He stared at her as if she’d turned into a stranger. “You want to buy gun.”
Did he need to act like the axis of the Earth had tilted? Before he could ask any questions, which she didn’t want to answer, Ariel said, “I’ve had time to think about it and I’ve concluded my attitude was wrong. You taught me that they’re not just instruments of death and destruction, but that they can scare away trouble and call for help at the same time.” She tried to smile with confidence, but her stomach kept flip-flopping.
He leaned forward and studied her. She felt the flush of unsaid truths burn its way up her neck. “Have you gotten over your aversion to guns?”
“Do I have to do that to buy one?”
“If you buy it, you live with it.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. Would she become what she hated and feared if she bought the weapon? Lord, what a mess her life was becoming.
“What sort of weapon were you thinking of purchasing?”
“One with a loud enough bang to scare a bear and call help.”
The corners of his lips twitched. “Then you definitely don’t want a handgun. A rifle would have the stopping power you’d need if the bear didn’t scare-“
“If it didn’t run, I don’t think I could shoot it, so that wouldn’t matter.”
“Understood.”
“Then you’ll help me choose one?”
“What time frame were you looking at?”
“Next weekend?”
He shook his head. “Next Friday I’m heading down to Valdez and Dolly.” His lady friend. A lump formed in Ariel’s throat. Stone furrowed his brow. “How about tomorrow after four?”
“That works for me.”
“Excellent.”
“Sherry! You’ll never guess!” Tempest hurtled down the stairs and lunged into the living room. “Aunt Kelsey and Uncle Devlin had a baby boy! They named him Matthew and call him Mick. He’s almost two feet tall and weighs seven pounds nine ounces! Isn’t that exciting?” Ariel nodded. “I mean he’s just been born! Uncle Devlin called grandma on her cell phone while we were talking. He was still at the hospital.”
Stone straightened up. Tempest jumped, then shifted from foot to foot and looked guilty of seven kinds of sin. “Oh! Hi. Did you find Electra?” He nodded. Tempest gave him a Cheshire cat smile. “I was gonna go back out and look for her after I got done talking to Elizabeth.”
Stone cocked his head. “You call your grandmother Elizabeth?”
“It makes her think she’s younger.”
He chuckled and looked at Ariel. Before he could ask any more questions, Ariel said, “How’s Jade doing?”
“Fine. Ariel, can we get the baby a present?”
“We’ll figure out something later. We don’t want to bore Stone with girl talk.”
“Goody!” Tempest skipped out of the room and she was left alone with Stone’s interested expression and a life to hide.
Chapter 14
Stone poured a jigger of Scotch, then sat down on the sofa. Cradling the glass in his hands, he studied the News Miner’s front page story, where a banner-headline compared Alaska’s murder and suicide rates. For some reason, the topic made him think of Ariel and her about-face on guns. Had the article spurred her change of heart? Was Ariel being honest about why she wanted a rifle? She had seemed genuinely terrified of weapons, a situation, which he had initially attributed to her stepfather’s coarseness, but had later modified to include abuse from her ex-husband.
Tempest had sounded terrified of her father, and from what she’d said and her tone of voice, he’d deduced that she’d recently seen the man. What if Ariel wanted to learn to shoot so she could murder her ex?
Stone’s stomach clenched.
If that was her plan and he taught her how to use a rifle, could he be considered an accessory? Stone downed the contents of his glass in one gulp. It burned its way halfway to his stomach before he started coughing. Liquor surged back up burning his throat and nasal passages. He hurried to the kitchen, turned the water on full force and drank straight from the tap.
By the time his eyes stopped watering, he’d determined that since Ariel’s ex was an abuser, he probably had a criminal history. Therefore, the law enforcement files should have a record of him.
Stone propped his hip against the kitchen counter, picked up the phone and punched in his sister’s number.
“Hello.” Windy’s sunny voice sounded like Texas heat.
“Hey.”
“Stone! This is a surprise…. What's wrong?”
He should try to keep in better touch and not wait until he wanted a favor. “Is there some law that says shit has to hit the fan before I phone my favorite sister?”
She chuckled. “So, what’s wrong?”
And some people wondered why the FBI had been so eager to hire her. “Link and I have a new tenant and certain – things – about her don’t jive with my gut feeling.” Windy made an interested sound. “Would you do a background check on her and her ex?”
“What’s it worth to you?” The childhood love of negotiating tinged her tone.
Stone rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “What do you want?”
“Brit and I are planning a big party for the folk’s anniversary. We want you to be there.”
“When?”
“Third weekend in August.”
“Done.” He’d planned to be there, anyway, all he needed to do was tweak the date he arrived. “How much do I need to send for my share?”
“I’ll tell you later.” Windy sounded disappointed at achieving such an easy victory. “Give me the particulars. Let’s start with the name.”
“Ariel Danner.” He frowned. “But her kid often calls her Sherry.”
“Cheri? Are they French or something?”
“Maybe … they do have a faint accent.” He shrugged. “I never thought about it.”
“Perhaps you should.”
