Devil's Way Out

by Nika Dixon

  Relief slid down through Marshall’s shoulders. She was still here.

  He watched her work, awed by how out of tune she was with the world. When she’d sketched the sunset picture in the diner, he’d thought she was just ignoring everyone by choice. But seeing her sitting here in blissful ignorance of horse hooves clomping on the rocks beside her made him wonder if she wasn’t so lost in what she was doing that she really didn’t notice what was going on.

  Leaving her to finish, he followed the rocky riverbed to the water’s edge, where the jagged stump of a fallen pine tree jabbed its broken spine up into the air. An eagle circled overhead, drifting along the shoreline in lazy loops.

  A flicker of déjà vu left him wondering at the unusual sense of being on repeat.

  Then it hit him.

  The water. The sunset. The eagle. The stump.

  It was her broken-pencil drawing from the diner.

  Without having the sketch in front of him, he couldn’t be 100 percent sure, but damned if it wasn’t exactly as he remembered it, down to the rotted stump’s resemblance to a gnarled hand with an extra-long index finger. He entertained the idea of riding back to the ranch and getting the picture out of the glove box of his truck so he could compare them but pushed it aside as pure idiocy. She had never been to the ranch, or the pond, which meant there was no way she could have made such a detailed drawing of something she had never seen.

  He backed up, not getting more than a couple of feet before the angle changed enough the stump stopped looking like a hand. Perturbed, he walked forward again until the image matched exactly with what he remembered.

  The only way to see the picture as she’d drawn it would have been to be standing right where he was, at the exact moment he’d been there—to the very second.

  Because now the eagle was gone.

  A surprised squeak turned him away from the view. Emma slid off her rocky perch under the onslaught of Castor’s inquisitive head butt. She flopped onto her back on the stones, giggling as the horse bobbed his head up and down beside her.

  Rescuing her from his idiot horse, Marshall helped her to her feet. “You’re lucky the stream’s down or you’d be swimming right now.”

  She bent to gather up the pencils that had bounced onto the rock around her. “Nope. That would involve knowing how to swim.”

  “A city girl who can’t swim. Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” He picked up her sketchbook, taking a moment to study the drawing of the riverbed. He quickly matched the view with what was on paper, but it didn’t give him the same strange sense as the image of the pond and the stump had.

  He blew off the idea that the drawing could be anything other than what it was—a picture.

  Same as the one in his glove box.

  “You haven’t been waiting long, have you?” She lifted the book from his hands and stuffed it and the box of pencils into her bag.

  “Got here just now.”

  He was thankful the bad emotions he’d left her holding were gone. The corner of her mouth quirked up at his unmissed perusal of her footwear.

  “Yes, I’m still wearing them.”

  “Good.”

  “Time to go?”

  “Yup.” With Castor’s reins in one hand and her fingers in the other, he navigated them back to the flat hillside. “And this time, you ride.”

  …

  Despite Emma’s precarious position on top of a rock that made her a foot taller, she still believed Castor was far too big to try and sit on. Marshall had assured her it was perfectly safe, promising he wouldn’t let her fall, but she still held her breath when he moved the big horse closer to her side.

  “I don’t know…”

  “You’ll be fine. Now, put your hand here.” He pressed her fingers around the polished horn on the front of the saddle. Then he pointed out the spot where she was to put her left foot and told her all she needed to do was pull herself up, swing her leg over, and sit.

  “Pretty sure there’s a lot more to it than that,” she said with a scoff.

  “Nope. Not really. Now come on. Up you git.”

  She took a deep breath, then exhaled with a whoosh. She could do this. Taking a little hop, she pulled herself up, making it as far as getting her belly onto the saddle before she remembered she was supposed to do something with her leg. She tried to hoist herself up onto it the way Marshall told her, but her left foot slipped free of the foothold, leaving her dangling awkwardly across Castor’s back, staring down at the ground on the other side.

  “I don’t think this is right,” she said with a giggle. She started to slide back down to her feet, but Marshall placed his hands on her hips, keeping her in place.

