Earth to Emily (24 page)

Without cracking a smile, Jack said, “Score one for Wile E. Coyote.”

Collin kept a straight face and tight grip on Brewer, but he turned his head toward the Suburban. “Anybody hungry?”

Jack and I laughed. Ava didn’t.

“What is that horrible thing?” she asked.

Jack answered her. “Roadrunner.”

“Fast little fuckers,” Collin said. “I don’t remember us hitting anything.”

“You could’ve been driving around with a hood ornament for days,” I suggested.

Ava laughed as she backed up to the passenger door of the Suburban and climbed back in. Collin pushed Brewer’s head down and loaded him in the Bronco, then climbed in the other side. Seconds later, Jack saluted me as he pulled the vehicle away toward Alamogordo.

When I’d finished checking to be sure that I hadn’t heard from Byron or Wallace, I put my keys in the ignition. “Well, that was something you don’t get to see every day.”

Ava gathered her hair in one hand off her neck and fanned with the other. “Wouldn’t mind if I did.”

She was dramatic. Incorrigible. And she cheered me up, distracting me from all the screwed-up things going on.

I backed out, then put the Suburban in drive. “You’re the guest. Do you want to explore, shop, go back to the ranch, or what?”

Before Ava could answer, a dirty Monte Carlo hurtled around us. Mrs. Brewer peered over the steering wheel—barely. She veered onto the shoulder on the left, spewing snow and gravel from her wheels as she did. Ava and I swiveled our heads in tandem to watch her. Mrs. Brewer corrected the vehicle and pulled in front of us, accelerating.

“She in a hurry.”

“Like maybe she’s going for help?”

“Or to tattle.” Ava chuptzed.

We grinned at each other.

“Wanna see which?” I asked.

“Heck yeah,” Ava drawled, with a smirk, and I laughed. She impersonated me perfectly.

I pulled within a hundred yards of Mrs. Brewer’s car. Its exhaust alone made it easy to follow, even though the white car blended against the snow-covered terrain on either side of the road. Soon, though, we were passing through Alamogordo on the highway. She wove in and out of traffic with no blinker, ten miles faster than the flow. I bit my lip as I changed lanes repeatedly, trying to keep up with her, yet keeping my eye out for a disturbing blue sedan behind me. Our path reminded me of pole bending, a rodeo event I competed in as a kid where you race a horse through a series of six poles in a serpentine pattern, then back again. It was a lot like slalom skiing. And like following Mrs. Brewer.

“She getting away.”

I gripped the steering wheel harder. “Not if I can help it.”

On the south side of town, the Monte Carlo accelerated. I pressed the gas to pace her. Eighty. Eight-five. Almost ninety. Ava held on to the armrest and the door grip like they were anchors. The Suburban’s frame shook. I scanned the dash. We were in four-wheel drive. The snow had disappeared south of town, as if we’d passed a line of demarcation, so I wasn’t worried about traction, but I couldn’t remember if it was okay to change out of all-wheel on the fly, only that it wasn’t recommended for high-speed driving. Hopefully I wouldn’t wreck the transmission. I kept my foot pressed down hard. I didn’t smell anything burning or see any smoke, and those were good signs.

We passed a highway sign that said LAS CRUCES, 50, EL PASO, 102, CIUDAD JUAREZ, 110.

“We almost to Mexico?” Ava shrieked. “Where she going, anyway?”

“Hopefully not there.”

Suddenly, the Monte Carlo turned off the highway into the parking lot of a cluster of flat-roofed warehouse-like buildings. Faded signage out front indicated the property was for sale, although I couldn’t tell if it referred to the whole group, or only to one of the buildings. A handful of cars were parked without any regard to linear spacing. We were far enough behind the Monte Carlo to see it pull in at an angle in front of the nearest building. Mrs. Brewer got out, and then we were past her.

Ava’s head did a
Fourth Kind
owl move, nearly. “She went in,” Ava said. “What now?”

“Let’s drive for a few minutes, then we can turn around and see if she’s still there when we make it back. Keep doing it until she leaves. Then maybe we can check it out.”

Ava nodded. “We make good cops.”

“Jack doesn’t think so. He hates it when I investigate things on my own.”

She chuptzed. “He just jealous of real talent.”

I laughed. “And there’s no law against it.” Well, there were laws against some of the things I’d done in the course of checking things out. Like letting myself into a few homes where I wasn’t technically invited. But I only did that when there were extenuating circumstances, like people’s lives at risk. Even if that wasn’t a defense in court, it sure helped me sleep better at night.

I took the next exit and we reversed course back toward Alamogordo.