“Yeah.” By the time Stone hung up, he realized how few facts he knew about Ariel and how much emotional frustration he felt. Why did he have such a strong feeling that he needed to protect her?
~0~
As soon as the door closed behind Stone, Ariel headed toward the basement door, but paused when Tempest asked, “When are we gonna go shopping for the baby?”
The only thing Ariel wanted to do was kick-box until she was black and blue, but she paused and turned to her sister. “Do you realize that you called me Sherry in front of Stone?”
“I did?” Ariel nodded. “When you were coming down the stairs.” Tempest scrunched up her face. “Then how come you didn’t say anything?”
“Calling you on it would only have brought his attention to it. You really must listen to yourself and -”
“Think before I open my mouth.” Tempest finished with a sigh. “I know, but knowing is easy and doing is really, really hard.”
Some of the tension ebbed out of her muscles. “How would you like to live in mountains?”
Tempest stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “You think we hav’ta run just because I goofed up and-“ Ariel shook her head. “I’m not talking about moving soon – we aren’t even finished unpacking.” She hadn't even hung the painting of the two white calla lilies, which was her favorite and always made her feel as if she was finally home. “But I thought that now would be the time to preplan our next move.” Tempest plopped down on a stair step and looked dejected. “I really like it here.”
“Me, too.”
“Mountains are okay, so’s the beach. I didn’t like the plains, though, they were flat and boring.”
“I want the next move to be our last.”
“We’ve wanted that for how many moves?” Tempest’s laugh sounded suspiciously like a sob. “It’s no wonder I can’t remember your name. Some days I can’t even remember my own.”
Ariel nodded in agreement. “But it takes him ten times longer to track us when we get our names changed.”
Tempest’s eyes held unshed tears. “H
ow soon will we have’ta move?”
“I’m not certain, but until now, all of our relocations have been panicked escapes after he found us. What I have in mind is pre-planning the next move so we can do it right and not leave a trail.”
“How’ll doing it slow make things any different? One way or the other, he’ll just find us, again.”
“Every time we run, we follow a pattern. We hang onto things we love and keep in touch with –“
“That’s why you asked Grandma how she’d like a parrot!” Mozart squawked and flapped his wings. “You want to get rid of him! And what about Grandma? Are we gonna lose her, too?”
“Not if we do this right.”
Tempest eyed her suspiciously.
Ariel wet her lips and tried to organize her thoughts. “Okay, we’re pretty sure that he found us in Kansas because he taped phone calls Elizabeth received and our Topeka number was the only new one.” Tempest nodded. “So, what if we weren’t so quick to call? What if we wrote her letters instead?”
“You mean actual paper ones with stamps and everything?”
“Yes. It’s so old fashioned he might not think we’d use them.”
“You don’t think he bribes her mailman?”
“If he didn’t, I'd be shocked … What I’m getting at is we find ways to break the old patterns that didn’t work.”
“Not keep Mozart.” Tempest ticked the items off on her fingers. “Not make phone calls or use skype. Not keep the same name and hair. Not use charge cards.”
“Not stay on this continent and don’t use our current identities or real passports to leave it.” Leave absolutely everything behind... particularly Peter.
“But how?”
“If we pose as illegal immigrants trying to enter this country, Customs officers might just escort us out.”
“Sherry! That’s brilliant! But Canada is still North America.”
“So we get to the Lower 48, as Stone calls them, and go into Texas, Arizona, California or maybe New Mexico. Once there, I figure we can pose as illegal Mexicans and Customs will take us back. Then, we head south to maybe Brazil or somewhere.”
“How’re we gonna convince anyone we’re Mexican? Our Spanish is terrible. Last time we were in Madrid, you thought you ordered Red Snapper and ended up with tripe.”
Ariel grimaced at the memory. “Guess we’d better start learning Spanish and Portuguese.”
“Huh?”
“They speak Portuguese in Brazil.”
“Can’t we just go to a country that speaks Spanish? I don’t want to learn two languages.”
“Fine. How about Costa Rica?” Ariel asked.
Tempest frowned. “How come Costa Rica?”
“They speak Spanish. I’ve heard the cost of living is lower and if we settle in a rural area, where there isn’t much technology and that minimizes his chances of finding us.”
“I like Jennifer Lopez. Could our last name be Lopez?”
“Sure, but you’d better pick out a different first name.
Ariel studied Tempest, as she gazed at Mozart. If Peter had been the oilman he’d portrayed himself as instead of an assassin, she’d have finished her doctorate and Tempest would have a normal life with a yard full of pets.
“Grandma is gonna worry herself sick when we disappear and don’t tell her.”
“If we enclose a detailed letter to her with the baby’s gift, she’d know what we were doing and not worry.”
“Ooooh … then we can get them something! Is that what you and Uncle Stone are gonna go shopping for tomorrow?”
Ariel winced. “No. He’s going to help me find a good rifle then teach me to shoot it.”
“You’re kidding!” Ariel shook her head. Tempest stared at her, eyes wide. “Are you gonna kill Father?”
“Dear Lord, I hope not. I hope I never see him and if I do, I'd never want to be like him.”
