Excerpt: 91 Runs

The next day, when Sam dropped me off at the airport, he got out of the car to help with my suitcase. Then he stood in front of me, looking awkward.

“Have a good trip,” he said.

“Thanks. I plan to. Thanks for the ride.”

“I’ll pick you up next Thursday.”

“You’re the best.”

Sam shrugged, fiddled with his keys, and then sort of lunged forward and hugged me. It took me by surprise—Sam tended not to hug—and by the time I’d gotten my arms around him, he was pulling away.

“Bye,” he said, waving, already moving toward the driver’s door.

“Bye!” I waved, watching as he folded his tall, lanky frame into the tiny Honda. I watched him pull away, and for a second it was like he was the one going on the adventure and I was the one watching.

Now I was back outside the airport, waiting. Sam was late, but there was probably rush-hour traffic to deal with. I sat on my suitcase for a few minutes, thinking about the first group meeting on Saturday. I was pretty sure we’d be running then, and I had run only a couple of times while in Florida. I could probably struggle through two miles, but not much more than that.

I caught sight of Sam’s car weaving its way among the rental-car buses, taxis and minivans, and stood up. He pulled up to the curb and I was lifting the hatchback before he’d extracted himself from the car.

“Hi!” I said, heaving in the suitcase.

“You look rested, and sun-kissed,” he said. This time I hugged him, though my backpack made it all very unwieldy.

“You smell like biology lab,” I said.

“New scent from Calvin Klein,” he said as we got into the car. “Supposed to attract PhDs.”

On the way home, we talked about my trip—great weather, lots of relaxing, two limited forays to bars, both of which were boring, wonderful kayaking—and what Sam had done over the past 10 days—work, work, go to the gym, go to the climbing wall and work—and before I knew it, he was pulling up in front of my house.

“Thanks for picking me up,” I said as he wrestled my suitcase onto the sidewalk.

“House is still standing,” he said. “That’s a good sign.”

My house was still standing. Unfortunately, when I went out to the garage to go pick up Norton from the vet, where he’d been boarded while I was away, I discovered that someone had borrowed my car. And hadn’t brought it back. The space where my beloved VW Beetle had been was empty, and the lock on the garage door was broken.

“Shit,” I said, followed by a stream of more colorful words. “What rat bastard would steal a woman’s Beetle?”

Call number one: the police. They would send an officer over within the half hour.

Call number two: the vet. They were closing at 7, but Marge—the awesome desk clerk—would be happy to charge my credit card over the phone and then deliver Norton to me on her way home tonight. He was fine, spoiled rotten as usual and probably had gained a few pounds.

This didn’t solve the problem of how I was going to get around until they found my car. I had a shift at the bookstore tomorrow; that was easy enough to reach by bus. But the marathon group met out on the other side of town. Ugh. Call number three should probably be to my car insurance company, but I’d do that after the police had come and gone. Until then, it was time to pull out the mass transit schedules and try to figure out if it was possible to get there that way. Otherwise it was about 15 miles one way, and that was a hell of a bike ride.

I bided my time unpacking and starting laundry, keeping busy. At about 6:15, someone knocked on my door. I could see two people through the glass, both in uniform. I opened the door a crack.