Going Too Far(37)
Author: Jennifer Echols

God, Lizzie. I teetered on the cusp of crying for real. It hurt too much to hold it in.

"Meg," John said beside me. I turned to face more grilling from him. I knew why I was claustrophobic, all right. But knowing why didn’t make it go away. I wondered what it would be like to see the dark blue sky above us not as heavy drapes of cloth, the top of a circus tent, but as an infinite expanse. As everybody else saw it.

John had more important things to worry about than my neuroses. Listening to Lois on the radio at his shoulder, he said, "The panic button was set off at the Shop Till You Drop. I’ll bet that’s our Aztek."

He was right. "Here you are." John told the Aztek, which was parked at the Shop Till You Drop convenience store. On the shoulder across the highway from the store, he coasted the cop car to a stop with the headlights off and cut the engine.

It wasn’t often that we sat in the car without the radio. Or the heat. The cold silence closed in around us.

My body went even colder as I watched what was going on inside the convenience store. One man pointed a rifle at someone down behind the counter, where we couldn’t see. A second man with a rifle stood in front of the counter, with his back to the plate glass windows. A third man over in the groceries propped his rifle against a shelf so he could open a pack of something I couldn’t quite make out from this distance. Maybe Oreos.

John stared at the store, hardly blinking. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands. I could feel his tension in the air.

"You’re waiting for backup, I guess." I hoped.

He nodded once, without taking his eyes from the store.

"Why are they conducting this crime in front of the window, where anyone could see them?" I asked, just to get him talking. To release some of his tension. Or mine. "I realize it’s four thirty in the morning, but you never know when a cop is sitting across the highway, watching you."

He huffed a little laugh through his nose. "Same reason they’re making the clerk open the safe under the counter, rather than taking the money from the cash register and running. They know the longer they stay, the more likely they are to get caught. But they’re high. Poor judgment. Same reason they’re riding around town committing crimes in an Aztek." He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and lowered his voice almost to a whisper. "When I go in, be sure to duck down."

My heart thumped uncomfortably in my chest. I wanted to ask, You mean they’re really going to use those guns? I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen a genuine gun in person, except John’s. I had thought he’d been in danger previous nights, but it had all been distant and unreal until now.

What I ended up asking was, "Doesn’t this car have bulletproof glass?" I leaned forward a little so I could see his face better.

Then wished I hadn’t. The worry lines had appeared between his brows. "More like bullet-resistant."

I sat back in my seat and watched the men inside the store. Where was John’s backup? If I sat here waiting much longer, I would panic. And I couldn’t hear John breathing. It was so quiet in the car, my ears rang.

"Are you scared?" I whispered.

"I’m well trained."

Yes, he was well trained to enter a robbery in progress with three guns pointed at him. Or well trained to hide that he was scared.

His death-hold on the steering wheel gave him away.

"Do you want me to kiss you for luck?" I asked.

His eyes cut to me for a split second, then returned to the store. He waited so long that I thought he wasn’t going to answer. He would ignore my inappropriate question.

Then he said, "Yes."

I scooted next to him on the seat. The heat of his leg soaked through my jeans. Inhaling his cologne, I leaned my head toward his. He didn’t turn to me or take his eyes off the store—and of course I didn’t want him to, because that would not be safe.

I closed my eyes and softly, slowly kissed his jaw.

His big hand closed over my knee, then slid up my leg. His fingers massaged as they went.

I opened my eyes again to make sure I wasn’t ruining his official police work. He still watched the store. But when I ended the kiss, he sighed.

I kissed him again, farther back toward his ear. He took a sharp breath. His hand clamped my thigh.

Reluctantly, I pulled back. Sliding my leg out from under his hand, I scooted over to the passenger seat. I was liable to get him in trouble. And strangely, even though he still stared at the store, I felt like I had more self-control than he did right then.

His hand crept into my lap, found my hand, and pulled it to the middle of the seat. We were holding hands.

Officer After was holding hands in his police vehicle with a known criminal with blue hair. He must have had a premonition he was going to die.

A low hum vibrated the car. I turned around. A cop car parked close behind ours, headlights off. Two more parked behind that.

John gave my hand a final squeeze. Then, looking away from me, he left the car with a musical clanking of equipment on his belt and closed the door softly.

He had a brief powwow at the front bumper with the other cops. The four of them crossed the highway together in that way cops had of moving, casually and calmly, with frightening purpose. They walked quickly toward the store, but off to the side, where they couldn’t be seen through the front windows. When they reached the building, Officer Leroy and another cop crouched at the front corner. John and a fourth cop disappeared around the back.

The men inside the store went on as if nothing were about to happen. One had finally gotten the contents of the safe from the clerk and was stuffing his coat pockets with stacks of bills. Another still stood guard very ineffectively, with his back to the cop cars across the highway. The other ate Oreos.

Officer Leroy spoke into the radio on his shoulder and pointed his gun up in the air, ready.

Inside the store, a door behind the counter burst open. John stood in the doorway with his pistol extended. The suspect on guard raised his rifle at John.

Then lowered his rifle. All of them dropped their rifles and put their hands up as John advanced into the room, pointing his pistol at one suspect and then another.

The other three cops swarmed in. I couldn’t hear them of course, but they all turned very red in the face and looked to be screaming their heads off. They directed the suspects to kick their rifles away, lie down on the floor, put their hands behind their backs.

John still covered his fellow officers, protecting them, switching the aim of his pistol from one suspect to another. Finally, when all the suspects were cuffed and the cops stepped back, John relaxed his arms and holstered his weapon.

Then he looked up at me. I was sure he couldn’t see me watching him at that distance, out in the dark. But he looked up at me. And gave me a little wave.