Written in Time by Jerry Ahern Page A

somehow, she doesn’t die as she should have.  
    Angela Street doesn’t know if she’s on borrowed time or has had life actually restored to her. But with whatever time she has left on earth, she’ll fight on the side of good, against the bad guys on the street. “Yada yada yada,” Ellen said aloud.  
    Jack, still talking with Lars, just looked at her uncomprehendingly. She smiled back and shook her head, hopefully signaling that she’d meant nothing.  
    “Okay, Lars. So, when do we see the contracts?”  
    Evidently, Jack had been sucked into Lars’ fantasy.  
    “FedEx today?” There was a pause. “Yeah, Ellen and I’ll read the contract as soon as it gets here and call you right away.” There was another pause. “Of course I’ve still got your phone number, pal.” Another pause. “Okay! Take it easy, buddy.”  
    Jack said to her, “Did you get the part about the twenty-five G’s?”  
    “I’ll believe it when there’s a check in my hand. Actually, that’s not true. I’ll believe it after the check has cleared the bank.”  
    “Come here, kid! Gimme a kiss!” But Jack didn’t wait for her to come to him. He was out of his chair like a shot and pulled her up out of her chair and kissed her so hard that her teeth hurt. “Twenty-five grand!”  
    “Wait to order the pizza at least until we’ve seen the contract, Jack,” Ellen advised.  
    They’d signed three copies of the contract, faxed one up to Lars Benson. He’d been a ten percent agent, but wanted fifteen, more currently fashionable. They gave it to him, feeling he deserved it just for breathing—all that he had actually done, in fact, to get them the deal. Lars was agent of record for a book that hadn’t sold very well at all; the rights had reverted from the publisher less than a year prior to Lars’ phone call the previous day.  
    Ellen had the Express Mail envelope with the signed contracts on her lap, her right hand clutching the seatbelt.  
    “This is great, isn’t it, Ellen? I mean, Angel Street as a western!”  
    “So, they’ll turn the drug lord into a corrupt town boss or rustling king-pin, Angela Street will grow testicles and become Tex Wannabe, bounty hunter, and the guardian angel sex changes, too.”  
    “Pretty much the way I figure it. A good, basic story has a lot of inbuilt versatility to it,” her husband told her.  
    “Write that down, will ya?”  
    “Soon as we get home, Jack.”  
    Jack made the left and slipped the Suburban into one of the diagonal spaces in front of the post office. Ellen grabbed her keys and climbed out. She couldn’t quite figure out why, but for some reason she’d worn a skirt. Maybe it was because the weather was too warm for long pants, but not warm enough for shorts. The checkbook was in her left hand, her keys in the right patch pocket. An older man—she recognized his face, didn’t remember his name . . . if she’d ever known it—held the door for her and she smiled.  
    Inside, she went first to the post-office box. “Crap,” she said as she looked through its contents. Among the bills, the advertisements and the usual junk mail, there were three things that would grab Jack’s attention. One was the Museum Replicas catalog, full of swords. Jack liked swords. Another was the A. G. Russell knife catalog. Jack liked knives. What had prompted her single-word remark was the third item, a legal-sized envelope, its return address label revealing that it was from Arthur Beach.  
    Ellen closed the door to the post office box, went to the counter and didn’t even have to wait in line. The pleasant woman behind the counter weighed the Express Mail package and Ellen wrote out a check and left.  
    “Anything exciting in the mail?”  
    “Well, Museum Replicas and A. G. Russell.”  
    “Great! Let me see.”  
    Ellen Naile passed them over. “And an envelope from Arthur Beach in Nevada.”  
    “Open it, kid.”  
    “Priority Mail. Why does the post