"I think I'm old enough for a little respect."
In the winter of 1922, teens Vivian and Gilbert watch their family disintegrate. Their chemist father always travels. Their mom seems awfully interested in that slick traveling salesman - and in drinkin...
Ace marched to meet the car. Calmly, she opened the door and leaned in.
"I say, what's—" began Clem.
Ace latched onto the man's suit coat and hauled. With a squawk, he all but flew from the car and landed hard on the pavement. When his foot left the clutch, his car popped into a high gear. It leaped forward a few feet, then quit. Ace dragged him to his feet and frog-marched him to where Jillian Fernwood struggled to stand. The suited man squirmed, but Ace controlled him without seeming to strain.
Ace bit off choppy words. "Clem, or whatever your name is, you're going to supply some answers. Your buddies elected you spokesman. By default."
Jillian lurched forward toward Clem, her eyes blazing very much like Vivian's. Her children flanked her, holding on to her arms to keep her on her unsteady feet.
Clem's wild eyes roved over the crumpled forms of Adam and Eve. He sagged in Ace's grip and mumbled, "It's all over, I guess. Gig's up."
"You got that right, you louse!" Jillian said in a clear voice. "It was all about money wasn't it?"
The deflated man nodded. "Yeah. Well, for me, it was. Who knows what these Rooshians or whatever they are were thinking."
"Apologize, dummy," Ace said. She let go of the arm she twisted behind his back to whap him across the back of his head.
The B-anthracite heaped in the truck chose that moment to ignite.
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Chapter 19
Heat, light, and sound blossomed tenfold. Everyone standing shielded their eyes and felt their skins bake. Ace's slitted eyes drifted from the inferno inside the truck's skeleton to the humped shapes of Adam and Eva. She slapped Gilbert's arm. "Gilbert! Help me drag them further away!" She had to yell over the roar.
Gilbert obeyed, albeit with a sour expression. He and Ace latched on to collars and dragged the spies away from the pillar of flame. Gilbert grimaced. "Ow! My arms!" They dropped them twenty yards further on, by the yellow car.
Ace said, "Not done! The Sopwith! I don't want my paint scorched!"
Gilbert flashed a grin. "Yes, ma'am!"
They rejoined Vivian by the plane.
"Store that valise in the plane, Vivian," Ace said, "then help us grab the tail and drag her away. Hey, where did the con man go?"
For a moment, Vivian, Gilbert, and Ace darted glances from face to face. Their accounting came up two short. But as they scanned around they sensed movement off the shoulder of the road.
"Here!" Jillian emerged from behind the biplane. "I caught him trying to sneak away." She held the cringing man by the earlobe, pinched between thumb and forefinger.
"Nice technique!" Ace said.
Working as a team, they lifted the tail of the plane. They walked it backwards away from the conflagration that grew hotter and hotter each minute. Jillian ambled along, her legs steadier with each step. With a contemptuous sneer curling her lip, she kept a sharp eye on Clem Seville. Her shoulders lay back more than before, and her spine rose straighter.
Vivian and Gilbert kept glancing at her, then at each other. Something had changed. Something had changed for the better.
