Tara Quinn - In Plain Sight

Janet McNeil smiled at him. “You see robbers waiting in the wings to take me down and confiscate my bills, Simon?”

He saw all kinds of stuff she knew nothing about. “Just passing on an observation,” he said, sliding his hands beneath the loose tails of his button-down shirt and into the pockets of his jeans. They were baggy, too, exactly as he liked them. “If you’re not into safety, think of it as time management,” he said. “You could save a good two, three minutes if you picked up as you drove past.”

“And another five without my conversation with you,” she said, still grinning at him, “but then, what would I have to shake my head about over dinner?”

“I saw your name in the paper again this morning.” He’d dropped the toast he’d been eating, ready to stand up and protect her, before he remembered she was none of his business. That he was no longer sworn to uphold and protect.

“Yeah, another day, another criminal,” she said, sifting through the envelopes in her hand.

“Is Hall really a white supremacist like they claim?”

“Who knows?”

He rocked back and forth on his heels, watching her look at the coupons in a general delivery flyer. “You going to try to prove it?”

She looked up then, her fine features completely composed. “What do you think?”

What he thought was that she should be married and at home having babies. Sexist or not, the concept suited him far better than the idea of a nice woman like Janet McNeil spending her days with the dregs of society spitting at her.

“I hear they’re not a friendly bunch,” he said, keeping most of what he had to say on the subject to himself. Simon might understand how vital it was to obliterate violence and hate, but he didn’t have to think about it. Or like it.

“You know, Simon,” she said, tilting her head, “you should consider writing suspense instead of economics textbooks. It might suit you better.”

Yeah, well, no one said she didn’t have a discerning eye. He’d finished typing in the handwritten revisions on an economics textbook once. He’d done it for someone else and still maintained the fiction that this was what he wrote. It was easier that way. “Hey, you trying to say I don’t look the economics type?”

“No.” She held her mail to her chest. “I’m saying your curiosity and imagination are wasted on numbers and percentages.”

But being considered an author of economics textbooks made a great cover. “Someday, I’ll have to show you my etchings.” He managed to keep a completely straight face while he delivered the tacky line.

“Are you ever serious?”

“Not often. You?”

“All day, every day.”

He was glad to hear that. One moment of levity in her line of work could lead to the missed clue that returned to stab her in the back—literally.

“Then, you should pay particular attention to your five minutes with me every afternoon,” he said. “People need a bit of humor to keep them healthy and strong.”

“I figured eating a good breakfast did that.”

He smiled. And would have liked to hang around. “Have a good evening, Counselor,” he said, backing up before he got too close.

Or did something stupid, like ask her if she wanted to go get a burger with him.

Simon didn’t like to share his burger experiences. Or his life.

He didn’t have enough to spare. And he intended to keep it that way.

They knew the landing gear on the jet was damaged. No one was all that concerned. Jan pulled a file from a vault in the courthouse office inexplicably housed within the airport, watching people come and go from the street. The sun was shining out there. Inside, a cast of gray infused the lighting with gloom.

Suddenly, the structure lurched. Her shoulder slammed against a wall. They were going to crash. She heard someone scream the news—a coworker. Oh, God. She was finally going to crash. She’d known her whole life this time would come.

She tried to scream, but she couldn’t make a sound. Tried to tell someone they were already on the ground. And then all she heard was the screeching of metal against metal, as the plane met asphalt and she fell to the side. Things tumbled around her, breaking. She waited to die. Wondered how it would feel.

And then, just as quickly as it started, the motion stopped. Jan half lay on the floor, listening, waiting. She was breathing.

She tried to stand, slowly, straightening her limbs—waiting for them to fail, waiting for the ensuing pain. She explored her face with her fingers, assessing the damage, feeling for cuts. There were none.

She was alive—and she had to get out before there was an explosion. She searched frantically but the distressed and agitated people blocked her view. And then she saw Johnny. Her only sibling had glanced her way, but he must not have seen her. He turned toward a beam of light and dashed into it.

Scrambling over files, slipping on debris, Jan stumbled after him, desperate to get to the light before the plane burst into flames. She gulped. And her lungs filled with the coolness of fresh air. She’d made it out.

Distraught, she looked for someone she knew. She was crying. Needed to be held, comforted, and everyone was busy, unaware of her presence. Pushing through the crowd, she caught a glimpse of a familiar body up ahead.

“Mom?” she called out.

Her mother turned, saw her, and then immediately turned back to the women she’d been walking with. They were heading toward the crash. Jan wanted her mother to know that she’d been in the crash—that she’d survived.

She said the words. And then again louder. Her mother looked at her, nodded, patted her on the head and continued on her way, leaving Jan standing alone in the street, sobbing. Sobbing. So hard…

Desperate crying woke her. Sitting up in bed Jan brushed damp tendrils of hair back from her face and forehead with both hands, holding her head between them.

Oh, God. Would these dreams never end? Almost thirty years she’d been having the nightmares. The situations varied, but the feelings never changed. Devastation. Unanswered cries for help. Loneliness. What did it mean? Why was she tortured like this?

With her head resting against her knees, Jan hugged her legs. She hated the nightmares, the subconscious she couldn’t control, but she didn’t hate herself. She tried hard every day. She did her best.

Slowly, thoughts of the preceding day penetrated her consciousness. The newspaper article describing Hall’s arrest. Her visit to the jail. Lunch with a law-school classmate. A spat between the office manager at the county attorney’s office and a prosecutor who didn’t understand job jurisdiction. Simon. The quick Friday-night phone call to Hailey, confirming their outing the following morning. Nothing uncommon. A good day.

Jan glanced at the clock. 3:00 a.m. She considered lying down again, trying to get some sleep. And shivered as all the horror of her nightmare resurfaced. She couldn’t chance going back there. Not tonight.

Getting up, Jan pulled her hair over one shoulder, giving the sweaty back of her cotton pajamas a chance to dry out as she walked over to the window to peer into the night. At the side of her house, more long than square, the bedroom window allowed only a partial view of the street. Not that she was missing much. Dark houses. Stillness. A couple of dim streetlights that cast more shadow than illumination. But the view straight ahead was a different matter. Light was streaming from Simon Green’s bedroom window, which was opposite hers. She couldn’t see through the pulled curtains—not that she wanted to.

But there was a strange kind of comfort in knowing she wasn’t the only human being awake on the block.

Did he suffer from nightmares, too? Somehow, she doubted it. Smiling tentatively, Jan left her bedroom and went into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. Simon’s mind probably entertained him with stand-up routines all night. Or maybe he was working late. She’d heard that writers did that. And why not? That freed up his days to do whatever he pleased.