  “Swing your leg over,” he prompted. “No. Your other leg.”

  She squirmed sideways until she had one leg on either side of the saddle and was thankfully facing in the right direction. She slowly pushed herself upright. “Oh, this is high up.”

  “Relax.” He pried her fingers from their panicked hold on the front of the saddle. “You don’t need to strangle it.”

  She reluctantly loosened her grip.

  Okay…maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad, after all.

  When Castor suddenly shifted his weight, she panicked, grabbing for the only stable option—Marshall. With her immediate desire to get back to the safety of the ground, she clamped her hands on his shoulders and tried to pull herself off the horse, but he hooked his arm around her to keep her in the saddle.

  She froze, her face inches from his. For a long moment, she had no sense of anything except the color of his eyes. A thousand hues of blue swirled together to give them a shade unlike any other. At some point—her past, her future, another world, another life—she would try to recreate the exact hue but would never succeed. She didn’t question how she knew, it was just a fact.

  He moved his head a tiny bit closer. “Easy,” he said softly.

  She wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or the horse. The absurdity nearly made her laugh, but the sound was caught beneath the nervous energy flowing through her, and she wasn’t at all sure it was her own.

  She slowly pushed herself off him, switching her clutching fingers from his shoulders to the saddle horn.

  He slipped his arm from her waist, leaving her sitting in the saddle, solo.

  “Ready to go home?”

  Home.

  She almost corrected him but bit it back. A home was warmth. Safety. Love. Family. Something for dreams and memories. Her one true home had died with her mother all those years ago.

  She’d long since given up believing in the word.

  Then again…

  Thinking of her future yellow house, she clung to the hope that he wasn’t wrong. Maybe she really was going home—just not yet. And not here.

  And likely not on horseback.

  She smiled at her own joke and nodded. “Let’s go home.”

  He tugged Castor forward. When she gasped at the sudden lurch, he placed a reassuring hand on her knee. “Relax. I won’t let you fall.”

  Gazing at the man walking beside her, she let another lost emotion sneak into her heart.

  Trust.

  Her smile widened, and she let the adventure take hold and carry her away.

  Parched for knowledge, she pestered her escort with questions all the way back to the barn. How did they keep the saddles from falling off? How did Castor know which way to turn? What kind of food did horses eat? Every curiosity that popped into her head was fair game, even though she knew she wasn’t going to remember a single thing other than the fact that, for the first time in her life, she, Emmaline Katz, was riding a horse.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Rain’s comin’,” Hank announced, leaning back in his chair and taking a healthy swig of his whiskey.

  Marshall joined his father on the back porch. He didn’t really need to be told the dark-bottomed clouds covering up the sunset were an omen of wet weather, but he agreed, anyway. “Looks like.�
�

  He lowered himself into one of the wooden chairs, rocked back onto the rear legs, and folded his hands over his stomach, enjoying the caress of the cool evening air.

  A squeal of laughter from behind them had him glancing at his father in amusement. Marshall peered over his shoulder at the kitchen window. Tinkerbell was perched on the outside windowsill, attacking soap bubbles through the screen with her front paws. Inside, Emma and Lucy were supposed to be washing the dinner dishes, but there seemed to be more attention put on playing with the cat than the actual cleaning of plates.

  Marshall was finding it more and more difficult to keep himself from smiling every time Emma laughed. Truth be told, he missed hearing a woman’s laughter in the house. His mother had been the optimistic one, forever pulling a smile out of you no matter how down you were. He always figured it was where Danny had gotten his disarming nature, while Marshall’d been saddled with his father’s snark and sarcasm.

  There had been a time when he’d thought that Michelle’s laugh was the prettiest sound in the universe. The way she would tip her head, shaking out her silky blond hair when she found something that amused her. But he couldn’t remember if she’d ever become so hysterically silly as what was going on at the window behind him. Oh, sure, she would smile at his niece’s jokes or giggle behind her hand if she found something Lucy did funny, but she would never let go with such abandon that forming words was an issue, as was happening behind him.

