clothes. When she didn't pass out doing her warm-up routine, she decided she might be good for her run.
She did a quarter mile of her one-and-a-half-mile route before she collapsed against a lamppost, kicking it with her heel in disgust. Aquartermile? Pathetic. She was determined to do one-and-a-half miles in under ten minutes and thirty seconds. It wasn't the distance that got to her- she could run ten miles-it was the time, the speed. But running a mile and a half in ten-and-a-half minutes or less was one of the fitness requirements for the PJ Physical Abilities and Stamina Test, which, if passed, led to a shot at indoctrination. She'd pulled the PAST off the Internet.
Of course, she was a woman, and women didn't get to be pararescuemen. But she didn't want to be a PJ- she just wanted to pass the initial fitness test. It was the challenge that drove her. The test included the run, plus swimming twenty-five meters underwater on one breath-she'd damn near drowned the first time she tried that one. Then there was swimming one thousand meters in twenty-six minutes…doing eight chin-ups in a minute…fifty sit-ups in two minutes… fifty push-ups in two minutes…fifty flutter kicks in two minutes. Technically, she was supposed to do the exercises one after another, all within three hours, but she had to cut herself some slack. She was thirty-three, not twenty.
Normally, it was the swimming that killed her. And she hated flutter kicks. Who'd invented flutter kicks? They were torture. But this morning, after yesterday's shock, she suspected everything on the list would do her in.
She decided to be satisfied she'd been able to keep down her oatmeal.
She trudged back to her apartment, pausing to do a few calf stretches on her porch before heading inside to shower and change clothes. She made short work of it- jeans, sweater, barn coat, ankle boots, camera bag. She doubted she'd be taking any pictures today, but she wanted to go back to the Rancourt house. Provided the police no longer had it marked off as a crime scene, she thought it might help her to see the library again, although it wouldn't, she knew, erase the memory of Louis. After the incident last fall, she'd returned to the boulder on the hillside and touched the places where the bullets had hit.
Real
bullets. No wonder she'd been scared. Going back had helped her incorporate what had happened into her experience, accept the reality of it and find a place for it in her memories so it didn't float around, popping up unexpectedly, inappropriately.
But she'd had Ty with her that day.
She'd parked her car, an ancient Subaru Outback sedan, down the street. She'd gone to the trouble of changing her plates from New Hampshire to Massachusetts and getting a new license, just so she could get a Cambridge resident's sticker-otherwise, parking was a nightmare. But she didn't like driving into Boston and took public transportation whenever she could, picking up the Red Line in Central Square, which was a fifteen-minute walk from her apartment. It could be her exercise for the day.
She stopped at a bakery for a cranberry scone and more tea. Her mind was racing with questions and images,butshepushedthembackandtriedtofocusonher scone, her tea, the brisk morning and the other people on the streets. Kids, workers, bag ladies, students. She passedanurseryschoolclassofthree-andfour-year-olds hanging on to a rope to keep them together, their young teacher skipping along in front of them like the Pied Piper. The kids were laughing, making Carine smile.
She got a seat on a subway car and shut her eyes briefly, letting the rhythms of the rapid-transit line soothe her as the train sped over the Charles River, then back underground. She got off at the Charles Street stop and walked, peeking in the shop windows on the pretty street at the base of Beacon Hill, giving a wistful glance at the corn stalks and pumpkins in front of an upscale flower shop. They reminded her of home.
When she
She did a quarter mile of her one-and-a-half-mile route before she collapsed against a lamppost, kicking it with her heel in disgust. Aquartermile? Pathetic. She was determined to do one-and-a-half miles in under ten minutes and thirty seconds. It wasn't the distance that got to her- she could run ten miles-it was the time, the speed. But running a mile and a half in ten-and-a-half minutes or less was one of the fitness requirements for the PJ Physical Abilities and Stamina Test, which, if passed, led to a shot at indoctrination. She'd pulled the PAST off the Internet.
Of course, she was a woman, and women didn't get to be pararescuemen. But she didn't want to be a PJ- she just wanted to pass the initial fitness test. It was the challenge that drove her. The test included the run, plus swimming twenty-five meters underwater on one breath-she'd damn near drowned the first time she tried that one. Then there was swimming one thousand meters in twenty-six minutes…doing eight chin-ups in a minute…fifty sit-ups in two minutes… fifty push-ups in two minutes…fifty flutter kicks in two minutes. Technically, she was supposed to do the exercises one after another, all within three hours, but she had to cut herself some slack. She was thirty-three, not twenty.
Normally, it was the swimming that killed her. And she hated flutter kicks. Who'd invented flutter kicks? They were torture. But this morning, after yesterday's shock, she suspected everything on the list would do her in.
She decided to be satisfied she'd been able to keep down her oatmeal.
She trudged back to her apartment, pausing to do a few calf stretches on her porch before heading inside to shower and change clothes. She made short work of it- jeans, sweater, barn coat, ankle boots, camera bag. She doubted she'd be taking any pictures today, but she wanted to go back to the Rancourt house. Provided the police no longer had it marked off as a crime scene, she thought it might help her to see the library again, although it wouldn't, she knew, erase the memory of Louis. After the incident last fall, she'd returned to the boulder on the hillside and touched the places where the bullets had hit.
Real
bullets. No wonder she'd been scared. Going back had helped her incorporate what had happened into her experience, accept the reality of it and find a place for it in her memories so it didn't float around, popping up unexpectedly, inappropriately.
But she'd had Ty with her that day.
She'd parked her car, an ancient Subaru Outback sedan, down the street. She'd gone to the trouble of changing her plates from New Hampshire to Massachusetts and getting a new license, just so she could get a Cambridge resident's sticker-otherwise, parking was a nightmare. But she didn't like driving into Boston and took public transportation whenever she could, picking up the Red Line in Central Square, which was a fifteen-minute walk from her apartment. It could be her exercise for the day.
She stopped at a bakery for a cranberry scone and more tea. Her mind was racing with questions and images,butshepushedthembackandtriedtofocusonher scone, her tea, the brisk morning and the other people on the streets. Kids, workers, bag ladies, students. She passedanurseryschoolclassofthree-andfour-year-olds hanging on to a rope to keep them together, their young teacher skipping along in front of them like the Pied Piper. The kids were laughing, making Carine smile.
She got a seat on a subway car and shut her eyes briefly, letting the rhythms of the rapid-transit line soothe her as the train sped over the Charles River, then back underground. She got off at the Charles Street stop and walked, peeking in the shop windows on the pretty street at the base of Beacon Hill, giving a wistful glance at the corn stalks and pumpkins in front of an upscale flower shop. They reminded her of home.
When she
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