E Is for Evidence - Sue Grafton [50]
"Sorry I'm late. Have you been here long?"
"Five minutes."
She opened the trunk and picked up one grocery bag, then struggled to lift a second.
"Here, let me help with that."
"Oh, thanks. Terry should be right behind me with the liquor."
I took the bag, snagging up another one while I was at it. There were two more in the trunk and another two bags visible in the front seat. "God, how many people did you invite?"
"Just forty or so. It should be fun. Let's get these in and we'll have Terry bring the rest. We've got a ton of work to do."
She moved toward the front door while I brought up the rear. There was a crunch of tires on gravel and Terry pulled into the drive in a silver-gray Mercedes sedan. Must be nice, I thought. The gate rolled shut. I waited while Olive emptied the mailbox and shoved the stack of enve-lopes in the top of her grocery bag. She picked up the newspaper and tucked that in, too, then grabbed the par-cel.
"You need help? I can take something else."
"I got it." She laid the parcel across the bag, securing it with her chin while she fumbled for her house key.
The cat was sauntering toward the driveway, plumed tail aloft. I heard the clink of liquor bottles as Terry set his bags down on the concrete. He began to coil up a garden hose the yardman had left on the walk.
"Break your neck on this thing," he said. Olive got the door open and gave it a push. The telephone started to ring. I glanced back as she tossed the parcel toward the hall table.
What happened next was too swift to absorb. There was a flash of light, a great burst that filled my visual field like a sun, followed by a huge cloud of white smoke. Shrap-nel shot from a central point, spraying outward with a deadly velocity. A fireball seemed to curl across the thresh-old like a wall of water with a barrier removed, washing flames into the grass. Every blade of green in its path turned black. At the same time, I was lifted by a shattering low-frequency boom that hurtled me capriciously across the yard. I found myself sitting upright against a tree trunk like a rag doll, shoes gone, toes pointing straight up. I saw Olive fly past me as if she'd been yanked, tumbling in a high comic arc that carried her to the hedge and dropped her in a heap. My vision shimmered and cleared, a light show of the retina, accompanied by the breathless thump-ing of my heart. My brain, mute with wonder, failed to compute anything but the smell of black powder, pungent and harsh.
The explosion had deafened me, but I felt neither fear nor surprise. Emotions are dependent on comprehension, and while I registered the event, nothing made any sense. Had I died in that moment, I would not have felt the slightest shred of regret, and I understood how liberating sudden death must be. This was pure sensation with no judgment attached.
The front wall of the house was gone and a crater appeared where the hall table had been. The foyer was open to the air, surrounded by coronas of charred wood and plaster, burning merrily. Large flakes of pale blue and pale brown floated down like snow. Grocery items littered the entire yard, smelling of pickles, cocktail onions, and Scotch. I had taken in both sight and sound, but the appa-ratus of evaluation hadn't caught up with me yet. I had no idea what had happened. I couldn't remember what had transpired only moments before, or how this might relate to past events. Here we were in this new configuration, but how had it come to pass?
From the change in light, I guessed that my eyebrows and lashes must be gone and I was conscious of singed hair and flash burns. I put a hand up, amazed to find my limbs still functioning. I was bleeding from the nose, bleeding from both ears, where the pain was now excruciating. To my left, I could see Terry's mouth working, but no words were coming out. Something