Jaye looked at the deformed orange lion. "Any last comment before I wreck Sharon's romance?"

The lion looked away, cleared its throat and said, "Stand your ground."

"Oh, shut up."

She threw open the car door to step out, only to be blown back in by the backwash of a pickup truck speeding past mere inches away from her door. Jaye bit down on the urge to scream and swallowed it back. Turning to the wax figure in her hand, she whispered, "Okay, I'll listen next time."

The lion gave her a smug "Hrmph" and ceased to move.

This time, after checking carefully, Jaye got out of her car and looked around.

Linny's address placed Jaye in a very upscale neighborhood, though it was more residential than expected of the boyfriend fondler. Instead of condos and townhouses and parking garages, two- and three-story houses and pristine lawns lined the street. Linny's house turned out to be a modest two-story place with large bay windows and a lush lawn that sloped down to the curb where Jaye's car sat.

A dull roar reached her ears. As she turned to look, Jaye found herself slammed against her car by the wake of another high-speed vehicle zipping past.

She looked at the orange lion.

"Why didn't you say anything? You trying to get me killed? Again?"

No response. No movement.

Looking both ways, Jaye scurried around her little car and up the dew-soaked slope to Linny's front door.

333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333

Sharon weaved around another old man with a walker. Her third within the last block. But no old women. They apparently had the good sense to stay home and out of the roadway.

Smooth sailing. At least until the next intersection. She let her cell phone redial Linny's number. Holding the phone to her ear wit her shoulder, she managed to avoid a car door flung open. Sharon laid on the horn.

Voice mail. Again.

She dropped the phone into her jacket pocket and pushed harder on the accelerator.

Dancing in her mind were images of slapping Jaye's face back and forth with such exaggerated force that she expected her sister's head to spin like a roulette wheel.

Such anger, she chided herself. It's not like she felt Jaye caused this trouble intentionally. Trouble seemed to be the girl's only natural talent. Even as a baby, from a high-sided crib, Jaye managed to tumble an antique lamp stand that snagged the drapes which in turn upended a suit rack and so on until Sharon, who was first to respond to the noise, found Jaye in her crib, oblivious to the domino-like ring of destruction that surrounded her.

Now Jaye just seemed more active in the calamity upon which her life seemed to sustain itself. At least she seemed to be the person behind most of the insanity, though Sharon always detected an air of bewilderment diffusing Jaye's typically defensive posture. As if her sister, while denying everything was thinking, "What just happened here?"

Maybe she's possessed, Sharon thought as she swung a hard right and swallowed back a bit of rising stomach acid. And Jaye had said Aaron seemed interested in her recent downward turn. Religion is his area. Perhaps he sees something he can sink his theological claws into.

"Or maybe Jaye's simply insane," she muttered aloud as she pulled her cell phone out and redialed Linny's number.

When she looked up, her foot slammed on the brake. In front of her paraded a woman pushing a carriage and had a child clinging to each thigh. The woman smiled and chatted in turn to each child. The two Sharon could see stared up at their mother with expressions of rapt attention and with gum-exposing smiles. The woman had a look of contentment.

Sharon promptly leaned out her open window and retched.