Like time travel movies, which she also didn’t enjoy.

She’d’ve preferred somebody who wrote fun and who talked fun, like Janet Evanovich or John Gilstrap, but there were worse ways to spend an hour after digesting a very small—too small—portion of chips and one marg. Still, it was a pleasant venue for a book reading. The building was up on stilts and you could peer down and see, thirty or forty feet below, craggy rocks on which energetic waves of the bay were presently committing explosive suicide.

She tried to concentrate.

“I’ll tell you a story. About my oldest son going away to college.”

Don’t believe a word of it, Ardel thought.

“This is true, it really happened.”

Not a single word.

He was telling the story of his son doing something bad or not doing something he should have—because he’d been living for today and not tomorrow, which really was today. Hm. Did that mean—

Suddenly a loud bang, from somewhere outside the hall, shook the windows. Nearby.

Gasps from the audience. Everyone looked toward the lobby. The author fell silent, frowning with concern.

Now screams from outside too. Then another bang louder, closer.

That wasn’t a backfire. Cars didn’t backfire anymore. Ardel knew it was a gunshot. She’d been to a range a couple of times when her husband was alive. She hadn’t wanted to fire a gun, so she just sat back and watched the fanatics shiver with excitement over the weapons and talk shop.

Another shot—closer yet.

Words zipped around them. “Jesus what’s going on did you hear that where’s it coming from it’s not gunshots fuck yes it is a gunshot!”

The manager, a paunchy man in a blue button-down shirt, hurried to a fire door, which he pushed open. A fast look out. He stepped back in fast, eyes wide.

“Listen! There’s a guy with a gun. Outside. Coming this way!” He pulled the door shut but it swung open, thanks to the taped-down locks.

People were rising to their feet, a wave, grabbing purses and books they’d brought to be signed. Or abandoning them and turning toward the entrance. Folding chairs skidded aside. Some were knocked over.

Another shot, two more. More screams from outside.

“Jesus Lord,” Ardel whispered. The two women were on their feet now, in roughly the middle of the hall.

“Ardie, what’s going on?”

One man, a big guy with a graying crew cut, strode toward a window. Former military, it seemed. He too looked out. “There he is! He’s coming this way. He’s got an automatic!”

Cries of “No,” “Jesus,” “Call nine-one-one!”

Dozens of people, eyes wide, surged for the emergency doors. “No, not that way!” someone called. “He’s out there. I think he’s shooting people outside.”

“Get back!”

A brilliant security light came on. No! Ardel thought. All the easier to see his targets.

A loud thunk inside the venue set off screams. But it wasn’t a shot. The author dropped the microphone as he leapt up and pushed some attendees out of the way, running for the lobby. A dozen people ran after him. A clot of them jammed the doorway. One woman screamed and fell back, clutching a horribly twisted arm.