The Salt Maiden (Leisure Romantic Suspense) Read online

  “I’ll tell Suzanne to keep it quiet,” Dennis growled.

  “Something this big tends to slip out. Which means the word will spread. Dennis, I took a big chance telling you, and I only did it because I appreciate the way you’ve—”

  Within the thicket of beard, Dennis’s mouth turned down. “Next time don’t do me any goddamned favors. Now let go, before I end up pinchin’ off your fingers in this door.”

  “Careful, Dennis,” Jay warned.

  The pickup spun its wheels before rocketing out of the driveway so quickly that Jay heard small stones ping off the RV’s metal side. One popped off his hat, denting its straw brim.

  “Wonderful,” he told the full moon, which had risen while they’d been talking in the kitchen. Clear and bright, it shone down like a spotlight on his stupidity.

  He’d been an idiot to spill his guts to Dennis. Of course the man would be upset; of course he’d tell his wife. And she would spread the so-called secret to another, who would no doubt spread it even further, with God-alone-could-guess what consequences.

  And it wasn’t the only thing he’d done that made Jay wonder if his superiors in the Dallas PD had been right about him. “The department can’t take the chance”—his memory twisted the captain’s voice, drenching the measured words in malice—“that you’re ill-equipped to interact with members of the public. The incident at the movie theater suggests that more treatment is the best course. When the department’s psychologist assures us there’s been progress, perhaps then…”

  Jay swore and slammed his fist against the RV’s side, but the damned thing was so rusted, his hand punched partway through the metal. Pulling free he felt the moisture first, then saw a rivulet trickling from a cut near his wrist.

  In the full moon’s light the blood dripped as black as crude oil, black as the stained space between the man he’d been as a cop in Dallas and the wreck who’d slunk back to the salt-scrub desert he should have long since left behind.

  Chapter Eight

  Back before I switched my major from cultural anthropology to tequila (with a minor in hashish), I got really into the mythos of the native people of what’s now the western U.S. From Kokopelli to Coyote to the Kachinas, I listened to visiting storytellers and read up until I dreamed their legends in fluorescent colors (which might have been the hallucinogens talking, now that I think back on it). But the stories that spoke loudest to me focused on the sacred feminine, powerful chicks like White Buffalo Calf Maiden, Corn Woman, and, of course, the Salt Woman. My veins might not carry a single drop of native blood (biologically, at least, I’m a child of the oppressor), but these are the figures that show up when my fingers touch the loom’s shuttle.

  Maybe that’s why it wasn’t Mother Mary or even the Wiccan goddess who guided me to my place of healing, but that white-haired desert wanderer who moved westward through my nighttime dreamscape, until I followed her steps past the domes that form her rounded breasts to the sparkling, salt-white cavern of her empty womb.

  —Entry seven, March 13 Angie’s sobriety journal

  With the full moon shining through the window and her eyes watering with exhaustion, Dana decided it was high time to collapse on the cot she’d picked up in the camping aisle of the Pecos Wal-Mart. After dragging it a safe distance from the grungy old mattress her sister had been using, she sank back against her pillow. But as she reached to shut off the battery-operated lantern, she spotted a slitlike hole partly hidden behind a leg of Angie’s big, freestanding loom.

  “I’ll check it out tomorrow,” she told the dog, who had stretched out across the newly swept floor near her feet. She was far too tired to get down on her hands and knees tonight.

  But the thought of that hole—which probably meant nothing—kept her from sleeping, even more than the aching of her healing leg and her regrets about what had happened—and what hadn’t—with the sheriff. Besides that, whenever she was still for too long, she saw images of a little girl with Angie’s brown eyes shrinking down to nothing amid a tangle of IV tubes.

  The silence proved equally unnerving. Dana had shut down the generator to save gas, since the temperature was cooling. But she missed its friendly hum and the oscillating fan’s buzz, thin reassurance that she still lived in the twenty-first century.

