Another brush of the hair to settle it after dressing, a pair of sunglasses holding back her hair, a slim watch buckled on her wrist, and it was time to go pick up the kids.

Barbara picked up her pocket book as she walked out the door, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. The bag was a tad heavier than it looked: the H K .45 with two spare magazines added significant weight to the usual load of a lady’s purse. But she wouldn’t think about going out the door without clothes nor would she think about going out the door without at least a pistol.

She climbed in the Expedition started it and waited for it to warm up. The SUV was a touch extravagant and simply devoured fuel but at least two days a week she ended up with six or more kids packed in the vehicle. It was a choice of a big SUV or one of the larger mini-vans, with not much better fuel economy. And Mark had flatly rejected the mini-van idea. If the stupid liberals back in the ’70s hadn’t created the CAFÉ regulations, SUVs never would have been economically viable. Serves them right. If they hadn’t created the need, she could be driving a reasonably fuel efficient station wagon instead of this… behemoth.

When the temperature needle had started to move she drove sedately out of the neighborhood and then floored it. She knew that she already had too many points on her license and the local cops had started to watch for the green Expedition as an easy, not to mention pretty, mark. But cars were for going fast. If she wanted to take her time she’d have walked. And it wasn’t as if she wasn’t busy.

The radar detector remained quiescent all the way to the school zone by the high school and by then she’d slowed down anyway. She waved to the nice sheriff’s deputy that had given her a ticket a couple of months before and got in the line of cars, trucks and SUVs that were picking up children from middle school.