Earth to Emily (21 page)

Jack crossed his arms. “Is that all?”

“Almost.”

Jack threw his hands in the air. He wasn’t usually this open and
dramatic
, except around Mickey, but then they went back to childhood as cousins and best friends. Well, I’d asked Jack to communicate better, so I guess I was getting what I asked for. Sort of.

My eyelids fluttered a smidge as I answered him. “On Christmas Eve, Nadine told me a friend of hers was scared of a bad cop. She had the friend call me. The friend said her name was Beth, and we agreed to meet at her place at noon. When I got there, she was on her back patio. Dead.”

“That, I knew about.”

Ava put her hand over her heart. “Yesterday, when I got there?”

I pursed my lips and nodded. “Right before, actually.” I looked at Jack. “Here’s the part I haven’t talked to you about. When we were leaving church last night, Samson pulled me aside.”

“Now you get around to telling me.” Jack said.

This time I didn’t spar with him. “Yes. He was pretty okay, actually, and apologized about my arrest and the phone, but he did ask me how I ended up at the scene of the murder of a dancer from the Polo Club. That’s a strip bar,” I explained to the group. “Nadine knew her as Beth, but she’d introduced herself to Jack and me as Ivanka when we met her at a truck stop the night of another murder.”

A gasp from the doorway cut me off. It was Greg, looking extremely young with the black knit cap gone, his hair shiny and straight, and clean clothes on his lanky frame. Farrah stood beside him. I wondered how long they’d been standing there, but knew they could have heard us from anywhere in the house.

Farrah whispered, “Oh my God,” into the sudden silence, and buried her face in Greg’s shoulder.

***

Laura had already reached the kids before I got my first word out.

“What is it?” I asked them. But I was sure I knew. They’d heard me say that someone who’d been at the truck stop was murdered. Whether there was a connection to what they saw or not, it had to be terrifying. I’d be scared if I were them, too.

Laura patted Greg, then went to the other side of Farrah and slipped an arm around the girl’s waist. The two were almost exactly the same height, although Farrah was even slighter than Laura. Greg shook his head at me. Laura whispered to him, and the three of them left the room. Snowflake sprinted to catch up to them.

Jack put his hand on my knee again, and this time I didn’t object. We looked at each other, and he shook his head, just barely perceptibly. “Anything else, Emily?”

That I love you even if I want to string you up by your heels right now? That I wish I hadn’t yelled at you in front of everyone? That I want you to put your arms around me and make this all better? When I opened my mouth, a whisper came out: “No.”

Jack squeezed my knee.

“Luckily I’ve got all weekend with nothing to do,” Collin said. He stood up. “But right now, I’m going for seconds.”

Jack said, “Me, too.” He let go of my knee and followed Collin.

I snapped out of my daze and shifted to go after him, but Ava stopped me by wrapping a hand around my arm, her long fingernails clicking together as she did.

She leaned in. “I so lost. What
up
with this place, these people?”

“It’s never like this.”

She chuptzed me, and I almost laughed. “You lie, I think. But that okay. I used to the melee from Katie and Nick.”

“They’re in another league.”

“More important question: are you and your boss an item, or not?”

“I wish I knew.” Maybe. Sometimes. “Right now I’m having trouble trusting him.”

“About your daddy?”

“Yeah. About him.”

“Seem like Jack have good intent.”

I sighed. “He probably does. But he almost never tells me what’s going on.”

“He look good though.”

Now I laughed and stood. “Yes, he does.”

“And it appear from last night you like he tongue down your throat or wherever it was I see it.”

I squawked.

Ava laughed. “That better.”

Collin came back into the great room and held his hand out to Ava. “Madame, your manservant awaits his next instruction.” He bowed.

She fanned herself. “I like the sound of that.”

The two of them walked ahead of me into the kitchen. Laura and the kids had disappeared. Judith was placing a giant CorningWare serving dish out on the counter, full of something with a bubbling top that smelled like cinnamon and spice and everything nice. There was a tub of Blue Bell Vanilla Bean ice cream beside it, along with a stack of dessert bowls and a bunch of spoons. I decided to skip seconds and go straight for the good stuff. I dug a serving spoon into the virgin surface of the as-yet-to-be-identified dessert. I ladled out a large chunk. Bread pudding. I put my hand on the side of the serving dish. Still warm. I added two scoops of vanilla ice cream. I looked around the once-again crowded room. No one seemed to be watching me.

As quietly as I could, I walked to the stairs, still keeping one eye on everyone in the kitchen. I tiptoed up each tread unnoticed. When I came to my room, I turned the handle and ducked in the door. I closed it softly, releasing the knob only when the tongue was positioned over the recess in the latch.