  After tossing and turning for an eternity beneath a light throw—a tricky business on the narrow cot—she finally sat straight upright and huffed out, “Screw it.”

  She slipped into her sandals and pushed back the heavy loom. Then she squatted down to peer into the opening, setting the lantern close beside her.

  The hole was so small—a three-inch slit, only a half inch or so across at its widest—Dana couldn’t see much, except for a dried curl of torn paper. Maybe a rat’s nest, she thought. Pack rats were common in this area, and they were known for incorporating human possessions into their nests.

  In this part of the country they were also known to carry the fleas that transmitted bubonic plague. Dana decided that anyone unlucky enough to be bitten by a diamondback in her own car had no business tempting fate with the Black Death. So she tied a T-shirt over her lower face, pulled on a pair of latex gloves from her first-aid kit, and hoped like hell she wasn’t risking killer cooties to pull out shreds of decades-old newspaper.

  But the scrap she prized free was marked with blue ink and not newsprint. As she held it closer to the light, Dana could make out only isolated words and fragments, but her nerve endings buzzed with recognition. The messy script was clearly Angie’s.

  Dana looked over to where the dog was watching and said, “There has to be more.”

  Desperately she chipped at the hole’s edges with a Swiss army knife, another addition to what was sure to be a record credit-card bill. Soon a few more inches of adobe crumbled. With the stump of his tail wagging, Max pawed at the debris.

  “No, boy,” she said as she pushed the dog out of the way. “Go lie down, will you?”

  To her surprise the shepherd mix trotted over to the old mattress and then jumped on it. After turning in three tight circles, he lowered himself with a groan of satisfaction.

  “Go ahead and sleep there if you want to,” Dana told him, “but don’t blame me if you end up with bedbugs.”

  She poked her blade into the hole’s depths, trusting that her banging had scared off any occupants. A fat black spider scuttled up the handle and onto her gloved hand. With a shriek, she shook it off. Landing on its back, the widow flashed a bright red hourglass before Dana reflexively crushed it with a sandal.

  “I’ve had enough venom for one week, thanks.” She shuddered before forcing herself back to her explorations.

  Beneath the hole’s edge there was a metallic clink, followed by a rustle that had Dana reaching down with two fingers and pulling out not more scraps, as she’d expected, but a thin sheaf of notebook pages that had been folded and refolded, as if someone had wanted to quickly fit them in the slotlike hole.

  So what had jingled? Holding her breath, she reached in with her gloved hand and prayed the black widow had no revenge-minded relations. Once she snagged something she withdrew, pulling out a small key that hung suspended from a loop of dark blue yarn. A glance at the unfinished tapestry confirmed that the color was the same as Angie had used to form the star field’s background. Since she hadn’t come across a lock, Dana dropped both key and “necklace” into a pocket of her shorts.

  Moving away from both the hole and loom, she set the lantern on the only other furnishing, a tilted and paint-spattered table. Standing beside it she smoothed the papers and noticed that only the outermost pages near the back appeared to have been gnawed by rodents.

  Near the center of the relatively clean front page, Dana once more recognized her sister’s script. In her usual bold and messy slash strokes, she had scrawled, Angie’s Sobriety Journal, Devil’s Claw, Texas, and dated it January of that year.

  But as Dana turned the page, she started at a crunching sound from outside—a footstep on t
he gravel? Max leaped off the mattress and bounded toward the window, his deep, aggressive woofs echoing. Terror slamming through her, Dana bumped the table.

  Its skewed leg gave way, which sent the lantern sliding to the hard floor with a splintering sound. She was plunged into velvet darkness, a void so black she had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming.

  She crouched instinctively, her heart pummeling her chest wall. Just an animal of some kind. It has to be an animal. When the blazing eye of the sun closed, nocturnal desert creatures went about their business. She tried to picture furry rodents, the scrappy little wild pigs called javelinas, comically waddling armadillos. Tried to pretend the heavy tread hadn’t sounded human.