  “It’ll be breakfast before those two get finished,” Hank muttered.

  This time Marshall did laugh. His father had never been one to allow shenanigans when there was work to be done, but when it came to his granddaughter, all the steel-bound rules flew out the window like soap bubbles.

  “Maybe you should go inside and show them how it’s done,” Marshall suggested.

  “You saying I haven’t done my share of dishes, boy?”

  “I’m sure Lucy can find you an apron. Maybe one to match the ribbons in your hair?”

  “You know you’re not too old for me to tan your hide.”

  “You’d have to put down your whiskey first.”

  Hank took a drink from the glass in his hand with a grunt. “True.”

  Without warning, a massive, furry blur cannonballed around the corner of the house and up the deck stairs in a clomping flurry. Hank barely had time to lift his glass out of the way before 120 pounds of boisterous retriever-shepherd mix was bouncing between his knees.

  Behind him, Tink yowled and hissed. She leaped off the windowsill and raced for the shadows on the far end of the porch. Ignoring the fleeing feline, the dog flopped down onto his back and curled his paws into the air.

  Marshall grinned at the goofy fur ball.

  Danny walked around the corner of the house and stopped, resting his boot on the bottom step. “Sam’s here.”

  “Ya think?” Hank said drily, giving Sam’s dog a boisterous belly rub. “Hey, Drift.”

  The reason why Sam would be visiting washed over Marshall faster than a leap into the icy pond. He’d told his brother about Emma’s slip of the tongue—she wasn’t a wayward traveler down on her luck, she was running from a man who scared the hell out of her.

  Danny had promised he and Sam would do some digging.

  They must have found something.

  Marshall hopped to his feet.

  Drift flipped over onto his paws and, in a single leap, jumped into the vacated seat. Placing his front paws on the kitchen windowsill, he let out a loud woof, which was immediately echoed by startled screams inside the kitchen.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, you stupid mutt?” Hank tried to drag the dog down off the chair, but Drift wasn’t having anything of it. He fought the pull and started frantically licking the window screen like it was a tasty snack treat.

  Marshall wasn’t sure how to explain what he didn’t understand himself. After his horse’s behavior earlier and their cat’s odd affinity for following Emma around like puppy, watching Drift on the furniture happily licking a soapy screen didn’t really seem all that unusual.

  A sharp whistle echoed through the air.

  Drift barked again, the deep sound nearly drowned out by Lucy’s laughter. Then the dog jumped off the chair with such force it slammed the wooden frame back against the outside wall. Without pause, Drift launched himself off the deck. He didn’t use the steps, choosing to skip them in a giant leap. The dog hit the ground running and careened back around the side of the house toward the front as though being chased by the devil himself. Happily, because his tail was wagging the entire time.

  Hank brushed traces of white fur off his jeans. “I swear that dog only knows zero or a hundred.”

  A clanking commotion inside was quickly accompanied by a sharp “Ow!” then a pause before, “Grandpa? Where’s the Band-Aids?”

  “Saw that comin’,” Hank said with a snort, chugging the last of his whiskey. “You go talk to Sam,” he told Marshall. “I’ve got this.” He opened the patio door. “If you two were messing around—”

  Another bellow of laughter came from the dishwashers along with comments of how it was all the dog’s fault.

  Marshall followed Danny around to the side of the house to wait for the arrival of the lone horse and rider coming across the field. Drift had returned at his owner’s whistle and was now loping alongside.

  It wasn’t unusual for Sam to make an appearance at the ranch. The three of them had been best friends since childhood, which meant Sam had spent almost as much time at the Boyers’ as he had his own neighboring property. Being Danny’s deputy also gave Sam cause to stop by regularly, but tonight the visit carried an added level of tension, since whatever news Sam had was directly related to Emma.