Peace. I sat down, taking a moment to breathe. Then I set the bowl on the side table along with my phone. A moment of guilt gave me pause. I’d snuck out before we’d even opened presents. But Laura had left with the kids, so I was off the hook. I flopped backward onto the fluffy white comforter and landed with my head in the mountain of pillows. What a day. What a long and difficult day.

I reached out for my phone. I was relieved to see a text from Wallace, although it wasn’t in the group string with Nadine. And I had another from an 806 number I didn’t recognize. A sense of dread crept into my chest. Betsy.

I pulled Wallace’s text up first:
Please oh please oh please God let Emily not have done something incredibly stupid that will reflect poorly on me and keep her from being approved to adopt.

It didn’t sound like anything had happened to Betsy. More like I’d done something.
What in Hades are you talking about?
I hit send.

Then I opened the other text:
This is Byron from CPS. Wallace gave me your number. He said you communicate best by text. Please call me at your earliest convenience.

Oh geez. Iciness flowed over my face. Byron was the CPS investigator working on Greg’s and Farrah’s cases.

Wallace responded:
Tell me you aren’t with them. Please.

If push came to shove, I could answer that one truthfully, but it wasn’t time to show my hand yet.
With WHOM? Please give me a little to go on.

I chewed the ragged edge of my now swollen hangnail. Could Byron have any other reason to call me except about Greg and Farrah? Maybe, but probably not. Could Wallace possibly be referring to anyone other than the two teenagers? Maybe, but probably not. Put the two together, and the answer to the first changed to “not likely.”

Wallace:
G & F.

Just because I expected it didn’t mean I didn’t throw up a little in my mouth when I read it. I couldn’t honestly say I wasn’t with them. But I could pretend to misinterpret the question. Then I could be truthful.
No, I don’t have them. Has there been news?
Send.

Wallace:
Anonymous phone tip to Byron.

Oh no, oh God, no, no, no. Who knew the kids contacted me? Jack was the only one who knew everything. I closed my eyes and pictured every move I’d made with the kids in Amarillo. I hadn’t seen anyone following us. My mother had never known there were teenagers in our house. So how, how could someone have seen me with them in Amarillo? They couldn’t have. They just couldn’t have.

That left Jack. What if Jack had told someone? Even one person in passing would have been enough. It had to have been him, even if it was only an accident, it had to have been him. Because it sure wasn’t me.

I answered:
Crazy! I’ll call him.

I stared at the phone. I had no idea what to say to Byron. In a text, I could evade his questions. A call was harder. Voice mail would be ideal, but he had to be expecting my call; he’d called on Christmas day. He’d be watching for my number.

My
number. Not a random number.
That
was the answer. I’d call from a house phone. I looked around the room. No phone. Jack’s bedroom down the hall might have one. There might be one in the kitchen or the office, but I didn’t want to go back downstairs.

Spit.

I put my phone’s ringer on silent and turned out the light. I slipped out the door and crept down the hall away from the staircase. Jack’s door was closed, but his light was out. Holding my breath, I turned the handle even more carefully than I’d turned my own a few minutes before. I eased the door open a generous crack and ducked in, then repeated the silent shutting of the door and latch.

I exhaled. Using the flashlight on my phone, I searched the room. There, on the bedside table on the far side of the room was a phone. Tiptoeing, I reached it in seconds. I lifted it from its base, still using my phone as a light. I pressed the button to turn the house phone on and got a dial tone. I typed in the number from Byron’s text and the phone started dialing, then ringing, although I could barely hear it over the pounding in my ears and my labored breaths. I hated lying. I was no good at it. If he answered, I’d hang up.

I heard the tone change in my ear as the two phones connected. I closed my eyes.

“You’ve reached my voice mail. Leave a message.” Byron’s voice. Short, uninformative.

I chose my words carefully, with my fingers crossed for good measure. “Um, hi, this is Emily Bernal calling for Byron. Byron, I spoke to Wallace earlier. I wanted to assure you I don’t have Greg and Farrah, and I can’t imagine who would think I did, or why they’d call anonymously. I guess I have an enemy out there.” I was babbling. I hated it when I babbled. It made me sound defensive, and ding-y. “I’m in New Mexico for Christmas. If you find them, please let me know, even through Wallace. I’ve been so worried about them. Thank you.”

I pressed “off.” I put the house phone back in the cradle, then I dropped my phone on the bed, where it landed flashlight up, and I lowered my face into my hands.

“That didn’t sound good,” a man’s voice said from across the room.

