There Will Be Killing by John Hart

but everyone’s already talking about it, so she’s going to drive. But that’s driving upstate, not in the city. Nobody wants to drive in the city. That’s why we have cabs and subways and hired cars.”
    â€œI do declare,” Robert David drawled, “that seems to leave me as chauffeur and I should be fine to get us back to the villa. But I am in no condition to be driving Kate to the mission when even Camp McDermott would not be wise given my cognitive impairment.”
    â€œUnh-unh.” Gregg adamantly shook his head. Then he wished he hadn’t. It felt like the South China Sea was swishing between his temples. “I am not about to let Captain Hook drive Wendy home.”
    Robert David looked out at the dance floor, then back at Gregg with great sympathy. “I’m afraid she’s taken a liking to our other new doctor, and I wouldn’t care a whit for that either if I were you. But Gregg, as much as you want to protect your dear Kate, she strikes me as the kind of woman a man is far more likely to need protection from than she is of him.”
    â€œShe’s not like that,” Gregg protested.
    â€œPerhaps not, but a word of advice? Be magnanimous. Leave with your dignity intact. You may hate the very idea at the moment, but you will marvel at your wisdom tomorrow.”
    â€œReally?” Gregg scrawled a note to leave with the stack of bills they all threw in to cover the tab. “Because I already know I’m going to be hurting like hell in the morning.”

*

    Kate could not believe her good fortune. Gregg had taken off without creating a scene, and actually left a note asking J.D. to see her home. So what if it came with some threat of “eunichism” if she didn’t arrive safely or—and that’s where the note ended, as if Izzy or Robert David had relieved Gregg of his pen-mightier-than-the-sword diatribe.
    It didn’t dilute her exhilaration, the sense of being enveloped by a fantasy. In another world called Nha Trang, where the wind whipped through her hair and kissed her senseless along the South China Beach Highway in a turquoise 57 Chevy. White ragtop accordianed down, a vista of stars glittered above her and J.D. who sveltely guided the wheel with his left hand, his right arm draped around the seat, fingertips flirting with her bare shoulder.
    â€œStop here,” she told him, pointing to the roadside pull off with a view of the sea and half a mile before they arrived at the mission.
    He removed his arm to shift the three on the tree and parked as instructed.
    â€œYou have three wishes,” he told her. “That was the first. What about the other two?”
    â€œI wish for a book of matches.” Kate fished out a pack of French Gauloises. She loved to smoke and she especially loved to smoke these. Just one of her vices Gregg didn’t approve of. He could be such a goddam prude. She didn’t think J.D. was anything close, but to be polite she asked, “Mind if I smoke?”
    â€œOnly if you mind me joining you.” J.D. plucked the filter from her lips and lit up. He took a puff to get it started, passed the cig to Kate, blew a smoke ring into the air.
    She inhaled deeply, likewise blew a ring towards the moon to make a wish on.
    â€œJesus, I’ve been craving that puff all night.”
    â€œYeah, I hear ya,” J.D. agreed.
    â€œGregg’s a great guy.”
    â€œThe best,” J.D. readily agreed again.
    â€œI’ve known him most of my life.”
    â€œWish I was that lucky.”
    â€œDo you?” Kate transferred the cigarette to J.D.’s incredibly kissable lips. She was glad neither of them would taste like an ashtray to the other after they finished business. The password was: “Phillip sends his regards.”
    Kate reclaimed their shared guilty pleasure, took another puff that tasted even better with J.D.’s mouth on it.
    â€œHe asked me to keep an eye on