Free Coming of Age by Ciana Stone Page A

read was something real, something happening to someone, somewhere.
     
    If she only knew.
     
    Max got up and went into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. As he worked, his mind turned to what happened after he and Livi came back from the beach.
     
    A smile rose unbidden to his face. He was like someone obsessed after they returned. He couldn’t think of anything but her. When he was not with her, it was misery and when he was, he couldn’t keep his hands off her.
     
    If it bothered her, she never let him know. They stole moments whenever they could. Before work, in-between clients and after work. Max was rarely home except to sleep. His parents thought he was with his friends, when in reality, he was with Livi.
     
    He was in love and everything was right with the world. June passed in a blur of happiness. Then July rolled around and he looked forward to the July 4 th weekend. His parents always spent a long weekend at the lake house and this year he’d told them he wanted to stay home. Which meant he would be at Livi’s for four days. Four uninterrupted days and nights. He couldn’t wait.
     
    July 2001
     
     
     
    Livi loved to watch the fireworks, so they planned on driving to Charlotte and watch the uptown display. They were running late thanks to him wanting her more than he wanted to get ready. They were just heading out of the door when something came in on the police scanner he’d set up for her in the kitchen the previous month.
     
    Livi was scrambling for her cameras before he fully got the gist of what was happening. “Come on!” She raced by him. “We have to get to the courthouse in Monroe, now.”
     
    Max ran to the car, surprised that she was in the passenger seat. Then he saw that she was loading film into her camera. He got behind the wheel. For the first time ever, she didn’t say anything to him about having a lead-foot or warn him that he was going to get a ticket.
     
    They were two blocks from the courthouse in Monroe when they hit a roadblock. Police were diverting all traffic away around the city. “What now?” he asked as he followed the police officers directions and turned around.
     
    “Find a place to park. We’ll run.”
     
    It took only a couple of minutes to find a shop on the edge of town closed for the night. Livi was out of the car before Max could grab her spare camera. She seemed to know where she was headed, so he followed.
     
    The closer they got the more apparent it became that whatever was happening it was something major. It looked like very police and fire official in the county was there. Livi ducked behind a parked car across the street from the courthouse. Between them and the courthouse, the street was cordoned off.
     
    He could see five fire trucks, a haz-mat van and what looked like a swat team gathered around a van he assumed was some kind of command post. A white van was blocking the main entrance of the courthouse.
     
    Livi had put her telephoto lens on the camera and was using the hood of the car to steady it as she shot. Max kept his eyes on what was going on. As he watched a man from the SWAT team stepped to the curb with a megaphone and ordered the drive of the van to step out of the vehicle.
     
    “Can you see anyone in the van?” He asked Livi.
     
    “No. Yes. No. I can’t be sure.”
     
    What followed, he would forever remember as surreal. The driver’s door of the white van opened and it was like the volume on a television set being turned down. Suddenly there was no sound. A man climbed out of the van and held his arms up, bent at the elbows. His left hand was spread, fingers up. His right hand was clenched. Did he have something in his hand?
     
    The silence ended with one of the eeriest things Max had ever heard. What must have been a hundred weapons cocked at the same time. “Holy shit,” he breathed. “Are you getting this?”
     
    “Yeah.” Livi replied. “I need the other camera. Hurry.”
     
    Max handed her the camera