I screamed and jumped back a good three feet. An eerie face watched me from a doorway across the room. The bathroom doorway, I realized. The man stepped forward, but I already knew who the voice belonged to. Jack. Which made sense, since I was in his bedroom.

I was in
his
bedroom. I flew over to the bed and snatched up my phone. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be in here uninvited.” I rushed around the bed for the door.

He intercepted me, catching me by the shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

“Someone told Byron at CPS that I had Greg and Farrah, and only two people in Amarillo knew. You, and me. And it wasn’t me.”

“Huh.”

That’s all he had to say? My brain shorted out, and a blank white screen appeared where logical thought should be. I jerked away from his grasp. “Huh? I could lose my ability to adopt Betsy, and maybe even be charged with a crime. That’s more than a ‘huh.’ At a minimum, it’s an ‘I’m sorry,’ and then maybe you could throw in whether or not you may have caused it, and if you did, it would be nice to hear how it happened, too.”

“Uh . . .” He looked at the floor between us.

Tears spilled, and I realized I was losing it, overreacting. Too much. It was all too much. “I’m sorry, I can’t talk anymore. I need to be alone.” I whirled and fled for my room.

The next morning I was on my way to the stables by six o’clock, sleepy but determined, having left a heartbroken Snowflake in the kitchen instead of bringing her with me. The sun wouldn’t rise for quite a while yet, but I doubted that I would be the first person out there. Sure enough, the doors were unlocked, and a light shone into the open space between the stalls on either side, emanating from Mickey’s office. It was frigid outside and still really cold in the stable. I’d worn gloves, a wool cap, a scarf, and a heavy jacket, but I knew I’d still be freezing my tushy off for the next few hours. I exhaled, admiring my frosty breath, then knocked on the glass in Mickey’s office door. Steam rose from a Purina coffee mug beside him. He looked up, his wide eyes registering surprise, and motioned me in.

“Good morning,” I said.

“You’re up early.”

“And still not as early as you.”

He laughed. “It’s a holiday. I slept in.”

I knew well the demands of rising early to care for animals. I missed a lot about my rodeo days, and sometimes I even missed this part: working alone before dawn, waking the animals, feeding them, being the one they relied on to care for them. I imagined it was a lot like having a baby. My “babies” had just weighed in over a thousand pounds each. A special bond forms in the dark, when you are the only one there, when they need you.

“I was hoping to take Jarhead or one of his friends out for a ride this morning. Would that be all right?”

“Jarhead would love it.” He got to his feet. “Is Jack coming?”

“No, just me.”

He stopped for a split second, his eyes raking my face, but I didn’t let a flicker of emotion cross it. “Let me get you a saddle.”

We walked together to the tack room next door. It smelled of leather and saddle soap, and I inhaled it greedily. “If you can point out what you’re comfortable with me using, I can take it from there. I don’t want to be a bother.”

He hefted the saddle I’d ridden on during my last few rides from a wall peg, along with the Navajo blanket underneath it. He added a bridle. “Gives me a chance to talk to you. Grab that brush, will you?”

I picked up the soft-bristled brush he had indicated and followed him out. “So how have the kids done?” I asked.

Mickey set the gear on the ground outside a stall, and Jarhead stuck his nose out, snorting. Mickey put both his hands on the beautiful animal’s bobbing face. “They’ve done well. Laura’s the one I’m worried about.”

“Laura? Why?”

He opened the stall door and slipped the bridle over Jarhead’s ears, then the bit into his mouth. “She’s getting attached. The kids need somebody, and she needs to be needed.”

“Yeah. Those phones she gave them for Christmas—they seem like a long-term sort of gift.” I rubbed the wood-handled brush over Jarhead’s back with my right hand and ran my left over his supple flanks. His muscles quivered, and he turned to watch me.

Mickey patted Jarhead’s neck. “She’s taken Farrah under her wing. The girl loves horses.”

I smiled. I could relate. “Anything special about this big fella today?” I kept brushing, working my way around to Jarhead’s other side.

“Nah. He’s had breakfast, but he’s always fine after he eats, as long as you aren’t planning on riding him to Alamogordo and back. You know he’s a handful, of course.”

“That’s what I love about him.”

Mickey positioned the blanket on Jarhead, swinging the saddle up to land perfectly in place. He pulled the strap through the cinch and tightened it, then pulled the whole rig back a little so it wasn’t too close to Jarhead’s elbow. Then he tightened the cinch again, a full inch more, and Jarhead snorted and tossed his head.

“He puffs out a little on the first go-round.”

“Poor boy. But you don’t want me hanging upside down under your belly, do you?” I let him sniff my hand and feel it with the sensitive whiskers on his muzzle. He nodded his head up and down. “Oh, you do? Fine.” I laughed.

