California Girl

by Rice, Patricia

  Elliot hadn’t asked her for the Route 66 directions. The time for side trips had passed.

  “The colors aren’t as spectacular as back East. You should see New England in October.” He spoke with calm assurance but continued checking his mirrors as well as the traffic around him. She watched his jaw tense, and her nervous stomach performed a flip-flop.

  Alys checked the side mirror. All she could see was interstate traffic. She watched Elliot, but he didn’t look at her. “Do you see anything ?” she asked, keeping her voice casual while digging around in the map bag she’d hung over the headrest.

  “Can’t tell for certain. The road’s full of semis.”

  She glanced over her shoulder. It was almost impossible to see clearly through the pickup and camper windows. “Should I drive next?” The interstate signs indicated the Santa Fe exit ahead. She should have thought of driving earlier, but she’d had horrendous fears of attacks on snowy mountain roads and had willingly acknowledged Elliot’s expertise.

  “No.” He didn’t offer explanation.

  The cell phone rang, and they both looked at it as if it someone had dropped a burning torch in their midst.

  Alys grabbed it first. “Hello.”

  “Alys! Thank goodness. We’ve been worrying ourselves to death. Where are you? Is everything all right?”

  “Mame! We’re fine. We’re just turning off the road into Santa Fe. Where are you? Can we meet you somewhere?”

  Elliot stuck out his hand for the phone, but Alys refused to relinquish it. He needed to concentrate on driving.

  “We’re in Albuquerque, near Balloon Fiesta Park. I’ve found Jock. Dulce’s frantic about Lucia. Could you put her on?”

  Remembering the name from the conversation last night, Alys held the phone to Lucia’s ear. “Your aunt wants to speak with you. Say hi.”

  She could tell Elliot was about to shoot the roof off again, but he had his hands full in the traffic at the bottom of the exit ramp. Mame sounded fine. If he could drive around without doctors and hospitals, so could his aunt.

  Lucia listened carefully, brightened, and began to chatter cheerfully in Spanish. The aunt’s excitement at her chatter came through clearly. When Lucia halted, Alys took the phone back. “Dulce?”

  A soft contralto answered. “Yes, Mrs. Seagraves. It is wonderful to hear Lucia talking again. I would hear how you did it.”

  “Long story involving her bisabuelo. First, tell me, how is Mame? We’re worried sick about her.”

  “She is resting. I think she is ready to go with you when you arrive. But we think it may be better if you meet us at the reservation.”

  “Why?” Alys could hear the concern in Dulce’s voice, but they hit a patch of static and she couldn’t ask more.

  “It is not safe here,” Dulce was saying when her voice came back in. “There may be…bad men looking for us. Mame thinks her friend Jock will take care of her, but I am calling my mother to take me to the reservation. It is not safe for Lucia until we know more. If you could keep her…”

  “Tell us what’s happening so we know what to expect,” Alys urged.

  “We don’t know for sure. Lucia’s grandfather . . . we think he has men looking for us. They know our car. We hid it last night . . . ” Static drowned out the rest of the sentence. When she came back in again, she was saying, “If anyone recognizes Lucia . . . ” More static. “ . . . do not bring her just yet.”

  Alys bit her lip in frustration. The signal was growing weaker. “I think they’ve seen her,” she yelled back. “I think they’re following us. We’re not—” She glared at the cell phone. “It’s dead.”

  Elliot jerked the phone adapter from the cigarette lighter hole, rummaged around for the lighter, and plugged it in. “The lighter doesn’t work. We weren’t recharging the phone’s batteries. I should have kept it plugged into Beulah.”

  Lucia swung her head back and forth, her braid flying, taking in every word that they spoke. Alys couldn’t scream her frustration or cry her fear. “We don’t even know how to reach them.”

  “Do we need to?”

  She hated adding any more worries on his plate, but he had to know all that she did. “Eventually. Mame’s with her old boyfriend and thinks all is fine.”

