by Olive Balla
There used to be a pay phone every…
Yawn.
…few miles…
Dix’s eyes suddenly popped open. With blurred vision, she glanced at the clock in the dashboard. Five o’clock. She’d lost an hour.
She stared out the windshield and argued with herself. Should she use the gas station’s phone to call Lil? Probably. Then maybe she should call Davie.
But a phone call to Davie would eat up several minutes. Then several more minutes would be spent bringing him up to speed. Added to that was the possibility of some jurisdictional thing-a-ma-jigs to slow the process down even further. There’d probably be hours of paperwork.
Dix shook her head. While all of that was true, she had to admit the real reason she didn’t call Davie was out of fear—fear of his anger, fear she’d lose his respect, fear he’d see her as old and useless.
She imagined Davie and Lil commiserating with each other, doing a nod-nod-wink-wink thing and whispering that maybe it was time to put old Dix out to pasture. She envisioned the knowing looks on their faces, the sad shaking of heads, and the aura of pity that would poison the air.
Nope, it’d be best for her to do this on her own. After she’d found Jillie, she’d face the music. And time was ticking.
Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, the first things that child would need were food and shelter. But this was an eleven-year-old on a mission. The judgment part of the human brain didn’t fully develop until somewhere around the early to mid-twenties. So, the child would be more prone to risk-taking…her decision-making mechanism would be immature…and…
A series of insistent taps on the car window against which her head rested jerked Dix out of a deep sleep. A young man peered through the glass at her, a worried look on his face.
She closed her mouth and worked her air-dried tongue until it was moist enough for speech. Then she powered down her window. “Yes?”
“Are you okay, miss?”
Dix shaped her lips into what she hoped was a convincing smile. “Everything’s fine. Just needed to rest my eyes a few minutes, but I’m good to go now.”
“Just so you’re all right, you’ve been sitting here a while.” A relieved look on his face, the young man nodded toward the coffee cup. “That’ll be cold by now; you want a refresher?”
“Kind of you, but no thanks. I’ll be on my way.”
The young man headed back to the building. From just inside the door, he stopped and turned back, evidently waiting for her to leave.
Angrily, Dix rolled up her window. She slapped her face, bounced her legs up and down on the balls of her feet, sang, raised and lowered her shoulders, and pinched her forearm hard enough to bring tears. She chugged the cold coffee dregs and considered her next move.
If she were an eleven-year-old searching for her beloved sister’s ashes, where would she go? The hospital seemed logical. Jillie had appeared to accept her warning about what might happen if she showed up there, but she was, after all, a child.
Pushing aside the persistent thought that her sleep deprived fuzz-ball brain might not be completely on top of things, Dix sat up straight and squared her shoulders.
She fired up her engine, pulled onto highway Forty-seven and headed back the way she’d come. Twenty minutes of white-knuckle, still-pitch-black-night driving would get her to Interstate Twenty-five. Twenty more minutes would get her to the hospital.
The Universe had called upon her to help Jillie, and she’d not ignore that call.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Beth’s eyes fluttered, then opened just enough to make out the fuzzy image of a young man in a nurse’s uniform walking around her bed. With the occasional glimpse toward her, he studied monitors and levels of liquid in bags suspended from metal frames then wrote on a clipboard. She tried to call out but only managed to gag around the tube that made her throat feel like it was on fire. The beginnings of fear pulsed in her stomach. She struggled to throw off the bedclothes, but her arms merely twitched where they lay on top of the coverlet.
The nurse’s eyes riveted on Beth, and he punched a button. The room suddenly filled with activity. Two nurses rushed in, moved to either side of the bed and held her down while someone injected something into her arm.
Immediately, Beth’s muscles relaxed, and a feeling of lethargy pulsed through her body.
“Ah, Miss Ross, you’re awake.” The young man’s voice sounded warm, comforting. “I need you to relax; don’t fight the tube. We’ll have to do some tests to make sure you can breathe and swallow on your own before we can remove it.”
