The Salt Maiden (Leisure Romantic Suspense) Read online

  “You’re here about your sister,” he said, while the second rasped, “Damned interferin’ hippie, that girl. Glad to see the last of her.”

  Something in the voice told Dana that the customer seated at the counter in front of a pack of Camels and a half-eaten burger was actually a woman, not a man, in spite of the Clark Kent glasses and the short gray hair combed back straight and flat against her skull. The faded jeans and T-shirt offered no confirmation either, since their owner had no curves to fill them.

  Stunned by their abruptness, Dana demanded, “How do you know why I’m here, and what do you know about my sister?”

  “I know we’ve got one shot at this salt dome project,” said the woman, “and your sister’s done her damnedest to queer the deal for us. So as far as I’m concerned, good riddance to bad rubbish.”

  Five minutes later Dana was back out in her idling car again, having been told, “We don’t serve a damned thing ‘green and meat-free’ in the Broken Spur,” by Abe Hooks, the owner of the area’s sole restaurant, gas pump, and store.

  “Pompous redneck,” she grumbled. She had half a mind to sic her mother on him to teach him the finer points of condescension.

  As if on cue, there was a ringing from the seat beside her. Bracing herself, Dana pushed a button to answer the satellite telephone her mother had rented after learning that regular cell phone reception here was spotty at best. Unthinkable that Dana should stray beyond the range of her influence.

  “You’re there?” her mother asked. “Did you find out anything?”

  “Not much,” Dana admitted, “but I haven’t met the sheriff yet.”

  “You tell him he’d better hurry. You tell him we’re not losing that poor child.”

  “You mean Nikki.” Dana had noticed that her mother never said the name, as if the idea of a cancer-stricken granddaughter appealed more than the individual.

  “Of course I mean her. Who else? I swear, I haven’t slept a wink in days. I’m too afraid that if I close my eyes, the phone will ring, and—”

  “I understand, Mom.” Dana had heard it in her nightmares, the call that would tell her she was already too late. Though Nikki was holding her own so far, germs had a way of slipping past even the most thorough precautions. “Has there been any change yet?”

  “Nothing that I’ve heard about.”

  In the background Dana caught the bright clink of ice cubes and the more muted coos of doves. Evidence enough that her mother was unwinding with her usual “happyhour” vodka tonic as she lay beneath her vine-draped trellis, her painted toenails pointed toward a bright blue pool.

  Though she hated vodka tonics, Dana’s mouth watered at the thought of her mother’s backyard paradise in the River Oaks neighborhood of Houston. As her eyes scanned dust-beige bleakness, she struggled to recall cool turquoise framed by greenery and the sweet fragrance of the pale pink blooms of Isabel’s specially imported honeysuckle.

  “I know it must be tough there waiting,” Dana allowed. “But maybe you’ll feel better hearing that I’ll be dining on filet d’Power Bar this evening. And sleeping heaven knows where.”

  The nearest hotel was back in Pecos, and the thought of adding yet another hour to the nine hours she had already spent on the road depressed her. Was it possible that someone here rented rooms?

  “Just try to think of this as an adventure, Dana. Let’s keep this about Nikki, dear, not you.”

  Resentment prickled. Though she had been away from home only a day, Dana already missed Lynette, her fellow veterinarian and business partner, along with her Welsh corgis, Ben and Jerry. She missed the ice cream, too, along with the prospect of a big, crisp salad, a long shower, and a longer sleep in her own bed.

  Movement caught her eye, a dust cloud rising in the distance and drifting steadily toward the courthouse along the rutted desert road. Other than a roadrunner chasing after something—a lizard, maybe—it was the only activity in town. Though she felt certain unseen eyes were watching from the few buildings in range, not another person stirred. Even the pair of stunted trees and the courthouse lawn had withered in the heat.

  “I’d better go. The sheriff’s coming. I’ll call you if there’s anything new.”

  “You be sure and mention my suggestions,” Isabel urged her.

  Dana had a clear vision of herself hiking far out into the desert and dropping the expensive phone. Then her mother could sit beside her pool and issue her “suggestions” to the creosote and tarbush, though she’d probably prefer the nodding pump jacks.

