Excerpt #3: Blue Light Night (from Double Play)

Jennie was becoming totally immersed in the whole “alien thing” and couldn’t stop reading internet accounts of extraterrestrial beings and otherworldly phenomena. Her research had led her from Sightings.net to History.com, the official website for the History television channel. The network had broadcast an entire series about true-life alien encounters from the 1940s and ’50s, which made it seem considerably more credible than the click-bait websites she had been following. She was home alone on Saturday with nothing much to do while Rob was visiting Alvin at the hospital and Annie was visiting Mrs. Galloway, so she opened her laptop one more time and discovered yet another bizarre report….

And just like that, Jennie was hooked all over again.

She kept clicking links on the History website, reading weirder and weirder stories and washing them down with glasses of wine. After way too much time at the computer, she had read way too many tales of alien abduction and consumed way too much “Chateau de Covington” Cabernet. She was tired, bleary-eyed and legally intoxicated. She hadn’t eaten anything all day and that had served to intensify the effect of the wine. In her condition, she couldn’t have passed a standard breathalyzer test. Her neck ached from staring down at a computer screen and her butt was numb from sitting at her desk so long. It wasn’t like Jennie to get blotto in the middle of the afternoon, and she was embarrassed to be this tipsy so early in the day. She figured that Rob would be home soon and she didn’t want him to see her in this condition, especially after the way she had spent the afternoon, so she stripped off her clothes, threw them into a pile on the floor and headed to the bathroom for a shower.

***

Over the past six days, Rob and Jennie had seen little of each other and even less of their daughter Annie, who had practically moved in with old Mrs. Galloway up the street. On Saturday evening, the Covingtons were more than happy to leave Annie with her babysitter for the night while they discussed their individual investigations and spent some time reacquainting themselves with various parts of the human anatomy. They did the reacquainting part first, for a good, long time, then lay naked in bed to compare notes. Jennie was still wearing a decent buzz from earlier in the day but Rob didn’t seem to notice … or at least he didn’t seem to care. Drunk wife. King size bed. An hour of uninterrupted sex. Does anyone see a problem here? Besides, he was more interested in regaling Jennie with stories about his busy week as a working journalist again.