  “Boyfriend?” Elliot turned to stare.

  Alys chose not to share and continued. “Dulce seems less certain. She’s calling in her family.” She smiled for Lucia’s benefit. “Your aunt is planning a party. We need to give her a little time to call everyone.”

  How much time should they delay? What could Dulce and Mame be planning?

  She and Mame had intended to take a walking tour of Santa Fe, but that wouldn’t distract a child. Remembering the tourist attractions she’d just read about in the guidebook, she rummaged in the bag for it. “I know, we can see the Children’s Museum! That will give them time to prepare a party.”

  “I don’t think she has any idea what a museum is,” Elliot said, checking the side-view mirror and steering into the traffic, evidently dismissing his earlier question for something of greater importance. “I’m going to get us a little turned around while you consult the map.”

  Alys glanced over her shoulder again, but it was still impossible to see out the back. Her window mirror was broken. Frustrated, she consulted the guide book for an address and the map for a location, as if this were really just a pleasure outing. “The road off the interstate takes us right past the museum.”

  “Sorry about that.” He swung the wheel hard to the right, into a residential neighborhood. “We’re taking a side trip first.”

  She swallowed a gulp of fear and clutched the guidebook. “We need a compass. If we keep going north, we could see the old part of town.” She was talking like a tourist while he was driving like a maniac. Denial was the better part of valor, she decided.

  “I have an excellent sense of direction. Tell me if you see a good place to eat.” With that, he took another quick turn and merged into a busy intersection with a heavy flow of traffic.

  He wasn’t eating Tums or rubbing his chest. Alys had to take that as a good sign. She had no other choice. Hospitals were out of the question if the bad guys were on their trail again.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “I’d give anything for my Rover right now,” Elliot muttered, swinging the truck into the heavy traffic of a major Santa Fe artery, ignoring the assortment of semis barreling past. “I think I’ve lost them, but keep an eye out for a car rental agency and somewhere that might have a place to recharge the phone.”

  That sounded like an excellent idea to Alys. Just precisely what kind of men did Lucia’s grandfather have on their trail if even Lucia’s aunt was afraid of them?

  They located a car rental agency first. Telling Lucia to stay seated, Alys hopped from the old truck when Elliot climbed out.

  “Are we still being followed?” she demanded to know.

  “I don’t know for certain. A semi with a purple cab fell in behind us in Las Vegas, but I haven’t seen them since we took that little detour. I think we need a faster car, one where we can plug in the phone. I’ll charge it up while I’m talking with the agent, and hopefully that will give us enough to check voice mail just in case Mame calls again.”

  He strode off, in full command of the situation, while Alys shook in her shoes. She cautiously glanced around for a semi, and seeing none, returned to the pickup. Snapping on Purple’s leash, she helped both the cat and Lucia out of the cab.

  “Let’s see if we can guess which car he’ll choose,” she told the child, gauging the lot behind the agency to be safer than the street.

  Lucia didn’t think this a strange occupation, and she happily danced along beside Alys, admiring the bright red of one car and her reflection in a shiny black SUV while Alys checked to see if they could be seen from the street.

  She hated this. People had almost killed them yesterday. Those same people were still out there. Even having some suspicion of why they were being
followed didn’t ease her terror.

  Had yesterday’s drivers known Lucia was in the car? Or had they been told to stop them any way they could? Surely they had just been hoping to frighten them into pulling off the road.

  Keeping a vigilant eye, Alys could see only a few sprawling shopping centers along this road. She didn’t think they were big enough to get lost in. Santa Fe was too broad and open through this stretch. Maybe they needed to find an airport and just fly away.

  She kept an eye on Elliot through the rental company’s big picture window. He looked relaxed and confident as the clerk completed the paperwork. Would she have thought of renting another car?

  No, because she didn’t have that kind of money. Maybe Elliot’s confidence came from having sufficient funds to pay for whatever he needed.