  “That sheriff needs to understand we’re serious—you aren’t going anywhere until you have your sister.” Isabel took the same tone she did when calling the landscape company to complain that the oleanders weren’t clipped to her standards. “Tell him you’re staying put until he gets off his tail and finds her.”

  “I’ve talked to him on the phone a couple of times, and he’s been out seriously looking for days and days—since I explained how much that loom meant to her and what’s at stake if we don’t find her.” Or, at least, he’d told Dana he’d been searching. Now that she’d been treated to a taste of Devil’s Claw hospitality, she began to have her doubts. Especially since she’d learned that Angie had stirred up hard feelings around town.

  Not wanting to worry her mother over it, Dana focused on the positive. “Sheriff Eversole says he’s questioned practically everybody in the county, and he even got a search plane out here. I wouldn’t exactly call that sitting on his—”

  “Maybe you should let him know the Huffingtons can be extremely generous when we’re grateful. I’m sure an elected official in a place like that could find some use for a sizable…contribution to his next campaign.”

  “I’m a little confused,” said Dana. “Which is it you want? The browbeating or the bribery? Because I want to make sure we’re on the same page here.”

  “You don’t need to be sarcastic. I just can’t stop thinking about that precious child.”

  Her mother’s statement nudged at something huddled, dark and ugly, in a place Dana didn’t want to look. A thirty-one-year-old woman had no business being jealous of a sick girl, no business wondering why the same mother who had made her believe she needed to be perfect would love this child without reservation.

  Dana told herself she should be happy her mother had progressed. But instead of saying so, she snapped, “And what about your daughter?” The daughter who couldn’t come close to meeting Isabel’s exacting standards.

  “Of course I worry about Angie. But as she’s reminded us so many times, she is a grown woman. A grown woman who has turned her back on everything I’ve tried to do.” Pain lanced through her mother’s words, pain that she had every right to, considering the way Angie had treated her each time she attempted—however misguidedly—to help.

  “I know. I know, Mom. Sorry.” As Dana looked past an unpainted leaning house and straight out to the horizon, her anger leached away. “It’s just…you wouldn’t believe the distances out here, how far it is from everything we take for granted. What if she is lost somewhere in this country?”

  But even as Dana reminded her mother of the danger to Angie, her mind wandered to the undersized six-year-old at the center of so much medical equipment. On the day they’d met, Nikki Harrison had been pale and sweaty after a round of vomiting from chemo. Her gaze, though, was so clear and bright and present that the sight froze Dana’s breath inside her lungs. In that moment the little girl was Angie, the way she had once looked.

  How far would you go to get her back?

  “I’ll bet we’ll find out anytime that your sister’s been holed up with some man or other.” Bitterness sounded in Isabel’s voice. “Until the money runs out and the party’s over.”

  Dana stared at the silhouette of the white Suburban floating toward her on a shimmering cushion of heat waves. “I don’t think they do a whole lot of partying around here. But I really have to go now. I’ll call you later if there’s news.”

 
“Now, Dana, don’t forget to tell him—”

  As a tall figure who must be Eversole slid out of the dust-caked SUV, Dana started faking static sounds. “Can’t…hear you, Mom. I think the battery’s…cutting out on me.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Eight years of higher education and you can’t even remember to recharge a simple—”

  Dana switched off the phone, then killed the Beamer’s engine and climbed into the blazing heat.

  A gold-and-black dog followed the sheriff out of the Suburban. A lean and rangy shepherd mix, he eyed Dana suspiciously, as if he’d guessed how many animals she’d stuck with needles over the past years. Or how many intact males she had neutered.

  When she took a good look at Rimrock County’s freshly minted sheriff, he looked almost as leery.

  “Dr. Vanover?” he asked, and stuck out a big hand.

  Nodding, she took it, though Eversole wore nearly as much grime as the SUV. Except for his intense blue eyes and the sweat trails melting cleaner rivulets on his face, he might have been a figure chiseled out of sandstone.