  “Quiet, Max,” she ordered, so desperate to think it was a harmless animal that she was half-annoyed the dog had scared her.

  Unless it isn’t harmless. While Max went on barking, her stomach spasmed at the thought of what else could be out there.

  Or perhaps who else.

  Within an hour of her first arrival in Rimrock County someone had nearly gotten her killed. She’d been furious, defiant—enough that she’d told Abe Hooks she was coming back to find her sister.

  What if he had told whoever had put the snake in her car? Or what if he had been the one who’d done it in the first place? Could the guilty party have been watching for a sign of her return?

  More agitated than ever, Max tried to scramble out the empty window. Dana sprang to her feet and grabbed his collar to keep him from getting hurt.

  “No, boy. Please. Settle down.” Lingering near the opening, she scanned the salt flat…

  …and spotted an unmistakably human silhouette standing perhaps twenty yards distant. The person held something long and slender, a shape that could have been a walking stick—except it glinted in the moonlight like the barrel of a gun.

  With a strangled cry she dropped to the hard floor and fumbled in the darkness. She felt for her purse, which held her phone and SUV keys, her tickets out of hell.

  Sunday, July 1, 12:04 A.M.

  78 Degrees Fahrenheit

  Though he’d gone to bed nearly an hour earlier, Jay’s brain was still running on nervous energy when his phone broke the silence. He caught it on the second ring.

  “Eversole,” he said as he clicked on the bedside light.

  “I’m coming over.”

  The fear in Dana’s voice sent worry hurtling through him, had him reaching for a shirt. “What’s wrong?”

  In the background he heard frantic barking.

  “I have to get out of here. Come on, Max.” There was a double chirp, as if she’d deactivated her vehicle’s alarm. “Hurry.”

  “What’s going on?” His pulse thundered in his ears. How could he have left her out there? “Is someone at the house?”

  She didn’t answer right away, but he recognized the sounds of movement, of the SUV’s door closing. The dog fell quiet, so Jay could make out the jingling of keys and the chiming of the seat belt reminder.

  “Dana, answer me right now.” He tasted bile as a new thought shook him. “Is someone with you?”

  As he shoved his feet into his boots, he heard her engine starting.

  “No, I’m all right,” she said. “He’s gone.”

  “Who’s gone?” he asked, but she was talking over him.

  “Max and I are heading your way. I, uh, I forgot to grab the directions you left me, but I think I remember. Follow this road to the left. Is that it?”

  “Yeah, for six miles. Then you’ll catch the rural ranch road that Y’s off to the right and follow it for another ten-point-six miles. Now tell me, what’s this all about?”

  “I saw somebody outside. Couldn’t see who it was, but I’m sure it was human.”

  “Shit.” He should have brought her here with him, should have kept her safe. “How close?”

  “I think he was right outside—I heard a footstep, but when Max barked he ran to the salt flat. He was armed, I’m pretty sure. Rifle, shotgun—one of those with a long barrel. It was hard to get a good look. Max was going crazy, and when I looked back, the guy was gone.”

  Jay grabbed his keys. “I need you to check your rearview. Do you see anyone behind you?”

  After a short pause she said, “I don’t see anything at all. But the moon’s behind a cloud now, and it’s dark as death.”

  He knew the desert blackness shook those used to man-made lights. That terror was as instinctive as the fear of isolation. Could the combination have led her to imagine she’d seen something she hadn’t? Could it have been the same animal that had stirred up Max?

  He’d be damned if he took that chance, even though she’d made it more than clear that she was only interested in him as the sheriff. Not the man who chose to live in exile, nor the would-be lover who was sure to complicate her life. If he had any sense, he would quit hoping she might change her mind.

  “I’m heading your way, Dana. When you see headlights, flash yours. Then I’ll flash twice to signal for you to pull over.”

  “All right.” She sounded shaky, breathless with the exhaustion that followed hard on adrenaline’s heels.

  “Stay on the line,” he told her as he headed out to his Suburban. “But don’t panic if I lose you. My phone isn’t that reliable, especially in your area.”

