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It ith revulsion that Adrienne wiped bits of chicken and spittle froenuine alarue

She was a godsend, he proclaiels

She would be married on the morrow

Adrienne fainted Her unconscious body spasmed once, then went limp The black queen slipped from her hand, hit the floor, and was kicked under a table by a scuffed leather boot

When Adrienne awoke, she lay still, her eyes squeezed tightly shut Beneath her back she felt the lumpy down ticks piled thickly It could be her own bed She had purchased antique ticks and had theh Queen Anne bed She was in love with old things, no dithering about it

She sniffed cautiously No odd scents froue she’d iined earlier

But no traffic either

She strained her ears, listening htily Had she ever heard such silence?

Adrienne drew a ragged breath and willed her heart to slow

She tossed on the luue inkling of unease, a dreadful sense of being watched, then escalated rapidly into full blown ht nuptials?

Adrienne squeezed her eyes evenher return to sanity The silhouette of a chess set loomed in her mind; battle-ready rooks and bitter queens etched in stark relief against the insides of her eyelids, and it seeent she needed to re?

Her head hurt It was a dull kind of ache, accompanied by the bitter taste of old pennies in the back of her throat For aintensified The chess set danced elusively in shades of black and white, then dissolved into a distant nagging detail It couldn’t have been too is to worry about--where in the blue blazes was she?

She kept her eyes closed and waited A fewsleekly down Coattail Lane or her phone would peal angrily…