How is it Wednesday already? I don’t know, but I double checked my calendar, and it definitely is, so here is another excerpt from my new book, Home To My Arms: A Halloran Mystery. In it, there’s a slight misunderstanding between Jamie and Pip.

Fortunately, the door was locked, as it should have been. Unfortunately, I had left through the side door. Fortunately, as I was about to turn to go back downstairs, Pip stepped away from the sink just inside the door, a glass of water in hand. Unfortunately, though she saw me, she didn’t recognize me, as I was backlit, making me nothing more than a hulking shadow spying into her back door.  Fortunately, she wasn’t armed. Unfortunately, did I mention the glass of water? She chucked it with impressive force right at me. Fortunately, there was a window between it and me. Unfortunately, it was a heavy glass and she’s got an arm on her, so the window, newly installed by Mr. Williams just the day before, turned into a giant spider web of cracks. Not to mention how the glass itself straight up exploded, showering glass everywhere.

I tried to yell to her that it was me, but her screams were loud enough they may have been the thing that actually cracked the window. I figured there wasn’t any way to make it worse, so I punched the window. I hoped to hit it just hard enough to poke a hole, but my adrenaline was pretty high, I guess, and the glass shot out in shards, along the lines created by the water glass. What I was going for was to make her able to hear me. What I got was her turning and sprinting down the hall, through the living room, and into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Having negotiated the glass as carefully as I could, I tiptoed to the bedroom door. I didn’t need to worry about being quiet, as Sam had finally awakened—he was too deep a sleeper to be any good as a guard dog—and was on the other side of the door, trying to eat his way through, from the sounds of it. Somewhere behind him, I could hear Pip talking to 911.

“Pip, it’s me!”

She didn’t hear me, but Sam either heard or smelled me, as the barking stopped and was replaced by a long inhale followed by a loud, violent exhale and urgent whining.

Pip paused in mid-sentence. “Umm…let me call you back.” The door opened. “Why were you at the back door, you idiot?”

I fought off Sam. “I was trying to make sure you hadn’t been murdered.”

She flopped on the bed. “Why would I have been murdered? What are you talking about? Is that a machete?”

I realized for the first time I was still holding it. “Oh. Yeah. Let me put that down.” I leaned it against the wall. “It’s a long story, but the short version is, somebody tried to run me over while I was running, so I was making sure they hadn’t come here.”

She whacked my arm with the back of her hand. “But why were you skulking on the back porch?”

I whacked her back, much more gently. “Skulking? I wasn’t skulking? I was sneaking. I forgot I’d gone out the other way. I was about to go back down and up the other steps when you came ‘round the corner.”

My phone buzzed on my nightstand. Leaning close enough to see the screen, my eyes widened. I answered, putting it on speaker. “What are you doing up so early?”

There was a pause. “What is your wife doing calling me saying to come help her, there’s a killer after her and then just saying she’ll call me back and hanging up?”

I should have known she’d call him instead of 911.

Pip grimaced. “Sorry, Otis. It was Jamie.”

“Jamie was trying to kill you?”

“No, I just thought he was.”

“Listen, guys, I don’t want to hear about your weird bedroom games.”

Pip’s face turned a deep shade of purple. “Oh, shut up! I saw him outside the back door and didn’t realize it was him.”

“What were you doing outside the back door?”

“Well, it’s a bit of a story. Can you come over? And maybe bring a prowlie with you?”

“You guys all right?”

“We’re fine, but somebody tried to kill me this morning.”

“Again?!”