“Not a very happy story,” Joanna concluded. “Here I should have been spending the weekend enjoying Jenny’s birthday celebration with you and getting ready for our wedding. Instead, I’m busy worrying about who’s killing whom and why.”
“Which reminds me,” Butch said, getting up to clear the table. “George called, too. Just a little while ago. He said it was something to do with Clayton Rhodes, but he also said that he and your mother were going to bed as soon as the news was over. He said he’d talk to you about it in the morning.”
Joanna looked down at her watch. By then it was close to midnight. “It’s almost morning right now,” she observed. “If we’re going to church tomorrow, we’d better get to bed.”
“You go on, if you want to,” Butch said. “I’ll clean up the kitchen and then shove off for home.”
“You mean you’re not staying?”
“Waking up naked this morning with Jenny right there in the room made a believer of me,” Butch said with a rueful smile. “No more sleep-overs for us until after the wedding. I don’t want people to talk any more than they already do. But don’t worry. I’ll come out first thing in the morning and help with the animals.”
“It’s all right. Jenny and I can feed the animals.”
“Well, I’ll come fix you breakfast, then. We have to build up our strength so we’ll be ready to clean that oven tomorrow afternoon.”
Joanna laughed aloud at that. She came across the kitchen and hugged him close. “I love you, Butch Dixon,” she said. “Thank you for caring about what Jenny thinks and about what people say.”
Firmly Butch moved her away from him, leaving her standing in the middle of the room and safely out of arm’s reach. “And I love you, but no more thanks like that,” he said. “If you’re not careful, I’ll end up changing my mind and I’ll stay over after all.”
It was late in the afternoon before Lucy once more ventured out of her hiding place among the gigantic boulders scattered across the Texas Canyon landscape. Emotionally and physically exhausted, she had slept most of the day. Now chilly, lonely, and longing for the comfort of a soda or candy bar from a vending machine, she approached the fenced freeway rest area.
There were half a dozen eighteen-wheelers parked in the designated truck parking area, but there was only one car—an SUV—parked near the entrance to the rest rooms and the vending machines. There was a man standing leaning against it, talking on a cell phone. When Lucy was close enough to distinguish his features, she gave a gasp of dismay. It was the same man she had seen the night before—the man who had shot her mother.
Panicked and sobbing, Lucy fled back into the desert. How did he find me? she wondered. How did he know I was here?
CHAPTER 9
Sheltered by a wall of Texas Canyon house-sized boulders and huddled in her sleeping bag, Lucy tried to sleep. It was far colder than she had thought it would be, but she didn’t dare start a fire. She was too close to the rest area. Someone might notice and come looking. The rocks in the ground beneath her—sharp-edged rocks that had seemed insignificant when she was choosing a place to put her bedroll—now cut into her back and legs.
Lucy was still shaken by what had happened earlier. She had gone down to the rest area to use the phone again, and her mother’s killer was still there—waiting. Stunned, she had melted back into the desert before he or any of the half dozen truckers stopped there noticed her. The rest of the afternoon and evening and far into the night she had struggled to find answers. He must have known she was there, but how? What he wanted she didn’t need to ask. He was looking for her—for Lucy—and for his computer disk. Once he found them, there was no doubt in Lucy’s mind about what he would do—take the diskette and kill her, the same way he had killed Lucy’s mother.
At last, as the sky gradually grew lighter in the east, Lucy slept. She was still sleeping hours later, when Big Red’s warning screech issued an alarm. He had made that peculiar noise other times when they had been together on their solitary Cochise Stronghold adventures. And always that particular sound meant the same thing—a warning that someone was coming.
Panicked into full wakefulness, Lucy scrambled out of the bedroll. Standing shaking in the full morning sun, she looked skyward. Outlined against the blue sky, Big Red flew in frantic circles, pinpointing the position of something or someone who was coming toward Lucy’s camping place from the south, from the direction of the rest area.