“That’s my girl!” Grandpa said proudly as he coasted out of the parking lot.
“So he asked me for my license and registration, but the thing is, I had left them on my desk at work—by the way, Grandpa, I need to go by my office and get my wallet, okay? Anyway, I didn’t have my license or registration, and suddenly I’m a criminal! So the cop told me to step out of the car, and . . . well, I just thought . . . I just thought that he was overreacting and I shouldn’t have to step out of the car.”
“Well, he should have taken your word for it!” Grandma said with an indignant nod of her head. “Surely when you told him your name he ran some sort of check or whatever they do in their cars to make sure you weren’t lying!”
Robin squirmed.
Grandma swiveled sharply to look at her. “Well?” demanded Grandma. “Didn’t he?”
Robin sighed, leaned her head against a headrest covered with a pink baby T-shirt. “I was really tired and really cranky, and I didn’t exactly tell him who I was. I just sort of thought it wasn’t his business. So he arrested me.”
Grandpa gave a shout of laughter, but Grandma threw a hand over her mouth and stared at Robin in horror for a moment. “Can they do that?”
“Apparently,” she answered dryly. “He arrested me for failure to identify myself, driving without a license, and driving without insurance.
“Oh my goodness, what does this mean?” Grandma asked.
Robin grimaced at her grandmother’s look of shock, and turned away, to the window, where cars were swerving from behind Grandpa and whizzing past as he pushed the SUV up to sixty. “It means they slapped me with a Class C misdemeanor, took seven hundred fifty dollars for their trouble, and told me to go home.”
“Did you see any murderers in there?” Grandpa asked.
“Elmer! This is no joking matter!”
“I didn’t think that was joking!”
“Grandpa, don’t forget to go by my office, okay?”
Grandpa acknowledged her request by putting his blinker on a good two or three miles before their exit.
“Well, you can’t work today,” Grandma said in a huff. “You don’t want everyone knowing why you were late—Aaron wouldn’t like that at all.”
Honestly, Robin didn’t know anymore. Maybe Dad would think she deserved to be publicly humiliated. “I just need to get my things and a couple of files, that’s all. Maybe Grandpa can go in for me,” Robin said absently.
“I just can’t believe you have been arrested,” Grandma said and shook her head again.
Too exhausted to think, Robin stared out the window, felt her eyelids growing heavy. The next thing she heard was Grandpa, saying, “Uh-oh. Looks like a fire.”
Robin opened her eyes and glanced out the front windshield. As her mind began to grasp that they were on the street of her office, she suddenly grabbed the back of Grandpa’s seat. “Oh my God!” she cried. It couldn’t be. Couldn’t be! Robin quickly counted the floors of her office building and felt her heart sink to her toes. Oh yes, it could be, and it was. The LTI offices were on fire. Her office was on fire.
In front of her, Grandpa shook his head. “Some fool probably left a cigarette burning or a computer on or something like that,” he opined, disgusted.
Left something on . . . the suggestion was suddenly clawing at Robin’s throat, choking her. The coffeepot.
She had left the coffeepot on.
Chapter Five
Grandma found Lucy in the growing crowd on the street and ascertained that everyone was accounted for and all right, and further, that the fire was contained to the LTI offices. Relieved that at least she hadn’t killed anyone, Robin begged Grandpa to take her home before anyone started nosing around.
Exactly how her world had suddenly disintegrated into so many little pieces was so far beyond her ability to comprehend that by the time Grandpa eased into the circular drive in front of her house, she was seriously contemplating a trip to the roof of some downtown building and a swan dive off the side. Her father, her job, her arrest, her office— God, she was living in a soap opera! She would not be surprised if Maury Povich leapt out from behind the bushes to inform her she was pregnant with her lover’s cousin’s nephew.
As it was, she practically had to arm wrestle Grandma to keep her from coming in.
“You need to call your mom and let her know you’re all right,” Grandma said. “We’ll come in with you—”
“I’ll call, I promise!” Robin said, and dove out the door, slammed it shut and popped in front of Grandma’s window before anyone could take one Easy-Spirited step toward her house. “Right now, I just want to take a bath and crawl into bed and sleep until the next century. Okay?”