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“Yes, ma’am. But the more details you give me the better the police will be able to handle it. Can you give me a description?” she repeated.
Rubbing her hand across her forehead, she tried to think. “I didn’t see them very well. One had a gun. A black handgun. I don’t know about the other one. But they were both white, early twenties, I think. Maybe even late teens. They weren’t tall, but I don’t—I can’t judge very well because I’m so short, so I don’t know how tall they were.”
“Can you give me any more details? Hair color? Clothing?”
Laurel closed her eyes trying to picture the men, but it wouldn’t come clear. “The man with the gun…I think he has brown hair. But it was covered up. He wore a dark sweatshirt. A hoodie. They both did.” Which struck her as weird now that she thought about it. It was the heart of summer and steaming hot.
“Mommy, I’m scared,” Cody said.
“I know, honey. Everything’s going to be all right. Let me talk to the lady, okay?” Cody subsided, still sniffling, while Katrina remained in her lap, holding on for dear life.
After several questions, including asking her the apartment number, and Edith’s, which she’d forgotten to give, the dispatcher asked Laurel to stay on the line until the police arrived. She said she’d alert the responding officers to Laurel’s whereabouts.
“I’m going to set down the phone so I can take care of my children, but I’ll leave it on speaker,” Laurel said, holding her kids closer now with both hands, her heartbeat still racing. Less than five minutes later, she heard the wail of sirens. Apparently there were a few advantages to living close to the police station. “How did you know what was going on?” she asked Edith quietly.
“Besides the fact that you all looked scared to death? I didn’t, exactly. But there have been a rash of burglaries around here lately. Some have occurred when people were at home. Although, I hadn’t heard anything about the thieves being armed.” She looked at her gun fondly. “This was Jerry’s,” she said referring to her late husband. “Don’t worry, I keep it out of reach of the kids and locked up whenever they’re here. Except now, when I might need it.”
“Mommy, what does fuck mean?” Katrina asked.
Oh, shit. Naturally her four-year-old would remember what one of the robbers had said. “It’s a very bad word and you’re not to ever say it again.”
“But what does it mean?” Cody asked.
“It means you’ll get in big trouble if you ever say it. Understand?” She looked at both kids sternly and they nodded.
Laurel glanced at Edith and had to look away quickly since Edith was biting her lip in an attempt to keep from laughing. Laurel didn’t blame her. She felt like laughing a little hysterically herself.
She’d been robbed, she and her children had been shot at, and here she was worrying about her kids saying bad words. But at least when she thought about that she wasn’t thinking of being shot at and hurt or possibly even killed. She wasn’t thinking about what could have happened to her and all four of her children.
*
Zack was talkingto Travis at the hangar when a call came in on his phone. It was his default ringtone, but he thought the number was familiar. “I need to get this,” he told Travis.
“Hello.”
“Zack, thank God. Can you come over?”
“Laurel? What’s wrong?” She sounded terrible. And whose phone was she using? “Are the kids—”
“No, it’s not the kids. I mean, it is but it’s not—they’re okay. Oh, God, Zack, we’ve been robbed.”
“What? You were robbed? Where? When? Are you hurt?” Travis came to stand beside him, obviously having heard what Zack said.
“My apartment. They were in my apartment when we came home. We’re okay. Just…scared and shaky.”
“Thank God. And the kids? They’re—”
“Yes, we’re not hurt. We’re at Edith’s.”
“Laurel and the kids are okay,” Zack told Travis. “But she was robbed.” Returning to Laurel, he asked, “This took place at your apartment? Did you go in? What happened?” He’d known the neighborhood was getting worse. Seedy and getting seedier by the day. Damn it, he should have convinced her to move. But he hadn’t, not wanting to push her. He’d wanted her to decide without him having to force the issue. Obviously, that had been a mistake.
“Two men broke in through the sliding glass door. We walked inside—after I’d picked up the kids—and—and they came out of the hallway into the living room. They—one of them—had a gun.”
A gun? She’d been robbed at gunpoint? Oh, fuck. The thought had his stomach roiling. “You walked in on a robbery? The kids were with you? Are you sure you’re all okay?”
“Yes. Just scared. We were able to get away before anything happened.”
Like one of them getting shot, he thought grimly. “Have you called the police?”