“Where you thinking about taking him?”

I stuck with mostly true. “Out to the highway and east. I want to expunge the demons from my wild midnight ride on Thunder.”

Mickey puckered his lips up and nodded. “All right. Well, the weather is supposed to be fine. The snow cover isn’t deep. Everyone is pastured on the west side right now, so I think you’ll find most of the gates open and you can leave them that way. If any are closed, they’re gonna be hard to manage in this cold, the wires tight. Do you have a phone in case of trouble?”

I patted his shoulder. “Yes, Mom.”

“I’m not worried about you, Standing Hair, I’m talking about the moneymaker here.”

We both laughed. Jarhead’s stud fees were a large part of Wrong Turn Ranch’s income. I led the moneymaker from the stall, and he started prancing.

Mickey pointed across the aisle. “You know who that is?”

A black horse stuck his entire neck out the window of his stall. If it was the horse I thought it was, I’d only seen him in the dark before. I walked Jarhead closer to him. The two horses protested at each other’s nearness, and Mickey held out his hand. I gave him Jarhead’s reins and walked the rest of the way to the black horse on my own.

“Thunder?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Hey, Thunder, remember me?” I rubbed his neck briskly as he sniffed to catch my scent. “Good to see you. You landed in high cotton here, didn’t you?” I reached in my jacket pocket for my phone and snapped a selfie with him. For Betsy, later. I stroked his face one last time then moved on. I poked my head through the window of the next stall. A black mare and her knobby-kneed foal. “Is this little Hay-SEUSS?” I asked, pronouncing Jesus in my best Spanish.

The mare moved between the foal and me, blocking my view and pointing her hindquarters in my direction.

Mickey shook his head. “Yeah, and I’m afraid we’re going to Hell over that one. But he sure is cute, and it made the kids happy to name him.”

He was probably right about the Hell part. Mickey walked Jarhead and me to the door, and I grabbed the horn and reins in my left hand, put my left foot in the stirrup, and swung up and over, settling into the cold, hard saddle. It was a good fit.

“Thanks, Mickey. See you in two hours or so.”

He shook his head. “One more thing. Do you have a weapon? The big coyotes get pretty crafty and hungry this time of year.”

Under my jacket, I had worn a long purse strap across my chest for exactly this reason. I had money, ID, and my baby Glock tucked inside the little bag at the end of the strap. I even had coffee in the interior pocket of my coat, in a flask I’d found in Jack’s kitchen.

I patted my stomach. “My father taught me well.”

“About your dad.”

I shook my head. “It’s okay.”

It was, even though
I
wasn’t, and I sure didn’t want to talk about it. I spent most of the night before tossing and turning, my thoughts back and forth between Dad, Betsy, Jack, Greg, and Farrah, with disturbing memories of Ivanka’s bloodless face and the bloodied figure of the truck driver at Love’s for good measure. I fretted over good cops and bad and how to know the difference. I obsessed about the potential trouble I was facing with CPS. And I worried about Alan spending Christmas in prison, when I was pretty sure he hadn’t done what he was accused of doing. It had been easy to rise early for the ride, because I’d never really gone to sleep.

Jarhead hotfooted in place, eager to be off.

“Your father’s a good guy. He talked about you a lot. I hope . . .” Mickey trailed off.

“Really, it’s okay.”

He nodded and lifted his hand in salute.

I held Jarhead to a walk through the grounds and first gate, then let him warm up in a fretful trot. Patience wasn’t his strong suit. By the second gate, he was loping. And by the fourth gate, I gave him his head and let him race his imaginary opponents all the way to the highway.

We crossed over the pavement and onto Johnson’s Ranch. As Judith had said, the gate was padlocked. I trotted Jarhead along the front fence line to the east. In about 150 yards, we found a wire loop gate like the ones we’d ridden through on Jack’s place. Mickey was right, these things were tight in the cold. But I managed to work the loop up and over the post, and we were in. From there it wasn’t that long a ride up to the house and the outbuildings. By the time we reached them, I needed to walk Jarhead for a cool down and find him some water, which I found in an automatic watering tub by the barn. A pump ran continuously, circulating the water, so there was no ice. Jarhead slurped noisily, and water dripped from his muzzle to the cold ground, melting the snow. My phone made a noise so I pulled it out.

There was a text from Nadine to Wallace and me:
The dancer who was being harassed is MISSING. Everyone freaked.

I replied to my friend:
Oh no, be careful, Nadine. Scary!

Another dancer, after cops harassed her. Missing. Maybe dead. What was happening to my safe, sleepy hometown? I had worried Ivanka’s death was connected to Love’s, but was it something else, something worse?

