Joe’s gonna kill me for ditching him.
I surveyed the crowd of humans—attendees of the annual Legendary Law Enforcement Ball—craning my neck to see over their heads as I inhaled another small pastry.
Nah, he wouldn’t kill me. That’d be too much paperwork.
Cool night air swirled through the crowded garden,
“Lendur!”
Captain Donahue, the drill sergeant grandma commanding House Azure’s shuttle fleet, blew into the pilots’ ready room like a southern hurricane.
Lachlan set down his dripping mug and gave her a jaunty salute, left hand behind his back to hide the coffee-stained sleeve. He hated that his boss’s voice made him jump like
“I hired a mechanic, not a food service worker. What’s with the hairnet?” Greg Hahn sniffed, as if I were trying to smuggle improperly preserved twentieth century school lunches from my shuttle onto his shiny space station and he smelled something foul.
Don’t let his attitude bother you, Joe. You can handle another Z Job.
In an oak-paneled conference room at First Freedom Fiduciary, I scowled from across the oblong table at slick-haired CEO Maurice Meltonshire, whom I blamed for Joe’s death, and a cadre of lackeys and attorneys.
Joe’s attorney, Allison Raymond, clicked a remote, and the video projection screen flickered on with the image of my late
“You’re making enough noise to wake the dead,” Dad said from over my shoulder as I upended every bit of stainless-steel-ware in the kitchen drawer, trying to find my giant soup spoon.
“Well, you’d know,” I quipped, “considering you’ve been dead three years.” Then I turned to ask, “What brings you back this time?”
Andrea bit her lip, watching the dangerous groundhog sit on its hind legs, sniff the air, and exhale a wisp of smoke. Then it resumed eating grass.
Whenever Andrea needed repairs or a project done, she called Joe Enza before anyone else. He was dependable and always ready to help. That’s why she liked
“Supercomputer, notify me when the donuts are delivered!”
I licked my lips as the computer chimed affirmation. Orientation Day was the best. Donuts were ordered for the new recruits, and old hats reaped the benefits. For now, though, I withdrew a file from its stack and skimmed the title.
“Monologue Prompts: In the Event
Chasing Joe Enza was like trying to catch smoke. Just when I thought I had him, he’d slip through my fingers, leaping into another timeline—another reality. It was maddening.
But this time, he was still in sight—at least for now.
I tucked a long strand of my auburn hair behind my ear
My stomach churned when I saw the cabbie that’d driven me to last night’s ball. The paunchy man hadn’t noticed me yet as he took off his cap, revealing the horrid bald spot that his dark, shoulder-length hair surrounded. I took a deep breath.
A bird landed on a mailbox nearby and squawked rather
After traversing through a forest rife with wild beasts and roots thick enough to be tripping hazards, Tad has finally made it. And he could really use a break.
The tower before him is a muddy, grit-stained gray under the vines snaking over its brick walls. It isn’t the grand sight he hoped for
Joe Enza was a practical optimist. Not in the way other people defined the term as they met with life coaches and plastered their walls with motivational posters. No, he was truly practical. He made his clients look at the proverbial glass as not half-empty or even half-full, but a hundred percent full.
Read it now
“Yo, Enzo! Is it done yet?” The beleaguered customer yelled down through the grate. The man’s week-old musk permeated every inch of his grimy home—even saturating into the floorboards.
“It’s Enza,” Joe Enza whispered under his breath.
Everyone always confuses it. Joe screwed the cap back on the tritium diffuser as he squatted
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