Stranded by Alice Sharpe

In fact, I’d thought for a while that I might have been getting whatever stomach bug Jessica said she had.” He laughed softly to himself. “Unless I’m the only pregnant man in the world, that obviously wasn’t the case.”
    “So do you remember every moment like it happened in slow motion?” Smyth asked.
    “Not really,” Alex admitted. “I hadn’t slept well the night before.” He’d been up arguing with Jess, but he didn’t add that part. “And then I got a late start. Well, you remember, Kit, you called me at the last minute for something. I honestly can’t remember what.”
    “Just an address,” Kit Anderson said. “I was taking over the Hannigan case while you were gone and I didn’t know where the guy’s girlfriend was staying.”
    “That’s right, now I remember,” Alex said. “Anyway, maybe Nate is right. Maybe I was so disorganized I missed something.”
    Again, that undercurrent of alarm stirred the air around them. Well, it was an alarming situation.
    “But why did anyone want the three of you dead in the first place?” Kit asked.
    Dylan spoke up. “Because Mike Donovan had called them to go back to Shatterhorn and help him figure out if there was a conspiracy, which we all now know there was.” His voice sounded impatient as though this was old news which it was, at least for almost everyone but Alex. “Mike was killed for his trouble, Nate Matthews was wounded and the speculation is that Alex’s plane was tampered with. All by a bunch of patriotic zealots.”
    “Yeah, I remember now,” Kit grumbled, and they all fell into a pronounced and prolonged silence.
    Finally, Alex heard the creak of the gate across the wooded yard and wondered who was arriving just as things were breaking up. Sitting forward, he strained to see through the fog. A person approached, footsteps crunching on the gravel. Whether it was the effect of the fog or a matter of stature, the figure appeared short and a trifle squat, wearing bulky clothes, walking with hesitant steps. There was something about that walk and the emerging shape that struck Alex as both familiar and a little spooky.
    “Can I help you?” Alex called as the person stopped shy of the steps. Who was it?
    “Mr. Foster, is that you?”
    Recognition came in a rush. Billy Summers, Jessica’s ex-student. And the way he’d walked through the fog just now had triggered another recollection for Alex, but this one drifted outside his grasp. No matter, it would come eventually.
    “Yes, it’s me,” Alex said. “You’re a little late for the party.”
    “Then it’s true, you really are alive,” Billy said, his whisper tinged with awe.
    “Yeah, it’s true. How can I help you?”
    “I have to tell you something,” he said in a rush.
    “Sure. Come on up onto the porch.” Alex turned in the direction of the burning cigarette and added, “Chief, switch on that other light there by the door so Billy can see his way up here. Come on, Billy, have a seat and speak your mind.”
    The light went on and everyone blinked against the sudden illumination, even though the fog diffused the brightness. Alex looked down the three shallow steps. Billy was staring up in alarm, his gaze traveling from one officer to the next, eyes wide, mouth agape. It came to Alex suddenly that the kid hadn’t realized there were other people on the porch.
    Billy had to be about twenty now, a guy with a round face and perpetually pink cheeks. His shaggy brown hair flopped over his forehead and down his neck and was mostly covered by an old cap whose logo had all but disappeared under layers of oil and grease. He was dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans with a dark green windbreaker over all.
    “Go ahead and get comfortable, Billy,” Alex said. “I want to thank you for all the work you did on this yard while I was gone. It meant a lot to my wife and to me, too. And it will mean a lot to the families of the veterans come Memorial Day. Now, what can I do for