  Unlike Dana Vanover, Rimrock County couldn’t afford expensive satellite phone service. And she didn’t have a radio, which was what he and Wallace used to keep in contact.

  “I’ll watch for you,” she said. An easy promise, since there was almost no chance of meeting another vehicle at this hour.

  Almost no chance of meeting anyone except the stranger with his weapon, as he came in pursuit.

  Chapter Nine

  Hey, sis,

  The birth mother’s sister has been calling a lot lately, asking after Nikki. Asking after John and me, too. It’s funny the way she acted all stiff and distant the day she came to visit. Guarded, like she didn’t want to get involved. But it turns out she’s the one who’s gone out looking. The one who refuses to give up.

  I even heard that she was bitten by a rattlesnake. But when I asked, she changed the subject. What she really wants to talk about, she can’t bring herself to ask me. But then, only God could answer that one, and I’m afraid I’m not on speaking terms with Him these days.

  So the next time you bow your head, maybe you should ask Him for us. How long do we have left to find a donor? How late is really too late—for my daughter, for my marriage? And while you’re at it, O, almighty Father, how could You do this to a child I prayed for so hard? How could You do something like this to any child at all?

  —E-mail message from Laurie Harrison

  As his Suburban slewed around a long curve, Jay fought off the panic pounding at his temples. He should have met her by now. Where the hell was she?

  The roads out here were shit. Rutted, dusty, unlit. Probably they’d slowed her down more than he’d figured, since she would be far more used to driving freeways.

  The moon, at least, had emerged from its veil of clouds. Emerged to light the carcass of an armored vehicle with dark streamers of smoke rising…

  Goddammit, no. He blinked hard, willed the nightmare image back into the shadows. Scanned the empty stretch of road that took its place.

  “Come on, Dana,” he murmured as he tried the phone again. But the signal was no stronger than when he’d dropped out of range ten minutes earlier.

  Might as well forget that and try Wallace on the radio for backup. He grabbed the handset, only to replace it as he finally spotted headlights. When they flashed he gave a whoop and thanked the same God who had let him down in Baghdad.

  Signaling back, he pulled over, then bailed out of his vehicle. With the gravel still crunching underneath her Ford’s tires, he pulled open the SUV’s door.

  “You all right?”

  She killed the engine, then nodded as she slid down from the seat. Max jumped down behind her, looking no worse for
the unholy racket he’d been making.

  When Dana threw herself into his arms, Jay stroked her back to soothe her shaking. And hoped she wouldn’t think him weak if she felt his own.

  “It wasn’t my imagination. I really saw somebody out there,” she said. “Scared the snot out of me.”

  “You’re safe now.” He breathed the words into her hair, gave her another squeeze of reassurance. Then he let her go before he reacted in a way that would make her doubt his motives. “You never saw anything else on the road?”

  She shook her head. “Somehow the emptiness made it that much worse, the idea that headlights might come up on me at any second. It’s really creepy out here after dark.”

  “I’ve been told it’s not exactly a garden spot by daylight either.” He smiled at her and was relieved to see some of the tension melt out of her posture.

  “You okay to follow me back?” he asked. “To my place, that is. If you’re not feeling up to driving I can bring you back here in the morning.”

  “I’ll follow,” she said. “I’ve already caused you enough trouble.”

  “Not you, but someone sure as hell has. And starting at first light I mean to find out exactly who’s behind this.” Jay could already imagine Wallace’s grumbling about city women and their overactive imaginations, but that was too damned bad. They were going to scour the area where she had seen the armed man—and then he meant to rattle some cages by questioning whatever possible suspects came to mind.

  Fifteen minutes later the two had pulled into the long driveway and were climbing out of their vehicles beside the old RV next to his uncle’s house.

  “I’d invite you inside the house, but it’s still a mess with the construction. So why don’t you come on in the Beast here.”

  He gestured toward the hulk at his right.

  “What happened to your hand?” she asked.