Carole douglas - Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

"Mr. Kinsella realized something was wrong when you disappeared," Molina began.

" Before she disappeared," he corrected.

She ignored him. "Mr. Devine noticed Mr. Kinsella was gone from his seat--"

Temple looked at Matt, with a lucid and questioning gaze that made even Molina look away and hurry on. "Then I decided to explore the understage areas. Devine tailed me, I found Mr.

Kin-sella shaking up empty prop boxes and a few empty-headed ninjas. We suspected that you were gone, and since the DEA was tailing the show's semitruck, which took off about when you did, they followed, I followed, your swains twain followed. I would say even Midnight Louie followed, except that he was already aboard in his own traveling compartment."

Temple quirked a smile at her. Molina was actually, deeply, momentarily afraid she might have to like her.

"Sounds like Keystone Kops." Temple put more weight on her hose-clad feet. "With accessories before and after the fact." She whispered like The Shadow from the old radio show.

"So why do you want me upright, Lieutenant?"

Goddamn, but she could be fast, even after an ordeal like this.

"Let's go outside. Get some fresh desert air."

Devine joined Molina. Kinsella brought up the rear with Temple.

"How did you find me, really?" Temple was rasping like a sick child.

"We followed the yellow brick squad-car light," Kinsella said in the tone of a long-time teller of fairy tales.

Molina sighed. Matt Devine eyed her with some compassion. It should be the other way around, but at the moment she was willing to take what compassion she could find. She certainly couldn't give it. Not now.

He jumped down off the truck bed before her and held up a hand to break her leap.

Poor Matt. No lady fair but a lady lieutenant.

She touched his fingers as a courtesy but landed without his help.

Kinsella loomed over them, preparing to hand Temple down like an Egyptian mummy. Both of them reached up for her, broke the impact.

Matt held out the shoes. "You'll need these on the sand, such as they are."

Temple grabbed Molina's sleeve in one hand, and Devine's sleeve in the other then released each one in turn while she forced her feet into the dainty-toed slippers.

Then she leaned close to Molina and whispered in her ear.

Molina nodded at the men. "We're going around the trailer for a bit. Don't wander anywhere."

Temple put a hand on the truck side and tottered around to the other side.

"Are you sure there's no other choice?" she asked Molina.

"Absolutely sure."

"But I don't think I can."

"You say you can't wait."

"Yeah . . . but--"

"Here's a handkerchief. I always carry one. Leave it when you're done."

"But out here. In the dark. There might be snakes and spiders. I don't know."

"Think of mountain streams," she advised, like any veteran mother.

"Right," Temple croaked, grabbing the handkerchief from Molina's hand.

She tottered into the darkness on her absurd shoes.

Molina sighed again. Someday Mariah would be up to this. Soon.

When they came back around the truck corner together, Kinsella and Devine had the uneasy look of men abandoned by women for reasons not clear.

"What are you up to?" Kinsella, who had stripped off the latex gloves while they were gone, stepped forward to ask.

"I've asked Miss Barr if she'd mind delaying her return to civilization for a few minutes. The DEA has a couple suspects in hand. I asked them to hold them for Miss Barr."

"You had no idea that 'Miss Barr' was even here," Kinsella raged.

"Ah, but I had you to look for her, didn't I? An expert hunter. And she was. And is. So I'd like her to stroll past the suspects and see if she recognizes anybody."

"The men who grabbed me," Temple put in hoarsely, "... I think they were the masked ninjas. I didn't see any faces."

"That may not be the question," Molina put in silkily. Her eyes stayed on Kinsella. He was the mastiff. "If Mr. Devine will help me escort you to the front of the truck, this could be over in a few minutes."

"Something you don't want me to see, Lieutenant?" Kinsella jeered, already panicky at losing even temporary custody of Temple.

She could almost sympathize.

"Not something. Someone. Sit tight, magician."

Matt Devine, like a good partner, had materialized on Temple's right.

The two of them steered her over the shifting sand beside the road to the fire-breathing dragon-painted tractor.

Two men stood against the upright bulk of steel, their hands cuffed behind their backs; four men in DEA gear watched them.

Molina walked Temple close enough to see the mens faces in the lurid light of the pursuit-car headlights.

Temple gasped, and sagged between them.

Molina turned and guided her back down the trailer's Christmas-tree-lit length. Kinsella waited in the dark at the end of the overlit tunnel, like a gunfighter.

"Those aren't the men," Temple tried to say.

"Which men?"

"I don't think so. Not the men who grabbed me tonight. But definitely the men from ..."

She faltered, and it was Devine who held her up. "From the parking garage."

She bent a distressed look on Molina. "Everyone said they were probably dead."

"It's a good cover, isn't it?"

"Max said they were dead."

"Max isn't infallible, is he?"

"He found me, didn't he? He opened my handcuffs."

"But those are the two men who attacked you in the parking garage last summer?"

"Yes. Yes, I recognize them." Temple leaned her head on Devine's shoulder.

"Good. Good work. That gives us something to go on. Now I think we can drive back to Vegas, and then you can go home for some rest."

"Home," Temple said, sounding not only hoarse, but rueful.

Kinsella was waiting for her, but Molina wasn't done yet.

"Wait." She raised a traffic-cop hand.

He almost bulled right past it to reclaim Temple.

"I need to ask you a few questions, Mr. Kinsella. And now, I think you owe me a few answers."

He hesitated, like a trapeze artist on the brink of missing the crucial bar as it swung past.

Then his shoulders relaxed. "Whatever you say, Lieutenant. Where do we talk?"

"Down the trailer a bit."

"I'm all yours." He cocked Temple a smile and turned to follow Molina into the bright dark.

In the distance, the DEA officers loaded the rig's pair of drivers into their sole remaining van.

The vehicle spurted into the distance until it was only a pair of red taillights, shrinking like bat's eyes in the night.

Chapter 48

Carmen Miranda Warning

Matt watched Kinsella and Molina amble away like coconspirators.

"What's this about?" He turned to Temple, seeing she was suddenly shivering.

He whipped off his velvet jacket and wrapped her in his borrowed body heat. She still shook like an aspen leaf, and when he was about to say something, she silently threw her arms around him.

He looked up the track. Molina and Kinsella moving away, tall and deliberate, their steps deceptively casual.

Matt clasped Temple to him, covered the only reachable part of her with kisses, the hair on her head.

"It was ... so awful," she said.

He felt like he was holding a blender set at "grate," her shudders were so sudden and rough.

"Temple. You're all right. Cold and scared, but all right."

"What's she doing?" Temple asked, like a child caught in fretful fever. "What does she want?"

"Answers. You heard her. That's her job."

"I can't believe those men from last summer are here. I guess I'd wanted to believe that they were dead."

"They hurt you. You wanted them to disappear. That's normal."

"But I'm so disappointed that they're still alive. It's like Max promised--"