  Nicely chiseled, she thought, with the body of an athlete and strong features shaded by the brim of a sweat-stained Western hat.

  “It’s Dana,” she managed before the café door across the street creaked open and Abe Hooks leaned out, wielding his spatula like a gavel. Dana’s stomach clenched when he looked past her as if she were invisible. Hooks met the sheriff’s gaze before nodding once and then disappearing back into what was clearly the real nerve center of this county.

  The sheriff stared another moment at the Broken Spur before he let go of Dana’s hand and cleared his throat. “As of this afternoon the search is over. Afraid I don’t know where else to look.”

  “Have you asked the locals where to—”

  “I am a local. Born and bred here.”

  If he meant that literally, Dana felt sorry for his mother. “Sorry,” she said. “I understood that the last sheriff died, that you had recently been recruited.”

  He gave her an appraising look, one that lingered a bit too long for comfort. “Been checking up on me?”

  She nodded. “The Pecos Enterprise is online. I read about it on the Web, tried to find out as much as possible about what I was getting into before I headed out here.”

  He hesitated before answering. “My uncle…he was the sheriff killed in the house fire that burned what used to be my grandfather’s homestead.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. But the paper had some of its facts wrong. I didn’t get recruited. Before the Guard called up my unit I was a cop in Dallas, and by the time I got back stateside I was more than ready to head home.”

  “You were overseas?” she asked. It made sense to her: his rigid posture and directness, his terse way of speaking on the phone. All bespoke a military background.

  But something had shifted in him with her question. Tension stiffened his limbs, and the light dimmed in those blue eyes.

  “I was proud to serve,” he said quietly.

  She wondered about that but answered honestly: “You should be.” Though she had a whole flock of reservations about the current conflict. None of them, however, dampened the respect her late father, who had served as a surgeon in Vietnam, had instilled in her for those who fought and sometimes died to fulfill what they saw as their duty.

  But even if Eversole had served in hell, Dana couldn’t imagine anyone willingly returning to Devil’s Claw, Texas. Strong homing instinct, she decided—or the Dallas PD didn’t want him back.

  “Well, I’m home now,” he said, “though I’m pretty sure I’ve wasted most of my first week on the job hunting a woman who took a notion to move on. That happens around here, especially among the squatters. And your sister has a history.”

  “She wouldn’t leave her car.”

  “Could be she abandoned it. It’d cost more to fix than it’s worth.”

  Dana cast a guilty look at her little blue convertible, a “pick-me-up” gift from her mother after the one-two punch of the surgery and breakup. Angie, on the other hand, had been driving an ancient Buick with a couple of hundred thousand miles and almost no paint on it. Anything better and she’d simply trade it for a high-grade hit of whatever she could find, or turn it into quick cash to donate to some crazy cause or a friend with a sob story.

  “Maybe she left the car, but I’ve already told you she’d never go without that loom, especially with a nearly finished tapestry on it. I called the gallery owner she deals with, and he told me she has a buyer waiting. Angie stands to collect close to two grand on delivery.”

  He shook his head. “Drugs and alcohol can reshuffle a person’s priorities. Your sister has both weaknesses, from the looks of her arrest record. Probably plenty more charges I haven’t found, too, since she’s skipped through a lot of jurisdictions.”

  “I know she’s still around here.” Dana stared up at the sheriff over her sunglasses’ dark rims. “We can’t quit looking. And you won’t. You’re just hot and tired and frustrated right now. And annoyed that I’m here to bother you in person.”

  “I wouldn’t say annoyed”—beneath the grime there was the suggestion of a smile as his gaze skimmed over her—“exactly. But the rest is on the money. And I mean what I say. Always.”

  Aggravation tightened her mouth. One thing she was sure of: he was stiff-necked. Proud, too. But if he thought that she would give up, he was also clueless.

  “You can’t,” she insisted. “What can I do to help you? I could go through her house.”

  “It’s only a one-room adobe, and my deputy and I have both been over it twice already.”

  “Please, I’d like to see it.”

