Fiona looked away. “You could always drive the other car back to Albuquerque. It’s not like we all have to be there every minute.”
“But you do?” Rosa turned toward the door.
“Well, I’m the one who got us into this. And,” she looked at Rosa directly, “I’m scared for you. Paolo Recchia scared me. He made it sound as if we’re a bunch of clueless Easterners here on a lark. That we don’t understand how nasty things can get.”
Rosa put her hand on Fiona’s arm. “It’s sweet of you to worry about me. But I’m tough as a dried-up cactus. I should be worried about you, you’re so young. C’mon, let’s go break it to the others.”
When they approached the Turquoise Trail Inn, most of the windows were dark. “Maybe they’re already in bed,” Rosa said.
“They better not be!”
“Just an impression.”
“Sorry, I guess I’m on edge. And PMS is worse when the air is thin. Just when I should be super alert, I’m not thinking straight. I don’t want to take everyone else down with me.”
Rosa looked amused. “We’re all consenting adults.”
Dominick and Greg weren’t in bed. They were in a side sitting room, the one area of the inn with no historical pretense. It had fake wood-paneled walls and furniture stuffed into too-tight floral slipcovers. There was a table stacked with battered board games and shelves of DVDs.
The two men were watching Terminator 2, focusing on the screen with the intensity of recruits watching a training film.
Greg looked over finally and gave a slow wave, and Dominick smiled. But neither of them moved toward the control to pause the film.
Fiona went over and stood in front of the large screen. “We have to talk.”
“This is the best part, right at the end,” Greg protested.
“Get a life. And not Arnold Schwarzenegger’s.” She still did not move.
“Are you this much of a pain to your boyfriend?” But he clicked the remote, and the picture disappeared.
“We can talk in my room,” Fiona said.
“Now she invites me to her room.”
“Did you find out anything?” Dominick asked her quietly as they funneled into the hall.
“I don’t know. It was interesting. I’m not into supernatural stuff, but he scared the hell out of us.”
“Really? What did he say?” For the first time, Dominick looked frightened.
Instead of answering, Fiona unlocked the door to her room and switched on the overhead light. The bed had been made, but everything else looked the same. She and Dominick sat down on the end of the bed, and Greg and Rosa took the director’s chairs.
“Did you show him the map?” Greg asked. His earlier skepticism seemed to have dissipated.
“He said it didn’t work that way. Or he doesn’t. He said we should be looking for something big. He mentioned mountains, but no town.”
Rosa brought the map out and handed it to Fiona.
“My God. There are mountains everywhere! And not that many towns.” Then something else caught her attention, something that made her feel as if she had been scooped into the air and dropped down hard. “What is the Great Sand Dunes Monument?” she demanded, lowering the map so everyone could see and pointing to a rectangular shape.
“Just what it says,” Greg told her. “It’s a little desert. You don’t expect to find it in the middle of mountains.”
But she was already turning to Rosa. “That’s what he said, that it happened near sand. I thought he was picking that up from Long Island. But it’s between here and Denver.”
Dominick gestured at the map. “There are a lot of mountains around it.”
“Mount Lindsey, Little Bear, Blanca Peak,” Greg recited without looking. “All fourteen-thousand footers.”
“But did he say what had happened there?”
Fiona shook her head. “Just to look for something big.”
“Well, it couldn’t be the plane. That landed in Denver.”
“They said it made a stop to refuel. Do you see any airports around there?”
Dominick looked at the map. “No. There’s one farther east, but it’s not that close.”
“Oh, God.” Fiona pressed against Dominick, stricken, needing his comforting bulk. “We forgot to tell you. Maggie’s father died.”
“He died? When?” Dominick’s voice was as shocked as hers had been.
“This afternoon. Or this evening.”
“This happened in New York? How old was he?”
Why did people always ask that? “It doesn’t matter. He had dementia. But he died from internal bleeding. It started this morning, and she took him to the hospital. That’s why she was never home.”
“My Lord.”
“I brought a map book of Southwestern mountains I can loan you,” Greg said suddenly. “But I need it back.”
“Why would you loan it to us?” Fiona asked. “Aren’t you coming?”
He shook his head. “Nah. What I need is right around here.”
“But in the restaurant it sounded as if you were going with us.”
“I’ll get the guidebook. I’ll show you what to look for.”
As soon as Greg was gone, Dominick asked anxiously, “Did the psychic say anything about Coral?”
Fiona and Rosa looked at each other.
“He didn’t talk about anyone specifically,” Rosa said. “He just said the people we’re looking for are together now.”
“What the hell did he mean by that? Did he think it was good or bad?”
“He didn’t say.”
“There seems to be a lot he didn’t say.”
It was uncharacteristic of Dominick to complain, but he had been stressed since leaving Taos.
“What happened at the police station?” Fiona asked.
“I don’t know why I bothered! All they did was have me file a missing person’s report, which they faxed to Taos. They took my cell number in case they find out anything. That was it.”
“But she’s just a child. What about an Amber Alert?”
“They don’t believe Eve ever put her on the plane. They thought it was impossible that Coral got on the plane and didn’t get off in Denver.”
