent was trained.

And had a knife.

She did not even see where it had come from, nor out of what secretive pocket it had been slipped.

She only heard the click, saw the blade flash open, and saw the hand holding it, free for an instant from the grasp that had held it, crawl upward toward Tom’s throat, which pulsated red and vein-laced beneath it.

Six inches from the throat.

Now on the throat.

She could see Tom’s eyes bulging wide.

The gun was cold in her palm.

She took a step forward, bent down––as though to pick up off the floor a coin she had inadvertently dropped—then pressed the barrel against a sweaty lock of straw blond hair hanging from the man’s forehead, and squeezed the trigger.

Everything was going around and around.

Going around and around were: the Vespa’s tires, which hung awkwardly a foot or so above the grass lawn fronting Clay Creatures; her running sneakers, but how could they be going around and around because they were securely tied to her feet, which extended a few feet away from the rest of her, and were lying quietly on the ground? The street lamp, glowing and buzzing golden on the other side of the street, and just going around and around in its merry way and orbiting like a planet the post on which it was supposed to be attached.

There were other lights though, of course, and they were going around and around too, especially the red ones, the ones that came attached to the sirens, and which were not only orbiting but approaching, as she lay there in the grass watching them.

She watched them and the fire.

It was spewing out of Elementals now, Elementals whose front wall could not be seen for the billowing black smoke.

It roared as it spewed, chewing up everything that had been part of the entryway, having eaten, she thought absurdly, The Bannister Canister, her little message tube, of which she and Margot were so proud.

The Bannister Canister.

It was gone now.

“Ms. Bannister!”

What was that?

People.

People were going around and around, and they were shouting, and they were all dressed in bizarre black and golden uniforms, and they getting closer to her.

Now they were all around her.

“Ms. Bannister! Ms. Bannister, are you all right?”

She watched herself try to answer the question and fail, laughed inwardly at herself for failing, enjoyed the show, all the round abouts, everything circling the way it was…

“Ms. Bannister, can you talk?”

“I…”

There it was, a word.

“I don’t…”

Two words

The fire continued to roar like a freight train.

“Can you move your arms and legs, Ms. Bannister?”

“Can I…”

What a question.

Of course, she could move her arms and legs.

She tried.

One leg moved and one arm.

She knew they moved because she saw them.

Well, that was pretty good, wasn’t it?

“Ma’am, can you understand us? We’ve got to get you into an ambulance, if you can stand up.”

“I––I don’t know. I just…”

“Are you in pain, Ms. Bannister?”

“I don’t––I don’t think so.”

“Can you take deep breaths?”

Could she?

She tried.