Slowly, in fragments and flashes, images of the beating at Digger’s hands bubbled up from Beth’s memory—her husband’s rage, Jillie’s terrified face as she ran to get help, the blood pouring from Digger’s neck and his dying spasms.
Jillie?
“Please, Miss Ross, just give us a few more minutes before you try to speak.”
After a series of tests, the tube was pulled, and she was asked to swallow several times. One of the nurses drew a tiny hammer-looking instrument down the sole of Beth’s right foot and nodded in satisfaction when her toes curled in response.
Finally, everyone but the male nurse and a woman left the room.
Dressed in khaki pants and a button-up blouse, the woman smiled down at her. “I’m Doctor De Bruin.” She pulled the chair nearer the bed and sat. “I know you have lots of questions.”
After a couple of false starts, Beth managed to whisper. “How long have I been here?”
“Several weeks. You suffered a beating and your brain was swollen. We put you in a medically induced coma until the swelling could go down.”
“What happened to my sister? Was she hurt? Do you know where she is? Her name’s Jillie, Jillie Ross.”
“She’s not on this floor.” The doctor looked at the nurse. “Do you know anything about her sister?”
The young man shook his head. “This is my first day on this wing, but I haven’t come across anyone by that name.”
When Beth made a move to pull herself from her bed, the nurse laid a hand on her arm. “Your muscles are going to need some work. A physical therapist will be along shortly to help you with that. Meanwhile, you should rest.”
“Someone must know where my little sister is. I’m the only family she has.”
“I’ll see what I can find out,” the nurse said.
The doctor stood and patted Beth’s shoulder. “Welcome back.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Lil paced the floor, watched television, climbed into and out of bed, then paced some more. Roiling anger had long since given way to anxiety, which changed back to anger before finally settling into fear and dread.
Hearing-aids in, she listened for the garage door to open while mentally composing the tongue-lashing she’d give her twin. Her agitation grew as the hour hand on her bedside clock slowly ticked by.
Throughout their lives, the two sisters had often experienced a twin thing. By the time they learned to talk, they were finishing each other’s sentences. And on more than one occasion, they’d raised the purple-haired, church ladies’ eyebrows by bursting into giggles during a prayer or pause in the sermon at something one or the other had thought but didn’t need to say.
Then along with the standard hormonal tsunami accompanying their teen years, they simultaneously decided to become non-twins. When Dix chose to wear pink, Lil opted for blue. When Lil decided to get a B.S. in accounting, Dix got a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. In an almost frenzied need to touch and be touched, the gregarious Dix had burned through countless relationships and three disastrous marriages while the introverted and supremely a-sexual Lil had been content to remain single.
But though they chose different paths and lifestyles, their near clone-like connection never completely evaporated. And now Lil’s gut was twisting and squirming just like it did in junior high school when the creep who lived up the street tried to abduct Dix.
Lil had known
her sister was in trouble, even though she’d been roller skating a couple of blocks away. By the time Lil arrived on the scene, the guy had Dix’s arms pinned and was trying to haul her into a mud-splattered brown van.
The prick’s eyes had grown wide when Lil charged at him. Screaming like something crazed, she’d hurled herself like a bowling ball straight for his kneecaps. He yelped and staggered backward, loosening his hold on Dix to aim a fist at Lil’s head.
Then, as the twins later told police, they went medieval on the jerk’s ass. Two pissed-as-hell twelve-year-old kids kicking, gouging, pulling hair, biting. The guy had seemed almost relieved when a couple of minutes later a squad car pulled up in response to a neighbor’s call.
Lil shut down the memory, removed her hearing aids, and again headed for bed.