  She tried again to think of a mantra that included “peace,” but the only one she could summon under these conditions was Give peace a chance. That didn’t cut it. She might as well choose Give peas a chance. Or give pizza chants. She was getting hysterical again.

  Both Lucia and Purple were straining at the bit by the time Elliot loped out to the lot in search of them.

  “I’ve called the number Sam gave us to tell him where he can find his truck. The agent is pulling our car around so we can load her up.”

  To Alys’s surprise Elliot bent over and kissed her—hard, right there in the lot where everyone could see.

  As if he hadn’t done anything unusual, he picked up Lucia, tickled her, and started for the street. Alys grabbed the kitten and followed, her lips still tingling from the kiss. That hadn’t been a kiss of lust, but one of affection and appreciation. She could easily get used to kisses like that. It had been a very long time since someone had showed her affection, and her lonely heart clung to the sentiment.

  Elliot hadn’t rented a shiny new SUV but a nondescript white Taurus sedan that barely held their suitcases. She couldn’t imagine that it had any of the power of Beulah, but it would certainly blend into traffic as well as the old pickup. Better. And it had tinted windows.

  “The museum’s back through town.” Elliot buckled Lucia into a child’s seat and handed her the backpack to rummage through. “The cell won’t charge while the car is parked, so I’m leaving it plugged into the office outlet. We have to come back this way when we head for the interstate anyway.”

  “How will we know when they’re ready for us in Albuquerque?” Alys murmured, climbing into the front passenger seat.

  “I vote we leave here as soon as we’re done in the museum. The way things have been working out, we could probably hide down there as easily as here.” Elliot drew his hand through her hair, leaned in the car to kiss her nose, and shut the door.

  The day wasn’t hot, but Alys felt warm right down to her toes.

  Feeling a little safer, she appreciatively sniffed the new-car smell and buckled up, checking on Lucia and the kitten in the backseat. With the cooler weather, Purple should be comfortable if they left him in here for a little while.

  Elliot drove out of the lot. She’d quit fighting him for the keys. They would probably never see each other again after today, so the fight seemed purposeless. She tried to imagine driving off into the sunset, seeing the sights on her own, but she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. She had a whole future ahead of her to be alone. She might as well enjoy this moment. Opening the local map, she directed him to the road for the Children’s Museum.

  “We won’t need that. Watch.” Elliot pressed a few buttons on a small monitor fastened to the car’s dash.

  Alys watched in amazement as a street map appeared and a computerized voice announced, “Proceed to route and turn right.”

  “I rented a GPS,” Elliot said in satisfaction. “Can’t live without one.”

  “It’s amazing! I wouldn’t need a map anywhere.” She studied the tiny computer as it flashed maps and talked them through Santa Fe, back to the highway they’d come in on. “I could be a traveling salesman with one of these!”

  Elliot laughed and steered down the street from the museum to locate a parking place. “You’d have to learn how to lie if you wanted to sell anything.”

  They filled Purple’s water and food dishes and left her to explore the new car. Lucia carried her camera but was persuaded to leave her backpack behind. Alys knew Elliot was memorizing every vehicle around them as they walked parking lots and alleys to the museum, staying out of sight as much as possible. His alertness frightened her. At the same time, his willingness to look out for them warmed her already mushy heart.

  As they wandered through the museum, Alys continued to remind herself that Elliot would be gone tomorrow, that this was only a memory she could store away to bring out in the lonely nights ahead. Perhaps she ought to work in a restaurant in the evenings so she had lots of company and little time to be lonely.

  He held her hand while they watched Lucia diligently design her own motif on the loom. She was a bright, active child who sparkled and chatted when she felt safe. The arrival of other children drove her back to watchful silence.

  “I can’t believe anyone would want to harm her,” Alys murmured a while later as Lucia held back to watch a group of rowdy toddlers tumbling over the climbing structure.