“Did you tell them what we thought about the terrorists?”
“No.”
“No?”
He turned on Fiona, exasperated. “Because I don’t believe anything like that ever happened. I want the police to take Coral’s being gone seriously, not think I’m a whack job. Maybe I should have said she was abducted by aliens!”
“That’s very disappointing,” Rosa said quickly, before Fiona could answer. “They should have taken you much more seriously.”
Elbows on his knees, he put his head in his hands. Finally he looked up. “When Eve gets back, we’ll go to the police in Taos. That’s what I should have done.”
Greg came in then and handed Fiona a small, leather-bound guide, open to a mass of swirls. It was a thumbprint she could not hope to read. Silently she handed the book to Dominick, though she doubted he could understand it either. Then she turned on Greg. “When did you decide not to come?”
“I told you, I don’t have time. What I’m looking for is in Santa Fe. I’m not part of your little expedition.”
“But you owe it to us!”
“What? How?”
“Well, Dominick let you stay with him.” She could not think of anything else. “Please, Greg, we need you. What if we left right away and got back before noon? That would give you time to do what you have to do.”
“We can’t go now,” Dominick warned. “It’s too easy to make mistakes when you’re tired and it’s dark. We won’t be able to see anything for hours.”
In the end, they decided to get up and leave at five in the morning. And Greg agreed to go.
But as Rosa was pushing herself out of the canvas chair, she said to Greg, “Will you drive Fiona and me to my hotel? I don’t think it’s safe for us to be walking around.”
&
nbsp; When Fiona turned to stare at her, she added, “You’re not staying in here by yourself.” She gestured at the flimsy brass lock on the patio doors. “That wouldn’t stop a squirrel. You’re on the ground floor, where anyone could break in.”
“Okay.”
“You’ll come?”
Fiona saw that the others expected her to protest. So she said, “Just let me get my stuff.”
“Good girl!”
Safe girl.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE EXPLORER WAS waiting by the curb with its lights off when she and Rosa crept out of the Inn of the Kachinas at five the next morning. They climbed into the backseat, and Dominick inched out into the street. He seemed to assume that he would be doing the driving, and no one had challenged him.
As they turned the corner toward Route 64 and Dominick finally switched on the headlights, there was a surge of relief. We made it! Armed with maps, intelligence, and hope, they were on their way.
“When Coral was a little kid,” Dominick said, “Eve wouldn’t let her have any toys.”
Fiona leaned forward. She couldn’t imagine him allowing that.
“She felt that she should only have real stuff. She bought her art-store paints and a working camera, and planted vegetable seeds with her so they could watch things grow.” It was hard to tell if he was complaining or reminiscing. “From having books read to her instead of watching TV, she could read by herself at three.”
Rosa made a satisfied sound.
“But it all fell apart when she started school.”
“No doubt she was bored,” Rosa said wisely.
“When she was in first grade,” Dominick went on relentlessly, “she was invited to this birthday party, and Eve suggested she make a painting or write a poem. So she painted a picture and took it. And when she saw the presents everyone else had brought, she felt really terrible. Especially when she was given a My Little Pony and a bracelet set as a favor. Eve was furious; she wanted to yank her out of school. But that’s not the answer. You have to live in your world.”
“There’s something so pure about that though,” Fiona said. “Maybe if everybody did it . . . ”
“Yeah, but they don’t. So she gave up on Coral. ‘She’s your kid,’ she used to tell me when Coral wanted a princess costume or to eat at McDonald’s. Of course that’s past now; she’s into gymnastics.”
“Is that the Los Alamos?” Greg demanded, pointing to a road sign. They all leaned to look.
“Those were fascinating men,” Rosa said. “Misguided, eccentric, but brilliant.”
Greg turned in his seat. “They weren’t misguided. Without them we wouldn’t have the technology we do now.”
“You think you have to invent certain things before you can invent others? I mean, in a straight line?” Fiona asked. It was an interesting idea.
“Naw, it’s not that linear. A thousand people jump off a sinking ship and try to swim for land, but most of them drown. The ones who make it to an island already see things differently. Then a few of them swim to another island, and so on. But no one ever goes back to the ship.” He shrugged. “The islands are always there, waiting to be discovered.”
“So we didn’t really need Einstein.”
“Uh-uh. Someone else would have reached that island, just called it something different.”
“Oh, look at the camel!” cried Rosa.
It was a rock formation in the shape of a humped animal. Evidently it was natural; there were no concessions built around it. Across the way the Tesuque Indian Reservation was offering bingo and something called “Pull Tabs.”
Without asking anyone’s permission, Rosa pulled out her onyx cigarette holder and inserted a real cigarette, a Camel, and then fished out a matching lighter. Evidently she reserved her electronic cigarettes for public spaces.
Fiona opened her mouth to protest but then closed it again. “That’s a neat holder.”
“You’ll never guess who it belonged to.”
“Who?”
“Dorothy Parker.”
“Really?”
The flame flared briefly in the darkness, and Rosa inhaled. “Someone who knew I admired her writing gave it to me. Dorothy never got enough respect. Her ashes sat on her lawyer’s desk for years.”
“Dorothy who?” Greg asked from the front seat.