But when Dix hadn’t returned by five the next morning, Lil walked downstairs to the land line in the kitchen and punched in her sister’s cell phone number. If Dix thought Lil was going to put up with such behavior, she had another—
Out of the darkness, Dix’s 60’s rock and roll ring tone erupted from atop the kitchen counter. The phone’s tiny green light flashing its location, Lil picked the thing up and jabbed the red disconnect square.
Dix had been out all night. Alone. No way to call home, even if she’d wanted to.
We should get an in-car emergency phone service, one with satellite connectedness, in case we have car trouble and need to call for help. Dix’s words conjured up a truckload of guilt.
“We have cell phones,” Lil had said. “We don’t need the added expenditure.”
“Then we should at least get phone jacks for the car.”
But Lil had remained adamant. “Just re-charge the thing every night before you go to bed. Simple. You want that kind of stuff, you pay for it. We don’t need it.”
Dix had harrumphed and said, “Like the emergency three-day supply of water and food we never managed to set up, we won’t need that either.” She’d jabbed her index finger in Lil’s face in her standard mode of retort. “Until we do. Think Corpus Christi in the sixties, Houston, and east Texas—”
“We live in the desert, in case you haven’t noticed. We’re high enough not to flood.” She’d pitched such a fit about the cost, Dix finally let the matter drop.
And now her directionally challenged sister could be anywhere, stranded, lying in a ditch.
Lil swiped tears away from her cheeks. While she’d been born with an internal combustion that made her uncomfortably warm in temperatures above seventy degrees, Dix was the opposite. Anything below seventy sent her scurrying for a goose down comforter.
And the weather was growing cold.
A grim set to her mouth, Lil prepared a breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee then forced herself to eat every bite. Though not the least bit hungry, she had a sinking feeling she was going to need the energy.
She pulled an insulated thermos bottle from the cabinet, filled it with coffee, hurried upstairs to her room, and got dressed. Then she jammed her hearing aids into her ears and put a spare package of tiny round batteries into the breast pocket of her red flannel shirt.
Unsure of what prompted her to do so, she retrieved a can of pepper spray and a fully charged Taser, the scabbard of which she attached to her leather belt. Then she made a beeline downstairs to the kitchen pantry.
Without a wasted movement, she filled a tote bag with the thermos, three oranges, an unopened package of string cheese, and several granola bars. She glanced around the kitchen, her mind furiously ticking off the things she might need if worse came to worst. Then she headed for the garage and retrieved the half-full, red plastic, five-gallon gas container used for the lawn mower.
The sight of Dix’s empty parking space sent a wave of renewed fear through Lil’s midsection. Trying to convince herself she was probably worried for no reason, that her absent-minded twin was probably enjoying an early breakfast at a Denny’s or IHOP, she popped open her trunk, stashed the gas container, and slammed the lid.
She pulled Dix’s cell phone from her holster, climbed into the driver’s seat, and turned on the dome light. After losing an internal argument over the best way to proceed, she squelched an uncomfortable fluttering of guilt and punched in Davie’s number.
“Aunt Dix? What’s up? Everything okay?” Her nephew’s sleep-fogged voice was tinged with worry.
“It’s not Dix, it’s Lil. I’m using her phone, long story. Sorry to call you so early, but…”
Broken only by her nephew’s occasional question, Lil recounted everything she could remember of what the kid had told her and Dix about Beth, Digger’s death, her life with the Elliotts, and her subsequent wanderings.
“You mean the little girl was in the house when—”
“You know Dix has a weakness for strays, always has. The problem is she left last night after dinner to look for the kid and hasn’t come home yet.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m home.” For the time being.
“Unless you suspect foul play, Aunt Dix hasn’t been gone long enough to do a missing person’s report. Do you have any reason to think she’s in danger?”
“No, not really. But she can be forgetful when she gets this focused, and she has night-blindness. After several near-misses, I made her stop driving after dark.”
“I’ll take the day off to look for her.” Punctuated with rustling and what sounded like a closet door opening and closing, Davie’s words sounded more than a little angry. “Do you have any idea where she was headed?”
