Free Killer Commute by Marlys Millhiser

the driver lopping a wrapped floral arrangement at her and Jeremy saying out of the car radio which she was pretty sure she hadn’t turned on, “Charlie, don’t keep all your money in the stock market. Keep some in cash.”
    â€œCash doesn’t earn dividends and it doesn’t drip,” she told the radio just as the world exploded when she and the Toyota rolled right up over the bumper, the mile-high grill, along the hood, and through the windshield into the cab with Jeremy and Tuxedo and Hairy Granger, too. They were all grinning.

CHAPTER 10
    CHARLIE GREENE COULDN’T even hear in heaven. And the bright light touted by people who die but live to tell about it? It wasn’t at the end of any tunnel. Figures, information being so screwed up these days.
    No, the light came from above.
    Charlie waited for the Anglo-Saxon, blue-eyed guy with the white beard to stare down from the light and point an accusing forefinger at her.
    Maybe heaven didn’t have any sound. Maybe that’s what made it peaceful.
    But it wasn’t just one head that came between her and the heavenly light. There were lots of guys, and she knew them all. Lovely Larry looked ready to cry.
    Don’t cry, Larry.
    Richard Morse just kept shaking his head. Maybe Charlie was still in her coffin and the light was a ceiling light in the mortuary.
    Damn sight more likely than your going to heaven.
    Oh shut up. Shit, her inner voice wouldn’t let her be—even when she was dead. Oh, please don’t let Libby’s head appear in that circle above. I couldn’t stand it, especially if she looked sad and especially if she didn’t. Oh God, and not Mitch Hilsten either, please, please. He’d try to resuscitate me even after my blood was drained and I’d been formaldehyded.
    Ed Esterhazie was up there too, leaning over her. She had an insane desire to sit up very slowly and moan or something, but of course she couldn’t. Could she?
    The three men were so very different in their looks and reactions—she’d never noticed that before. Charlie knew she tended to lump all guys into sort of a separate grouping that held few individual qualities, kind of a guy profile. It made it easier to avoid personal relationships.
    Her boss at Congdon & Morse, Richard Morse, his nose looking more bulbous from this angle, his short, clipped, curly hair kept carefully dark except at the temples, dressed pretty spiffy for a Hollywood agent. They were known for wearing pink or yellow shirts with brown suits and like that.
    Richard was known around the office and behind his back as Richard the Lionhearted. He’d had his eyes done several times but the bags were forming underneath again. He had protruding eyeballs and could make a blink stick halfway down and still not look like a wink. But the eye jobs were gradually reinventing the term wide-eyed, even for him. He was short but dapper, savvy in so many ways, seriously clueless in just as many others. An enigma, as were they all, really.
    Larry Mann, her assistant (secretary) at Congdon & Morse turned heads wherever he went, and made a fun escort because of that. Trouble was, he turned heads of both women and men, and his own preference was for the latter. Which made him a safe as well as fun escort. He was also, next to Maggie Stutzman, probably her best friend. Which made him a comforting and dependable date. He worked at Congdon & Morse solely as a way to make contacts in his chosen profession as an actor. Which was true of a fourth of the residents of Southern California. Another fourth were writing screenplays and novels. Which left the other half of the population of the area to work at real jobs to support them and the general economy.
    Larry Mann was known at the office as Larry the Kid because he’d landed a part in a beer commercial as a cowboy and made the mistake of returning to the office in costume after a shoot. He had caramel-colored hair that swept