“You kids,” Rosa scolded, exhaling through her nose. “ ‘Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.’ ”
“ ‘Guns aren’t lawful, nooses give. Gas smells awful, you might as well live,’ ” Fiona agreed, then pressed her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking about—”
“No, that’s fine. One of my favorites is, ‘It serves me right for putting all my eggs in one bastard.’ Anyway,” Rosa said, addressing Greg, “Dorothy Parker was a great wit and short-story writer. She spent her last years in Hollywood working on films.”
“I didn’t know that,” Fiona said.
It was growing light outside, and she saw produce trucks loaded with melons and corn on their way to Santa Fe.
Then she closed her eyes.
FIONA WAS FINALLY awakened by a rumbling. Catty-cornered to her in the front, Greg was snoring. The noise was getting louder.
She gave her head a shake to wake up and leaned toward Dominick. “Where are we?”
“We just left Taos. I’m gonna need coffee soon.”
“Me too. Stop anywhere you see. Have you seen signs for Questa yet?”
“Believe me, there’s been nothing.”
“Look!” said Rosa. Fiona had not realized she was awake. “There’s a sign for D. H. Lawrence’s ranch. He traded the rights to Sons and Lovers for it. His ashes are up on the mountain in a chapel. Frieda was smart enough to be buried outside with a view of the valley.”
“Who’s Frieda?” Greg asked.
Both women laughed. “Go back to sleep,” Fiona advised.
“How come you know where everybody’s ashes are?” she asked Rosa.
Rosa smiled cryptically and glanced out the window. “ ‘Golden lads and lassies must, as chimney sweepers, come to dust.’ Shakespeare.”
“Pleasant thought.”
“Oh, there’s more.” But Rosa looked thoughtful and stared out the window instead.
The green-carpeted mountains that had been close to the highway started to recede as the ground flattened out. There were signs for deer and “Dangerous Crosswinds,” and several notices that ski areas were closed. Fiona could see lights going on in the houses scattered on the prairie and thought about the people inside. An ordinary Saturday morning with a list of tasks to accomplish. She envied those people.
When they came to Questa, it was no more than a collection of drowsy motels, gift shops, and a “Wash-o-Mat.” In another moment there was a sign bidding them “Via con Dios,” and they were over the Colorado line.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“SAN JACKSON—OLDEST Town in Colorado” was spelled out by white stones on a hillside. Fiona saw a mural of mules pulling a covered wagon on the side of a building, a sign for “Liquor to Go,” and that town was over. Finally, a few miles later, there was a lighted café ringed with pickups.
“There!” Fiona cried, but Dominick was already pulling into the crowded lot.
Rosa stirred and read the sign: “Powderbush Restaurant. Do we have time to go inside?”
“Might as well,” Dominick said. “We’ve got to eat.”
The Powderbush was like the luncheonettes of Lamb’s Tongue: red-vinyl chairs with aluminum-tube legs, battered maple tables, and white plastic doilies under skinny vases. Taped to the glass front door was a notice advertising a rodeo. Fiona paused at the bulletin board inside the door, which was papered with handwritten ads selling rifles, pickup trucks, and a satellite dish. The notices nearly buried a calendar of a little girl hugging a Saint Bernard.
They waited uncertainly in the doorway, breathing in the odors of disinfectant and fried food.
“Sit anywhere!
” a waitress advised them. Except for her and a family of parents with three children, the patrons were all men. Fiona felt eyes tracking them as they found a table near the crowded counter. In contrast to the ethnic mix of Santa Fe, these men all seemed Anglo, ranchers and farmers, friends who called back and forth to each other as if they were in their own homes. The only exception was a Mexican in a tan park ranger’s uniform who was hunched over coffee at the counter.
“And how are y’all this beautiful morning?” The waitress, tanned and with long golden braids, seemed younger than she had across the room. Seeing her at first, noticing her rounded stomach in jeans, Fiona had fantasized that she was a single mother trying to make ends meet. But this woman looked barely twenty.
“We don’t know yet. We need coffee,” Fiona told her.
“Coming right up! What else can I git you?”
No menus here, of course.
Dominick gave her his open smile. “What do you recommend?”
“Just whatever you want.”
“Well—how about three eggs, scrambled, and some of that bacon I keep smelling?”
“Fries with that?”
“Why not?”
Rosa, who was delicately picking the sand from her eyes with a fingernail, said she would have the same and the others agreed, though Fiona subtracted an egg and added grapefruit juice.
“Oh, honey, none of that here. Orange, tomato, papaya. And they come large or small.”
It seemed an impossible decision so early in the morning. “Orange. Small,” she said finally. Then she got up to find the restrooms. Two adjoining hollow-wood doors were labeled “Dukes” and “Duchesses,” with crowned silhouettes on toilet thrones. Inside the Duchesses was a plaque with a happy face that admonished
If you sprinkle
When you tinkle,
Please be neat
And wipe the seat!
Back at the table, she recited the poem to the others. Rosa shook her head as if at the demise of literature, but Greg grinned. “They’ve got one in the Dukes too:
No matter how
You shake or dance,
The last few drops
Go down your pants.”
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