“Not for certain, but all that kid could talk about was getting her sister’s ashes from the hospital.”
“Okay, I’ll take it from here.”
“I can’t just sit—”
“Aunt Lil, I won’t be at my best if I have to worry about you as well. You understand? I’ll call when I find her.” Davie broke the connection.
For the next couple of minutes, Lil sat in the car, her mind a fury of activity. She reached into the console at her elbow, pulled out one of a dozen pair of reading glasses she had stashed in various places, slipped them on, and studied the road map.
She’d often heard that the best lies included a bit of truth. And although some of the kid’s story had turned out to be true, Dix had fallen for the whole shebang. Unable to have children of her own, she’d be in raging Valkyrie-Mama mode.
If the kid was to be believed, there were four places she’d be likely to show up: the hospital, the Elliott house, her godmother’s house, or her own home.
Since Davie would secure the hospital, that left three other possibilities.
Lil started the engine and backed out into the pre-dawn darkness. She could be in Belen in less than thirty minutes. If Dix were there, she’d bring her home—even if she had to drag her kicking and screaming. And the police could deal with the kid.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Unable to sleep, Margo Elliott poked her husband’s forehead with her index finger until he awakened. “I don’t like any of this, things don’t feel right. We have to figure out what to do.”
When Cleg mumbled something that sounded resentful, Margo smacked his shoulder with her doubled fist. “Get up and make me some coffee.” She pulled her tatty old housecoat on over her flannel gown and headed for the stairs. “You’ve got five minutes.”
Margo was pacing the living room floor when Cleg showed up with her steaming cup. “Here it is, just the way you like it.”
Between sips, Margo shot lethal glances at her spouse sitting in his easy chair staring at his hands. “You’re just plain worthless. I’m trying to do something here, and all you can do is complain about being hungry.”
Cleg looked up. “I’m sorry, Sugar Plum.” He wrung his hands, his brow furrowed. “I’ve been trying to figure out where the girl would have gone but can’t seem to make heads nor tails of it. You went out of your way to give her a good home and all, even though she killed our boy…”
Margo spun
on the balls of her feet, sloshing coffee onto the already-stained carpet. She stomped over to her husband and bent at the waist to bring her eyes level with his. “You don’t get it, do you? Not only do we have no clue as to the whereabouts of the treasure, but we lied to the kid about her sister. And now, thanks to that meddling bimbo at the hamburger joint, the police know she’s missing. When they find her, everything will come out, and I have a feeling the law won’t be too understanding about our good intentions.”
“Surely it’d just be her word against ours.”
Margo tapped her temple. “Think about it, Marshmallow-Ass, that Social Services girl hated us on sight. Or didn’t you notice the way she wrinkled her nose and sniffed when she walked into the living room, or the way she perched on the edge of the sofa like it was coated with manure. Besides, who knows what that kid told the psychologist during her visits.” She straightened, crossed one arm over her chest, rested the other elbow on the crossed arm, and tapped her closed fist against her chin. “We have to find her before the police do. Once we have the treasure, we can disappear.”
Cleg sat up straighter. “Disappear?”
“Picture us in a place warm year-round with palm trees and a beach. Someplace without extradition.” Margo’s gaze floated up to the ceiling. “A place where someone young and tanned would wait on me…on us hand and foot. We could live like royalty on very little.”
“But what about all our stuff? What would happen to our house?”
Margo jerked her eyes back toward her husband as she moved her hand in an arc. “Is it really all that hard for you to understand why I’d want to leave this place?”
“I know it isn’t much, but it’s what we can afford on my disability check.”
Margo squinted. “If we play our cards right, we won’t need your check.”
“But—”
Margo made a chopping motion with her right hand. “Shut it. I’m not letting that treasure slip through my hands. Our Digger died trying to find it, and I know he’d want us to have it. I’ll think of him while I…while we live the life we deserve.”