I put the phone away. “Now what?” I asked Jarhead.

“I guess you could start by explaining what the hell you’re doing here,” a man’s voice answered.

***

I slipped my hand into my jacket and into my open purse, closing my fingers around the Glock’s grip, then swiveled my head to see who was speaking. A tall, unsmiling man with pock-marked brown skin faced me. He was dressed in jeans with a heavy brown work jacket and cowboy boots. Like Mickey had been wearing that morning. Like practically every man in this part of the world.

His expression changed when he saw my face. “Ma’am.” He dipped his head at me. “Nice horse. Sorry if I startled you.”

“Thank you. I didn’t think anyone was here.”

I took my fingers off the gun and slid my hand out. The feel of the baby Glock’s grip had grown mighty familiar in the last week. It made me think of my dad, and I didn’t want to think about him.

“Only me. Edward Brown, Alamogordo Police. And you are?”

I shook off the thoughts of my father. I’d met this man, although at the time he was dressed in his Sunday best.

“Emily Bernal. Did I meet you at St. Joseph’s last weekend? I was there with the Begays and Jack Holden.”

He smiled. “Yes, I recognize you now. You look a little different.” He pointed at his head.

My head and hair were entirely covered by my cap. My purple scarf obscured my chin. “It’s pretty chilly out.”

He raised his eyebrows, stretching and flattening the pits in his face. “It is. And early, on the day after Christmas. What brings you out here?”

“Mostly trying to shake demons. I had a bad experience here.”

His gaze didn’t flicker. “I’m aware of that, of course. I’m sorry about what you went through.”

“It’s okay. I’m recovering. And a lot of good has come from that night.”

“It certainly has. You will be forever revered as a merciful angel by the people Johnson held here.”

I swallowed. I hadn’t ever really thought of it that way. “I hope you guys find them all. The women and children, I mean.” The authorities surmised that Johnson had sold them to the highest bidders, to the kind of people that liked their play things disposable and anonymous. I shivered. Thank God Betsy had avoided that fate.

Brown shook his head. “Me, too.”

Brown seemed nice, and helpful, and I decided to take a chance on him with the truth. “The little girl who escaped with me, Betsy—”

“Elizabet Perez.”

It warmed me that he knew the case so well. And with so many victims, he remembered Betsy’s name. That was good. “Yes. She lost her backpack, and she’s been quite upset about it. The last place she saw it was here. I was hoping that I could look in some windows, see if I can find it.”

“I’d be happy to take you through the place, but don’t get your hopes up.”

“Why?”

“Most of the stuff here ended up in evidence or with Johnson’s daughter.”

“Stella?”

“Yes. And then some of it disappeared.”

“What do you mean, disappeared?” I rubbed my arms. Now that neither Jarhead nor I were exerting ourselves, it really
was
getting cold. The horse snorted and stamped, and I knew he felt it, too.

“I mean it looks like the place got picked over. It’s been empty for the last six weeks, and sometimes that happens. I like to drop by occasionally for that reason. Keep an eye on things, keep away the thieves, vandals, or squatters.”

Like Wrong Turn Ranch across the road. So the thieves had hit more than one ranch in the area. Mickey and Jack hadn’t reported it, though, so I kept it to myself. “That’s awful.”

“It is. So, you want to look around?”

“If you honestly don’t mind, I would. And maybe I could let my horse warm up inside while we do it?”

He nodded and pulled out a ring of keys. I followed him into the barn. I’d been inside it once before, unfortunately. We passed the open door to the room where I’d been held against my will, where I first met Betsy. In my memory it was a dark room filled with clutter. Today it was bare except for the swath of dim light across the floor from the high, narrow window. Chill bumps rose on my arms under my layers of clothing.

“You can tie him up here,” Brown said, indicating a fat post in the center of the open area that extended all the way to the roof.

All I had on Jarhead was a bridle. Flat leather reins didn’t tie well, and they tied short at that. I had on a stylin’ web belt though, with a double ring in lieu of a buckle. I looped the belt around the post, then tied the reins to the end of it. That gave Jarhead enough room to move his head.

I patted his flanks. “Back soon, boy.”

Brown gestured around the barn. “Do you want to look in here?”

I surveyed the mostly empty space. The only things left in the room were rejects: a flat tire, half a long-handled rake, a pile of mulch, a broken syringe. Whoever had burglarized this place had done a very thorough job. It was disheartening, in light of my search, and more than a little eerie. But I was accompanied by a police officer, one who went way back with Jack and Mickey, and I would be fine. I couldn’t give up before I’d even started. I owed it to Betsy.