When the warehouse was in sight, Ava said, “She still there.”

“Yeah, let’s make another loop.”

As we passed the cluster of warehouses from the south, I noticed a cross in the window of the last one and in plain block letters above the door, CHURCH. A sign in one window read EXORCISE DAILY. RUN FROM THE DEVIL. And in the next window: SEXUAL EXPLOITATION WORKSHOP THIS SUNDAY. My eyes widened.

“That woman need to hurry. I gotta pee.”

I shook off the oddly disturbing church signs. “How are you going to be a cop if you can’t hold it on a stakeout, or when you’re following someone?”

“Where I come from, if you drive as far as we have, you reach the end of the island and stop for rum and Coke.”

I mimicked Ava’s accent, badly. “For true.”

She shook her head and drawled, “Not even close, cowgirl,” nailing mine again.

We stopped at a Love’s on the outskirts of town, which got me to thinking about Greg and Farrah. Which made me think about Byron. Which made me think of Ivanka. Which made me think of the missing dancer.
Stop it
, I told myself.
Just stop it.

I decided to take a pit stop, and, afterwards, I bought a sweet tea. While waiting to pay, I stared at my phone. My anger from the night before had nearly gone away. I didn’t want to be crossways with Jack. I wanted things to be like they had been on Christmas Eve. I worried my swollen hangnail with my teeth then typed a message to him:
I’m sorry I got so upset last night. Maybe we can talk later and I can give you your Christmas present.

Ava read over my shoulder. “Ah, you getting soft.”

I hit send and handed the clerk my money. “I may have overreacted, but I’m still not completely okay with him hiding my father from me.” A father I hadn’t called back. I’d decided to block it out until I returned to Amarillo. I’d decide whether to call him then.

We walked out together.

“That ain’t gonna keep you warm at night, is it?”

I pointed my drink at a white Monte Carlo at a pump on our far right, ignoring her last question. “That’s Mrs. Brewer.”

We sprinted the rest of the way to the Suburban—or, rather, trotted as fast as Ava’s heels and my sloshing drink allowed—and jumped in.

I craned to see the Monte Carlo. “I don’t think she’s in it. Maybe she’s in the store.”

Ava looked, too. “Don’t see her.”

“Let’s get out of here.”

I exited the Love’s lot on the side farthest from Mrs. Brewer’s car and turned back onto the access road, whipping a U-turn under the overpass, then accelerating up an entrance ramp into the southbound lanes. In less than ten minutes we were the sole vehicle parked in front of the warehouse where we’d seen the Monte Carlo earlier. I pulled a scrunchie from my purse and gathered my hair in a high ponytail.

“You want to wait here?” I asked Ava.

“You soft in the head?”

“Come on, then. Follow my lead.”

“Why, you got a plan?”

We got out. I always hated that question and found it best not to dignify it with an answer, since the answer was usually no. My footsteps clonked on the pavement and Ava’s clicked sharply as we walked up to the glass front door. I grasped the handle and pulled it open, planless.

***

We stepped onto commercial-grade white speckled linoleum in a small lobby area, which was really nothing more than a tall reception desk in front of a closed metal door. No pictures graced the walls, no clock ticked out the time. There weren’t even any chairs for visitors to sit on. A powdery odor like dust dried my sinuses while fluorescent lights flickered over our heads, making buzzing and popping noises like a bug zapper, and casting disco lighting onto the water-stained ceiling tiles.

“Hello?” I called. My voice frogged.

Ava put her hand in front of my arm against my wrist. “You scared?”

“Nah.”

“Liar.”

We both laughed, but our voices sounded hollow.

“Hello?” I called again.

No answer.

I said, “Well, let’s poke our heads in that door, take a quick look.”

A quick look was like dipping a toe in the water. No commitment. We could always shut the door and leave after our quick look, if the water was too cold. She nodded, and I grasped the knob and tried to turn it. Nothing happened. I pulled, then fell back as the door gave way. Ava had started breathing harder. So had I.

“You first,” Ava said.

From a safe distance back from the opening, I called, “Hello?”

No answer. No sound. I leaned all the way in. The lighting in the interior bordered on darkness and seemed to come mostly from high windows near the ceiling. Still, even in the shadows, I got a sense of the inside. Tall racks lined up along the length of the space, leading away from us. It reminded me of the ceiling-high shelves in discount centers and home improvement stores. From where we stood, these looked maybe half-full. What I couldn’t tell from this vantage point was what the racks held.

I whispered to Ava. “Can you watch the door? I want to get a closer look.”

She peered inside, then looked at me, her eyes dubious. “Maybe old lady Brewer drop something off. Or she work here. What you gonna learn in there you can’t tell from out here?”

