J. Jance - Devil’s Claw

Since then, Joanna had seen little of the man. She had heard that he was in the process of hanging out his shingle as a private investigator. She had also heard that he and Marliss Shackleford were now an item. Marliss, a columnist for a local rag called The Bisbee Bee, wasn’t one of Joanna’s favorite people either. When she heard Marliss and Dick were dating, Joanna figured that the two of them deserved each other.

“Dick wasn’t drunk, was he?” Joanna asked carefully.

At six-four, Voland was a massive bear of a man who outweighed Butch by a good fifty pounds. “Not that I could tell.”

“What did he want?”

“He didn’t say. I offered to take a message, but he said he needed to talk to you. He wanted you to call as soon as you got home tonight. I left the number there on the table.”

Joanna felt a sudden fury wash through her. “I know his number,” she stormed. “And if it was that damned important, he could have called me on my cell phone. He knows my numbers, too. I sure as hell haven’t changed them! He just wanted to come by, hassle me, and nose around in my business.”

“Come on, Joey,” Butch said, using the private nickname he had bestowed on her. “Don’t be upset. He didn’t cause any trouble, and he didn’t say anything out of line.”

“He should have told you what he wanted,” Joanna insisted. “That was rude, treating you as if you’re incapable of passing along a simple message.”

Butch laughed aloud at that. “You don’t understand very much about men, do you?”

Joanna frowned. “What’s so funny? And what do you mean by that?”

“I mean Dick Voland and I were in a contest, and I won. Dick’s the big loser here. I’ve got you, and he doesn’t. Believe me, Dick Voland isn’t ever going to sit down and have a long, heart-to-heart discussion with me. He hates my guts, and he’s going to do his best to pretend I don’t exist.”

“What about you?” Joanna asked.

“I feel sorry for him, but not that sorry.”

“Regardless,” Joanna said. “It’s late, and I’m not calling him back tonight. Whatever the big secret is, it’s going to have to wait until morning.”

“Good enough,” Butch said. “Now, did you have any dinner?”

“No,” Joanna answered, noticing for the first time that she was hungry.

“After that big, late lunch, all Jenny and I had were a couple of scrambled eggs and toast. Would you like me to make you some?”

“Please.”

While Butch scrambled eggs, Joanna undressed and locked her weapons away. Then, wearing her nightgown and robe, she returned to the kitchen to make toast and pour a glass of milk while she told Butch about the situation with Catherine Yates, her dead daughter, Sandra, and her missing granddaughter, Lucy.

“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?

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.

In a futile effort to keep warm overnight, Lucy had stayed dressed. Not only was she still wearing her jacket, she was also wearing her sneakers. Now she was glad she was. Grabbing only her backpack, she fled uphill and away from whoever it was who was coming-as if she didn’t know.

In Cochise Stronghold, she had often tried to teach herself the things her ancestor, the Apache chief, Eskiminzin, must always have known. With careful practice she had taught herself to run long distances over rough terrain, leaving behind little or no trail. She did this now. Leaping from rock to rock, she sprinted for nearly a mile, leaving no discernible footprints to mark her passage. At last, gasping for breath, she squirreled herself into a cleft between two huge boulders, and there she stayed-listening, waiting, and wondering how long it would be before he somehow tracked her there as well.