“He should have made that a hundred percent chance,” Andrea commented as raindrops began to pelt against the windowpane.

Hannah grabbed an umbrella from the coat rack by the back door. “I’d better hurry. If Lisa calls, tell her I’m on the way and I’ve got an extra umbrella in the car for her.”

“Just a minute,” Delores said, stopping Hannah before she could leave.

“What is it?” Hannah asked, turning to face her mother.

“I want you to promise me you won’t find any dead bodies on your way out to Cyril’s garage.”

There was a smile on her mother’s face and Hannah was glad. The chocolate in the cookies must have helped. Delores was getting her sense of humor back.

“I promise,” Hannah said.

“Or on your way back, either.”

“Yes, Mother,” Hannah promised, heading out the door and into the rain.

Chapter Two

Arainy morning in August presented problems that appeared almost insurmountable just as soon as Hannah drove out of the parking lot in back of The Cookie Jar. It was so muggy that the windows in her Suburban were already starting to fog up. By the time she got to the end of the alley, she’d used her hand to wipe off a clear space to peer through, and she had to lower the driver’s side window to keep it from fogging up again. This meant the rain came in, but she figured that a little rain was better than running into a building or another vehicle.

Naturally, the air conditioner wasn’t working. It seemed the only time it worked was in the winter when she didn’t need it. Ditto for the heater, which seemed to work best in the summer. In order to keep the windshield from fogging up so much that she couldn’t see the pavement, she had to endure a wet left sleeve. “At least I don’t wear glasses,” Hannah muttered as she turned right on First Street and headed for the highway that would lead her to Murphy’s Motors.

At highway speeds, the rain no longer came in the window and Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t go as fast as she would have liked because it hadn’t rained in over a week and the asphalt was slick with oil from the trucks that barreled down this route every day. Every time the lightning flashed, she could see an answering gleam in the surface of the wet roadway and the rumbling of thunder outside her open window made listening to the radio impossible.

The giants in the sky are bowling, Hannah thought, smiling as she remembered her father’s reassuring words when the booming thunder had frightened her as a child. But why is it flashing? she’d asked him, pointing up at the lightning. Because their bowling balls have flashing lights in them, he’d answered. And from that moment on, Hannah had wished for a toy bowling ball with lights in it each and every Christmas until she was old enough to realize that it was all a figment of her father’s imagination.