Free Sketch a Falling Star by Sharon Pape Page A

trip. Bad timing squared.
    Zeke’s jaw was clenched so hard that Rory imagined she could hear the sound of teeth grinding on teeth. Aware of it or not, Eloise had shot an arrow straight into the darkest corner of his soul—a place Rory had been tiptoeing around for months. She sent him a silent plea not to vanish into thin air out of anger. The last thing Eloise needed was more fodder for her addled brain.
    “Eloise, what a nice surprise,” Rory said brightly, hoping to diffuse the situation. “Does your family know you’ve gone out for a walk?”
    “I like to walk,” Eloise replied, back to her happy-go-lucky self. She picked up the ball Hobo had dropped at her feet when he’d come to sniff out her intentions. “Can I throw it for him?”
    “I’m sure he’d like that. Did you tell anyone you were leaving?” she tried again.
    Eloise clapped her hands when Hobo caught the ball and brought it triumphantly back to her.
    “I had a dog when I was eight,” she said. “His name was Arnold. No, wait; that was the cat’s name.” Her forehead rippled with the effort of rummaging around for the right memory.
    Rory took her by the hand. “Why don’t I walk you home? Hobo has to go in and take a nap now anyway.”
    “Are you going inside too, Marshal?” Eloise asked as Rory started to lead her away.
    “Everyone’s going inside, right ?” Rory glared at him when he didn’t immediately respond.
    “Yes, ma’am, I’ll be goin’ inside,” he grumbled, “seein’ as how I don’t have any choice in the matter.”

    “W hat were you thinking?” Rory demanded when she returned from escorting Eloise home. “You should have vanished the second you saw her heading this way. She’s not exactly quick on her feet, and I’m sure that at her age her eyesight isn’t great either.”
    Zeke was sitting on the third riser of the staircase. She could hear Hobo in the kitchen noisily lapping water from his bowl. Zeke must have “pushed” the door open to let him in.
    “I was thinkin’ I’d be neighborly and practice my conversation skills,” Zeke said hotly, as if to let Rory know that he wasn’t the defendant here. “But that woman knew my name before I had a chance to introduce myself. You should’ve cleared it with me before you started advertisin’ my presence.”
    Rory swallowed her not-so-righteous indignation. “I didn’t tell anyone about you,” she said. “I met her the day I left for Arizona, and she already knew who you were. If neither of us told her, then she must have some kind of psychic ability.”
    “Ain’t that just dandy,” he muttered.
    Rory repeated what Doug Bowman had said about his mother’s stroke, along with the fact that no one actually believed the strange stories she’d been coming up with ever since then.
    “So for now at least I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
    “Be that as it may, I refuse to have any more to do with her,” Zeke announced with finality. He rose and came down the steps to Rory. “I don’t want you around her either.”
    Rory was about to back away as she usually did when they were in tight quarters. She’d never come in contact with Zeke, and she had no desire to find out what such an ectoplasmic experience might be like. Some things were better left to the imagination. But this time she stopped herself and stood her ground. She didn’t want Zeke to interpret her withdrawing as a sign of backing down and obeying. He didn’t get to decide who she could or couldn’t see. It was a good thing she’d never been conscripted into the military. She would have made one lousy soldier.
    Even if she’d wanted to comply with his order, it would have been difficult to do. They lived on the same block, and in spite of the Bowmans’ efforts to keep their matriarch under lock and key, she seemed to be channeling Houdini.
    “You were with her for less than five minutes, Marshal. Why do you find her so threatening?” Rory asked, knocking the