Streak of Lightning by Clare O'Donohue

Chapter 1
    â€œYou think you can hurt me? You can’t. I will end your life.” The voice was loud and the threat convincing.
    I was outside of Everything Pizza, and safe from the tirade going on inside the restaurant, but even I was a bit intimidated. There was nothing I could do except wait for the situation to calm down. Jesse Dewalt, the chief of police in Archers Rest, was inside, and if anyone could handle the town bully, it was Jesse. Through the screaming, I could hear him quietly mediating the situation.
    I did feel bad for him, though. He’d gone in to get us a couple of slices for lunch and found yet another crisis, courtesy of the restaurant’s owner, Joe Proctor. Who Joe was screaming at or why I didn’t know. But it didn’t really matter. Joe had had a problem with nearly everybody in Archers Rest at one time or another. Including me.
    A few weeks before, I’d parked my car in front of his store. It was legal street parking, but he still yelled. That was Joe’s reaction to every slight, real or imagined—the mailman delivering late in the day, kids playing on the sidewalk, or customers who took too long to finish their meal—no one was immune. And for better or worse, the town was so used to him that we barely even noticed anymore.
    â€œAre you doing anything special for New Year’s?” Lori Proctor asked me as we heard a loud crash coming from inside the restaurant she owned with her husband. She had met me on the sidewalk and stopped me from going in, so now we were just standing in the cold, acting as if there were nothing odd about it.
    â€œJesse and I are going to New York City later today, so we’ll be there to ring in the New Year,” I said. “What about you?”
    From inside the restaurant, I could hear Joe yell, “You are a punk, you hear me? I can take you down anytime I want.”
    Lori blushed, but otherwise her face remained calm. Like me, she was doing her best to ignore Joe’s latest outburst. Though, unlike me, she had decades of practice. “No, nothing special,” she said through a thin, tired smile. “Joe and I are always so exhausted that we just fall into bed when we get home. I don’t think we’ve been up late since we took over this place.”
    Lori was, I guessed, in her mid-fifties. She was quite pretty; her light brown hair had a few streaks of gray and her skin a few lines, but she was a woman who, with a good night’s sleep and some peace and quiet, would make heads turn.
    â€œI know where you live, where you work, where you buy your groceries. I know everything about you, and if you mess with me again, you’ll regret it.” Joe was sounding a bit tired. His threat had lost its edge. That was a good sign.
    After a few minutes, Rich came out of the shop looking shell-shocked. “Hey, Nell,” he said, his eyes downcast. He nodded in Lori’s direction without ever looking at her. “Hey, Mrs. Proctor.” He walked forward quickly, heading in the direction of Jitters, the coffee shop where he worked. Rich was just eighteen, slight and sweet, and although he’d had a few minor brushes with the law, he was a good kid. He was also, I assumed, the latest victim of Joe’s one-man terror spree.
    Jesse walked out of the restaurant holding a small pizza box. “It might have gotten cold,” he said. “It took a little longer than I thought.”
    â€œI’m so sorry, Jesse,” Lori jumped in. “It’s just . . . he’s worried about the bills, that’s all. It’s hard to make a living with so few tables, and Joe just gets frustrated. . . .”
    â€œIt’s fine. It’s all over now.”
    She nodded and seemed relieved. She smiled at me and started to go inside, but Jesse stopped her. “Lori, I know I sound like a broken record, but you don’t have to put up with this. I can