Free Death Glitch by Ken Douglas Page B

discovered it wasn’t a wallet at all. It was a small gun, a little Ruger, cleverly concealed in a leather holster resembling a wallet.
    She’d taken the gun, put it in the safe along with her passport, other important papers and Lee’s Glock. Jeff, along with everyone else in her family, knew how she felt about guns, so in the morning he didn’t mention it. Neither did she.
    As much as she hated guns, they’d come in awful handy if Lila Booth were to catch up to them. She sat up, heard the dog stir. He’d been sleeping by the side of the bed, but he was on all fours now, alert.
    Alicia lived on Ralston, near the university. Izzy could walk over to Sierra, go up a couple blocks, then go through the park and enter her house through the back gate. If she didn’t turn on the lights, anybody who might be watching from a parked car out front wouldn’t know she was there. She could go in the back door, up the stairs to her room, open the safe, get the guns and be back well before dawn, without the girls ever knowing she’d been gone.
    She sat on the edge of the bed. It had been a chilly night, but still, and she hated a stuffy room, so she’d cracked the window. She’d been lying awake in sweatpants, sweatshirt and thick running socks, as a hedge against the cold. She pulled off the sweatpants, stepped into her Levi’s. She’d been wearing her favorite Wolf Pack sweatshirt and decided to keep it on. She loved the Wolf Pack, UNR’s football team, and never missed a home game. She’d been going for years and they’d called her their good luck charm. She hoped the sweatshirt would bring her luck tonight.
    She picked up her Nikes, then started for the bedroom door with the dog at her heels.
    “ No, boy, you’re not coming!”
    But the dog was thinking along different lines. As soon as she’d opened the bedroom door, he shot through, scurried down the stairs and was waiting for her by the front door. The door was bolted shut. A sturdy bolt. Izzy thought for a second, she could lock the door after herself, but she couldn’t throw the bolt. Plus, if she did lock up after herself, how would she get back in.
    She backed away from the door, went to the kitchen and on into the garage, the dog at her heels.
    “ I said you’re not going!”
    At the side door, she pulled back the bolt, opened the door and the dog shot out.
    “ Well, maybe you are going.” She pulled on her Nikes and followed Hunter out into the night, thinking that at least she wasn’t leaving the front door unlocked. And she’d be back in less than an hour, so she wasn’t too worried about leaving the house unprotected.
    Outside, the air was brisk, the sky clear. She looked up, sighed as she spied the Big Dipper. She’d always loved the stars and even at her age, she still gloried in the Star Wars films, even the badly reviewed, “Phantom Menace.” True Anikan should have been older in the film, but even George Lucas can’t get it right all of the time.
    “ Beam me up, Scottie.” She hugged herself. Then said, as she’d done countless times before. “I just wish you were out there, that you could take me away.” It had always bothered her that some poor guy from Kansas would complain how he’d been abducted against his will, when she was down here dying to go. If they were out there, why didn’t they pick her? Like life, it was so unfair.
    At Sierra, she checked her watch. A quarter to three and the street was deserted. She heard a car coming from the south and stepped behind a tree as it approached. Hunter seemed to understand, because he moved behind her as a police car cruised on by. In her past life, the life before yesterday, she considered the police as friends and protectors. She wasn’t so sure anymore.
    “ Come on, boy.” She started up the street, headed in the direction the police car had gone. Two blocks later, she came to the park’s eastern entrance. The park was closed, the gate was down and barred against traffic, but a