I really need to get back to the other story.
There were shots in our neighborhood one night, a few weeks later. I was walking, idly thinking about what to pick up on the next grocery run, when I heard the flat cracks. For a moment I didn’t even realize what they were. They didn’t sound like the shots on television.
I don’t know why I investigated. Sure, it wasn’t too far from where Billie lived. So what? Plenty of people lived around here. There was no reason for me to go check, because what business was it of mine?
I went anyway. Billie wasn’t in any of her usual haunts, but George was. Under the streetlights (I wonder how long they’ll still have power?) his eyes looked as worried as mine must have been. “Did you try calling her?” he murmured.
I shook my head. “Yeah, but the number didn’t work. She’d already turned off her latest burner phone.” Billie must have had a case of them from somewhere, because she’d use one for a few days, then toss it down a drain. ‘Security,’ she’d call it. “You think it’s her?” I asked him.