“Won’t know until I look.”

But that wasn’t true. Seeing a deserted warehouse full of stuff made me wonder where it all came from, and whether I’d find anything from Wrong Turn Ranch.

I put my hand on her upper arm. “I’ll be fine. You stand here and hold the door open so I’ll have more light, and if someone comes in, shout hello at them loud, like you’re hard of hearing. Tell them your friend is looking for a bathroom.”

Her brows knitted, but she slid her short frame along the door and backed it all the way open. Fear made her look much younger, like she was a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes and makeup.

“I’m glad you showed up in Amarillo, Ava Butler.”

“I let you know if I agree when we outta here.”

I held up the five fingers of my right hand. “No more than five minutes.”

I backed up. The gloom swallowed me, like I was falling down and backwards into a black, bottomless pit. I fought off the sensation and flipped my phone over to turn on its flashlight and got a bad surprise. Low battery warning: ten percent. I could have had it charging in the Suburban for the last hour, but it hadn’t occurred to me it would be on fumes. I’d cried myself to sleep the night before, and now, looking back, I couldn’t remember plugging it in. I wanted to groan in frustration, but I kept quiet, thinking. I only needed light for five minutes, and ten percent might be enough. I activated the flashlight, shining it ahead of me, illuminating floating dust particles in its beams. On impulse I turned it back around and turned the ringer off, then resumed scanning ahead of me.

Even though no one had answered our hello, I put each foot down slowly, carefully, and whisper-soft. It was the kind of place that called for it. Plus, someone had left that front door unlocked. They probably hadn’t left for the day. Maybe whoever it was had run out for a late lunch, or was in a bathroom, but surely they would be back.

I walked to the far side of the first rack and trained the flashlight beam on its shelves, moving the light and my eyes slowly, methodically across the space, from top to bottom. It was an odd assortment with no discernible organization. Some things were boxed up like new—microwaves, computers, a rifle, mobile phones—and others looked used. A big screen TV on its back. An opened jewelry box. A walkie-talkie set without a box. I came upon bag after bag of feed and fertilizer and bolts of fabric. Some stuff even looked past its useful life. Old shoes. Cracked and stained kitchen appliances. My nerves tightened and twanged like a piano wire. Given the connection of Mrs. Brewer and her husband to trafficking stolen merchandise, this had to be one of the storage facilities.

I scanned both sides of the second aisle as I walked quickly back toward Ava, then the third heading toward the back wall again, practically holding my breath to stay quiet. Halfway down the third, my light flashed across something bright pink. I stopped and pointed the beam back to where I’d seen it, but at that moment, my phone died and the flashlight with it.

“Mother Goose,” I whispered.

When I pressed the on button, the phone and light came on like a flashbulb, lasting only long enough for me to see two things. The battery indicator reading one percent and that I had two texts from Jack showing on the lock screen. The first one said:
Collin checked the plate number your dad gave us. It’s a cop. Brewer confirmed.
Before I could read the other, the bulb had popped and the screen was dead.

My father was helping catch the Wrong Turn Ranch thieves. Something flickered in my gut, and it wasn’t a bad flicker. It was almost a prideful one, vindication on behalf of him. Or maybe I was just happy the case was breaking open. I needed to finish and get out of here, plug my phone in the car charger, and call Jack and tell him what I’d found and get the scoop from him.

I stood rooted in place, giving my eyes time to adjust to the sudden absence of light. Within seconds I could see well enough to make out the shapes on the shelf in front of me, but most of the colors looked like varying shades of gray. I moved to where I thought I’d seen pink. It had been farther back on the shelf, and possibly behind a sander and a Skilsaw I’d seen on the front edge. I reached out to nearest items and ran my hands over them gently. The first one was rounded and smooth. Possibly the cover of the Skilsaw.

I walked my hands farther backward. My eyes continued to adjust and colors slowly seeped back into my field of vision, like the time my ex-husband and I went scuba diving on our honeymoon trip to Aruba. Down at fifty feet everything looked drab. As we ascended, stopping for decompression breaks, the colors returned, more with every passing foot. It was like watching the animation of a black and white movie become colorized.

A brightly colored object caught my eye. I couldn’t tell if it was orange, red, or pink, but given its location, I was putting my money on pink. A loud buzz of excitement started ringing in my ears. My fingers walked my hands to it and I put my palms on its surface. Canvas, with slick waterproofing. I inched my hands along the material and came to a long strip of puffy fabric. I followed that to hard plastic with a skinny strap out of its other end. I smiled. A strap. A strap on a pink backpack.