Pastor's Assignment

Author:Kim O'Brien
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2012-08-20T16:00:00+00:00

Fourteen

Ty Steele drew his pistol and threw open the door to the Eat and Go. He spotted the suspect immediately, a cloaked dark figure crouching over the prone body of the clerk.

“Police!” he yelled, scanning the store for other perpetrators and gripping his pistol with both hands. “Freeze,” he ordered. “Drop your weapon and move away from the man.”

The suspect eased backward. Ty couldn’t tell if he had a weapon under the black hooded sweat suit or not. “Put your hands up,” Ty said, moving closer, simultaneously assessing danger and injury to the prone clerk.

“Okay,” he told the suspect. “Turn around slowly with your hands in the air.”

With one hand steady on his gun, Ty reached for his handcuffs. His fingers froze as the suspect’s face became visible. His eyes widened then narrowed. It had to be some sort of mistake. The suspect had green skin. And if that wasn’t bad enough, it looked like Laney Varner. It couldn’t be, could it? “Is that you, Laney?”

The suspect nodded and slowly pulled the hood off her head. Ty felt his jaw drop. “You’re green.”

“I know it,” Laney said.

“And you’re wearing tinfoil in your hair.”

“It’s a beauty treatment,” Laney snapped. “Don’t stand there. You have to do something. I can’t get Mr. Zoowalsky to open his eyes.”

Beauty treatment? Only if she were a Martian. Ty knelt beside the clerk and put his fingers on the man’s wrist. He felt a strong, steady pulse and watched the even rise and fall of the man’s chest. He checked for other injuries and found none.

Unable to resist, he shot Laney a sideways glance. “What happened?” he asked. “Did your spaceship run out of gas?”

Laney groaned. “I got locked out of my friend’s house. I just wanted to use the pay phone.” She pointed to the wall behind them. “When the clerk saw me, he fainted.”

Ty bent over the inert man. “Open your eyes, Mr. Zoowalsky. You’re okay.”

“He thinks I’m an angel of death,” Laney said. Ty heard the misery in her voice and fought the urge to smile.

“He’s going to be fine. You just scared him a bit—that’s all.” Ty paused. “We’ll get him checked out, but my guess is that he’s playing possum.”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Zoowalsky,” Laney said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Please open your eyes.”

Mr. Zoowalsky shook his head.

Ty’s eyes twinkled as his gaze swept over Laney’s face. “You want to tell me how you happened to get locked out of your friend’s house?”

“I was checking out a lead,” Laney admitted. “I haven’t given up looking for the person who left that note behind in church.”

He stroked his chin. “You’d better find that writer fast before you kill off half the town.”

Laney glared at him. “Very funny.”

Ty smiled. He couldn’t help himself. She looked cute in the funny makeup. No real harm had been caused, and he would do his best to help put things right for her. “Why don’t you go get cleaned up?”

Laney sighed and fingered the tinfoil in her hair, managing despite the Martian appearance to seem very human and vulnerable.

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