Touched by an Alien Read Online Free PDF Page A

Martini.
    “I would have, but she hid it back in her bag on the plane,” Martini replied. “Finding her keys was the only easy thing about that purse. You feel free to search through it for anything. Maybe the contents only respond to their owner or something, but it’s a nightmare in there.”
    “She’s a woman,” Gower chimed in.
    I checked who was calling and flipped the phone open. “Hi, Dad,” I said as loudly as possible.
    “Jeez, Kitty, stop screaming. Your mother is freaking out and wanted me to call.”
    “What’s wrong with Mom?”
    “She says she saw you tackle a terrorist at our courthouse on the news, while she was in the airport waiting for her plane.”
    “Dad? Can you hold on a second, please?” I covered the mouthpiece and looked over at White. “Just when was that ‘we’ll keep you out of the papers’ thing supposed to happen?” As I asked, it dawned on me that Amy was in France, Sheila lived on the East Coast, and Chuckie was most likely in Australia, which meant my little escapade had made not only the Pueblo Caliente news, but the news of the world.
    “Why?” he asked, looking worried.
    “Because I wasn’t too upset by my boss, half of my coworkers, my best male friend, some of my sorority sisters, my two best girlfriends, the guy at Blockbuster, and my landlord checking in on me earlier, but apparently my mother, who is on a business trip in New York, saw her only child tackle a terrorist on the six o’clock news, and she’s a little freaked.”
    White looked at the man I recognized as the one who’d been the recipient of my car keys. “What the hell happened, Christopher?”
    Christopher shrugged. “I keep telling you, handheld electronics make our jobs a lot harder. Someone got the entire thing on their video cell phone and streamed it on the Net. We were able to alter the superbeing to look like he was carrying a load of explosives and semiautomatic weapons. No time for anything else, including editing out the princess here.”
    I decided to hate him. “Just where is my car?”
    Christopher gave me a lazy grin. “It’s parked somewhere safe. But not at your apartment. I fed your fish, though.”
    “Aren’t you Mr. Thoughtful.”
    “Better than being the Horndog.”
    White interrupted this exchange of wit. “So the entire world has seen her, not just the local news?”
    Christopher shrugged. “Sounds like it.”
    I went back to the phone. “Dad, I’m with Homeland Security. Everything’s okay. I used the pen you gave me to stop the lunatic. I didn’t get hurt, and I’m not in trouble, just taking care of debriefs and that sort of stuff.”
    “So, you did tackle a terrorist?” I could hear pride and fear warring for dominance. “I didn’t see it, I’ve been with my grad students all day, prepping for finals and summer session.” In other words, a typical day in early May for my dad. At least one of us had the comfort of a routine going on.
    “I didn’t know he was a terrorist, Dad. I just sort of . . . reacted. One of those once-in-a-lifetime hero things. Nothing to worry about.”
    “Right.” He sighed. “Well, your mother will be relieved to know you’re okay, and probably more thrilled about this than I am. You sure the Homeland Security people aren’t going to ship you off to Guantánamo Bay?”
    “Dad, would they have let me keep my cell if they were doing that?” Of course, the reality was they just hadn’t found it or snatched it away from me, but for some reason, I felt that I had to protect them. White, for one, was looking particularly grateful.
    “I suppose. I’ll call you every couple of hours, just in case. If you don’t answer, I’m calling the police. Where are you, now? Still in town?”
    “Not exactly.” I thought like mad. “They took me to Vegas. Apparently there’s some big Homeland Security facility there.”
    “In Vegas?” he asked, clearly incredulous. “We have a Federal building downtown and they took you to Sin