  Beneath his hat’s brim, the sheriff squinted. “Damned blast furnace out here. Might want to finish this conversation inside. Not that it’s going to change my answer.”

  “What’s the real reason you want to drop this? Because some fry cook gave you the evil eye?”

  Looking grimmer than ever, he slammed shut the SUV’s door. “You’d better not let Judge Hooks hear you call him that.”

  A buzzing started in Dana’s ears as a sense of unreality descended. With so few people, roles overlapped here, creating crosscurrents she could never hope to understand. The thought left her disoriented, as if she’d been dropped off in a country where she didn’t know the customs and couldn’t speak the language.

  The sheriff took a step or two toward the courthouse, then turned to peer over his shoulder. “You’d better hurry. Estelle’ll be turnin’ off the air-conditioning in another twenty minutes. County budget cutbacks.

  “I’ve got a little fridge behind my desk,” he added, sweetening the deal. “Cold jug of water in it, maybe even a Coke or two.”

  Despite the hat, the dirt, and the creases, his blue eyes smiled as he said it. Maybe he guessed that the suggestion had her suddenly parched mouth begging for a sip of icy sweetness.

  “I’ll come in,” said Dana. “I think I could learn to appreciate shade in a whole new way here.”

  Not that summer in Houston, with its stifling humidity, was any picnic, but even this late in the afternoon the desert sun seemed hell-bent on sucking every drop of moisture from her cells. For all her differences with Angie, it was that sun that most scared Dana. What if, instead of shacking up with some new lover, Angie was wandering somewhere in the featureless, flat scrubland, disoriented by the heat and sunburned lobster red?

  If she’s out in that, she’s as good as dead. Dana closed her eyes as the horizon tilted. And more than likely so is Nikki.

  The dog barked at the same moment the sheriff caught her arm. “Inside,” he urged. “Gotta get you cooled down. Then we’ll talk.”

  He held open the front door for her. The dog slipped through first, his short nails clicking on a marble floor dulled and scratched by years of sandy footsteps. The dark-paneled walls looked worn, too, and yellow splotches marked the ceiling tiles in places and accounted for the musty-stale smel
l, at least in part. A bucket of sand, bristling with cigar butts, offered further explanation. Dana figured they probably kept a spittoon tucked inside the men’s room. Or maybe even in the ladies’.

  “They had this place done up real nice back when the oil revenues were better,” Eversole said as his boot heels struck a deeper note. He pulled off his hat, revealing short, light brown hair darkened in the places sweat had dampened it. “Been a while, though. Back when my granddad was the sheriff.”

  She heard the defensiveness in his voice, a warning that he wouldn’t tolerate her looking down on the courthouse, town, and county he’d reclaimed as his own. It didn’t much surprise her. She’d seen his mouth tighten when he’d caught sight of the Beamer. Besides that, the Anne Klein shorts and Talbots top she wore with her flat sandals were simple, classic—and as out of place as scuba gear in Rimrock County.

  “So you’ve come back to the family business?” She preferred small talk over her mother’s methods of persuasion.

  He shrugged and opened a smoked-glass door labeled sheriff. “Pay’s steadier than ranching, but I plan to keep a hand in that, too. Or will until the damned salad lovers take over the world.”

  She smiled. “That would be me. Vegetarian for five years. Since I toured a slaughterhouse in vet school.”

  He shook his head and snorted.

  “Vegetarian veterinarian who sees fuzzy little pups and kitties instead of dosing heifers.” His eyes glinted with amusement. “This is gonna be the greatest thing for local gossip since that pack of flying-saucer hunters took a wrong turn on the way to Roswell in the eighties. But not even those weirdoes would dare to stick their noses up at Abe Hooks’s burgers.”

  She laughed and stepped inside the office, where a plump woman was rifling through the top drawer of the only desk.

  “Help you find something, Estelle?”

  As the woman looked up, Dana’s focus remained stuck on the flypaper of that iron gray hairdo. Half pompadour, half beehive, with a neat little bun in back, it went well with the fifties checked dress and made Dana think of Aunt Bea from the reruns of that old Mayberry show.