  When he reached the fence, Sam hopped off his horse, looping the reins over a post. He put his fingers to his lips and blew a sharp whistle, calling for Drift, who was headed for the back of the house at full speed. Sam had to call him twice more before the dog finally obeyed, loping back to them. He scolded the dog for running off, then ordered him to sit.

  Drift sat. Stood. Moved closer to the fence. Sat again. Then changed positions and lay down with a sad and pitiful whine, his head on his paws while he stared under the fence at the ranch house.

  “That damn dog is all sorts of crazy today,” Sam muttered.

  Marshall snorted and glanced at Danny, who was grinning.

  “What?” Sam asked, looking between them warily.

  Marshall shook his head. No way he was going to try and explain it when he didn’t even understand it himself.

  “What did you find out?” Danny asked Sam.

  “Not a hell of a lot. No one matching her description has been reported missing recently. Do you think she’s using her real name?”

  The question caught Marshall by surprise. He hadn’t even considered she might not be using her own name. “You call out ‘Emma’ and she looks, no hesitation.”

  Danny bobbed his head in agreement. “Last name, maybe. First name is right. She’s certainly keeping secrets, but I get the feeling it’s survival, not deception.”

  Sam looked at Marshall. “She said she had no family?”

  “That’s what she said. No family. No friends.” The thought still irked him. Where on God’s green earth did she think she was going with no money, no clothes, no shoes, and no one to call for help?

  Sam’s frown deepened. “You’d think someone would have noticed she was gone.”

  “Unless someone doesn’t want her found,” Danny suggested. “Or they might have to try and explain why.”

  “Well, I checked the bus station in Pikes Falls. No one remembers a woman in a yellow dress, but they sure as hell remember Georgie. Seems the old bird is there every other Thursday after bingo asking when the bus from St. Louis is coming in so she can pick up her daughter, Etta May.”

  “I assume Georgie was waiting for the St. Louis bus this time, too?” Danny said.

  “There was a transfer
bus from St. Louis coming in right about then, but also ones from Salt Lake, Denver, and Minneapolis. Remember, we’re dealing with Georgie. Emma could have gotten off a bus from Timbuktu and Georgie would have seen Etta May from St. Louis no matter what.”

  Marshall’s hope that Sam might have come up with a clue faded. Emma’s travel plans were needle-in-a-haystack territory. “Any way we can narrow it down?”

  “Well, there might be,” Sam answered with a slow nod. “You remember Davey Wilston?”

  Davey Wilston was a name Marshall hadn’t heard in years. Growing up, the hawk-nosed, skinny kid had been bait for every school bully to torment…until it was discovered the brainy nerd had one of the best pitching arms this side of Pikes Falls. Suddenly, little Davey had become everyone’s best friend.

  But their seventh-grade starting pitcher had moved away from Absolution years ago. “Thought he lived in Arkansas?”

  “He did. He’s in Pikes Falls now. Married with four rug rats. Runs one of those high-tech computer companies. Guess all those straight As paid off. Could put my entire place inside the guy’s living room. Anyway. I guess he and Bailey are buds or something. He’s the one Bailey’s been getting all his don’t-worry-Sheriff-I-got-it-for-free, high-end computer stuff from.”

  Danny rolled his eyes. “Well, at least he’s not stealing it from the high school.”

  “You thought he was stealing electronics from the high school?” Sam asked with a grin.

  “It crossed my mind. What did Davey say?”

  “Well, apparently all the public transit spots in Pikes Falls are using some new security system that records video of the arrivals and departures. Davey’s company manages it all. He wasn’t too keen on searching through it without a warrant, but I told him we could get one from Judge Farrington when he gets back from his fishing trip tomorrow night. So he’s going to let me know if he finds anything. Says we’ll owe him one down the line.”

  Marshall bobbed his head in full agreement with the deal. If Davey could help, he would gladly owe the man a future favor. “How soon will he have something?”

  “First thing in the morning,” Sam replied. “If we can get a bead on where she’s been, we can start looking into police reports, hospital reports, disturbance calls.”