I nodded, the weight of the day’s events pressing down on me. “There wasn’t a shooter,” I said, as much to reassure myself as her. “It was a prank.” I winced at the lie, but I didn’t want to alarm Ari with my own fear. “An awful, terrible prank.”
“Is that what the police said?” Gilly asked.
I shook my head as I let Ari go. “Someone put a couple of bullets into the popcorn kettle in the stand next to ours, and they blew up when they got hot.”
Ari’s expression was quizzical. “But what about the guy who got shot?” Her brow furrowed. “Bullets don’t have any momentum when they explode.”
“Explain it to me in small words,” Gilly told her daughter.
Ari, who loved talking science, perked up at her mom’s question. “Imagine a bullet inside a hot kettle. As the temperature increases, the gunpowder inside the bullet eventually ignites. Normally, when a bullet is fired from a gun, the ignition propels the bullet forward with a lot of force, pushing it out of the barrel at a very high speed.” She used hand gestures that illustrated her description. “The barrel is the catalyst that thrusts the bullet forward. However, if a bullet explodes from heat, like in the kettle, there’s no containment to give it direction, so the force detonates out in all directions instead of just one.” She shrugged and dropped her hands to her sides. “So, how was the person shot?”
“Smart girl and smart question.” I nodded at the taco bags. “Is that dinner?”
“Yep,” Gilly quipped as she grabbed some paper plates from my cupboard. “I got twelve fried tacos with extra hot sauce.”
My mouth watered like Pavlov’s dog. “Perfect.”
“Aunt Nora.” Ari gave me an annoyed stare. She rolled her hand at me. “The gunshot.”
The corner of my mouth quirked up in amusement. Ari wasn’t going to let it go without some kind of logical explanation. “It was metal shrapnel from the kettle. It broke off when the bullets exploded and hit Edgar in the shoulder. Someone who’d heard the bullets go off and saw Edgar bleeding assumed he’d been shot.” I took the plate of offered tacos from my friend. “The perfect dinner after a miserable day.” I gave Gilly a grateful look. “Thank you for being here.”
She gave me a tightlipped smile. “I’m the one who has some thanking to do,” she replied. “What you did today was so brave.” Her eyes pivoted to Ari then back to me. “You kept my daughter safe.”
“Thankfully, turns out there wasn’t much to keep her safe from.” I added hot sauce to a taco and took a bite. The heat and spice burned my lips as a brief hum of satisfaction rumbled in my throat.
Gilly came around the center island and grabbed me into a hug. I barely saved the taco I held from being trapped between us.
“You didn’t know it wasn’t real,” she said fiercely. “Your first thought was for my kid, and I can’t tell you how much I love you for it.”
I set the taco down and hugged her back. “I love you too. And...” I reached over and put my hand on Ari’s shoulder. “...I love my godchildren. Putting Ari’s safety ahead of mine was a no-brainer.” I felt the same way about Mason as well.
Abruptly, Gilly let me go and threw her hands in the air. “What idiot thinks exploding bullets in a crowded street is funny?”
I gave a non-committal grunt to avoid answering her question.
Gilly’s eyebrow shot up. “What aren’t you telling me?”
I scratched my cheek and shifted my gaze to Ari then back to my friend. “Now’s not the right time.”
Ari sucked her teeth. “I’m not a child anymore, Aunt Nora.”
“I know,” I told her. Ari knew about my scent-memory gift. She’d even used her computer skills to help with a case in the past. “I had a vision. The person or persons who did this seems to want me to know that they’re targeting me.”
“Was it a man or a woman?” Gilly asked.
“Both, maybe. I don’t know.” I gave a quick head shake. There were two distinct voices, but I only saw one person. “I think my visions are glitching. He or she...”
“Or they,” Ari muttered.
I inclined my head at her. “Or they.” I scratched my scalp to mitigate the sensory overload in my brain. “The voice...the first vision the person sounded like Christopher Walken.” I inclined my head at Ari. “He was a big actor when your mom and I were young.”
She rolled her eyes. “I know who Christopher Walken is, Aunt Nora. He’s that old guy that danced in Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice” music video.” Her eyes brightened. “And he plays the emperor in Dune. You know, the new one with Timothée Chalamet.”
“Good to know he’s relevant with the youth.” I smirked. “Any how, his voice is really distinctive, and I had a second vision where the voice sounded like Dolly Parton.”
Before I could say more, Ari jumped in. “Dolly is bussin’”
I’d been around the kids long enough to know that bussin’ meant really good. “Agreed. Dolly is fire,” I replied. “But in my vision, she was menacing, and she called me out by name.”