Tempest got up and stuffed her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “I want to learn to shoot, too. And I’m not going to lie about why.”
“I’m not lying. We don’t know what kind of dangers we’ll find in Costa Rica and we have to cross all of Mexico to get there. I’ve heard there are all kinds of criminals in Mexico.”
“So you’re willing to shoot them, but not Father?”
“Actually, I’m hoping not to shoot anyone. Stone taught me how to fire three shots into the ground to summon help and he said it usually scared off bears and stuff, too.”
“Sherry, don’t lie to yourself or me. You know we hate Father. You know we’d be better off with him dead.”
“Not if we went to jail for killing him.”
“He’s killed bunches of people, but no one ever caught him.”
Ariel sighed and sat down on the stair step. “You really want to live with murder on your conscious?”
She started to nod, then got an odd expression on her face and sighed. “No, I guess not.”
“Me, either.”
Tempest perched next to her. Ariel put her arm around her sister’s thin shoulders. Tempest nestled close to her and said, “Know what I wish? I wish Mama had never met Father. If she hadn’t ever met him, he’d never have fallen for her or killed your dad.”
“We don’t know for a fact he did that.” Tempest looked at her as if she was a moron. “We can’t change the past. And if they had never gotten together, I’d probably never have a sister.”
“I hadn’t thought about that ... I'd have liked to have your dad for mine.”
“I wish you could have, too.”
“Did you like Father when you first met him?”
“I was too young to remember and he was just ‘some adult’, who had something to do with my dad’s work.” Ariel sighed. “Over the years, he started coming around more and more.” She frowned as she remembered the way he’d always seemed to swagger into their home, acting like he owned it. She gritted her teeth, even as a toddler, she’d never liked Peter. “I don’t remember if Mama paid much attention to him. I do remember that after dad died, she cried a lot and we had some really bad money problems. That’s when Peter started taking care of everything and worming himself deep into our life.” Ariel had wanted to help. She’d given her mother every penny she’d saved from her allowance, but there was only so much a kid could do. What her mother had needed was the life insurance, but the insurance company had claimed that the policy was invalid because there was suspicion that her dad’s accident had been a suicide.
Tempest snorted. “Mama should have known what Father was really like.”
“Should’a, could’a, would’a … we can’t change the past or the fact that Mama liked having a man in charge.” Ariel patted Tempest’s shoulder. “That’s one reason why I’ve never wanted to be dependent on anyone else.”
Tempest nodded in agreement.
Chapter 15
The glassy eyes of the buffalo seemed to sparkle with malicious intent as Stone ushered Ariel into the gun shop. He escorted her down the corridor of glass cases filled with knives and brass knuckles on her left; ninja stars and weird metal playing cards on her right. Behind the corridor of glass counters, one wall supported archery equipment and targets, while another was plastered with posters of bleeding animals and taxidermy specimens. She gave an involuntary shudder. The Marquis de Sade would have loved this shop.
Every step took her one pace closer to the huge buffalo head. Though its horns were a scant foot short of the twelve-foot ceiling, its nose hovered over the clerk’s curly red hair.
Stone gestured to the left of the buffalo. “We’d like to see one of those.”
The red head nodded. For the first time, since she’d entered the store, Ariel noticed that racks of rifles flanked the buffalo. She leaned heavily against the end case and looked down. This part of the U-shaped case displayed handguns.
She straightened. Her breath came too fast and sweat dampened her back, causing her shirt to cling. This place was bad as the snake house at the zoo… Worse than
Peter’s hunting blind… Almost as bad as facing Peter, himself.
The clerk spread a thick white towel on top of the glass display case then, with a lingering caress, laid the double-barrel shotgun on top of it. Ariel’s skin crawled.
“Well, what do you think?” Stone said.
That it looks like two snakes lounging on a polished bit of wood. She shrugged, afraid to voice her true thoughts.
Stone picked it up and held it to her. “Try it out for weight and balance.”
Her stomach churned. Ariel forced a smile. “If you think this one will be okay, I’ll take it.”
The clerk blinked. “An excellent choice.” He nodded toward the back wall. “Will you be needing ammunition?”
Ariel eyed the weapon. “I suppose it wouldn’t be any better than a baseball bat without some.”
“What type would you like?” The clerk grinned at her, his syrupy sweet demeanor making her certain he worked on commission.
Helplessly, she looked up at Stone. He said, “A brick of buck-shot and one of magnums.”
If the salesman smiled any wider, his jaw might break. He handed her a sheaf of papers and a pen. “Fill these out.” He then opened a lower cupboard and chose two boxes.
Ariel turned her back so she blocked out the awful glass eyes, then focused on filling out the forms. Still, it was impossible to block out Stone, who’d folded his arms and was leaning a hip against the display case next to her. He was so close that she could feel his heat from shins to shoulders. She glanced his way. Though he appeared to be studying the knives in a nearby case, she had the distinct feeling he was more interested in what she was writing. She hunched farther over the questionnaire. Stone moved away. When everything was complete, she handed the paperwork back to the redhead.
“Cash or charge?”
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