  “I’m not certain the drivers intend harm. From the sounds of it, the old guy just wants his own way and will stoop to anything to get it. His drivers may be a little rough and out of control.” Elliot stooped down beside Lucia and showed her how to aim the camera to catch a picture of a rabbit.

  Fascinated but subdued, Lucia held his hand as they walked to the next area. He’s good with children, Alys thought, then shook her head to get the thought out of it again. This was just a break from his usual routine. Driven men were not good with children.

  Dead men were even worse with children.

  Her mind unexpectedly rejected that equation. Mame had the same heart problem, and she was still living after raising three boys.

  Her real problem was a fear of attachments that could so easily be torn apart by circumstances. Her head said she couldn’t handle that kind of loss again.

  The problem was that her heart knew no fear.

  Walking the roundabout road back to the car after leaving the museum, Alys recognized the instant Elliot tensed again. Surreptitiously, she checked over her shoulder, but the sidewalk held numerous pedestrians, and without a purple truck, she didn’t know what else to look for.

  “Back to the car,” he murmured, with a hand at the base of her spine, hurrying her toward a side street before he scooped up Lucia and followed.

  Alys checked over her shoulder again. This time, she saw a surly-looking Hispanic man in a soiled baseball cap increasing his pace behind them. Across the street, she noticed an equally untouristy man in denim shirt with a cell phone at his ear cutting diagonally across the intersection.

  Taking the lead, she dodged behind an office building and through a parking lot, knowing the way back to the car without taking the direct route. With Elliot on her heels, she hurried into a small restaurant, and ignoring the hostess at the door, led the way into the hallway with the rest rooms. These places were tiny and the floor plans obvious. The hallway also contained the exit to the loading alley behind the building. Alys aimed straight for it, not caring if it set off alarms.

  Fortunately, it didn’t. Outside again, they raced down the back alley to the parking lot where they’d left the Taurus.

  Alys buckled Lucia into the child seat while Elliot started the car. She fastened her seat belt as he pulled into the light traffic on the narrow street outside the historic district. His expression was grim as he hit the gas.

  In moments, they were cruising the crowded streets of historic downtown Santa Fe. The narrow lanes were filled with tourists and difficult to negotiate with all the pedestrian closures, but a semi couldn’t follow them.

  Thinking they had to be safe now, not wanting to believe those men had actually recognized them, Alys tried to imag
ine poking through the quaint shops of rocks and artwork that she could see down side streets. She craned her neck to look up in awe at the Palace of the Governors as they drove by. The guidebook claimed it was one of the oldest public buildings in the country.

  She might never see these ancient streets again. She’d like to experience them, but not at the cost of Lucia’s safety. At least she now knew downtown Santa Fe didn’t look like a cowboy Western.

  They didn’t immediately encounter any semis until they reached the main road. She couldn’t always discern the color of the cabs drawing trailers in front of them, but she thought she spotted a purple one at an intersection.

  She was afraid to ask what Elliot saw as he drove around the city in the direction of the car rental company. She just clenched her hands in her lap and watched him dodge in and out of traffic with practiced ease and a determined expression. The little computerized guidance system went crazy trying to return them to the location he’d punched in earlier, then died into a sullen sulk. Alys turned the radio onto a classical station and did her best to generate positive vibes to soothe him.

  When another purple cab loomed in the rear window behind them, Elliot took a sharp left turn across traffic and zigzagged down residential side streets. Returning to a main highway, he abruptly bumped the car into a parking lot in a bustling shopping center, parking in between two hulking SUVs. Alys looked at him questioningly.

  He snapped off the ignition and reached over the seat for Lucia’s backpack. “Lucia has a bug on her somewhere.”

  “A bug?” Alys asked in alarm, hastily glancing at Lucia for some sight of an ugly flying cockroach. While Elliot rummaged through the backpack, she unfastened her seat belt and reached into the backseat to brush hair out of Lucia’s face. The child merely looked surprised, not alarmed.

  “A global positioning device, similar to the one we’re renting. That’s the only way they can keep finding us.” He gave up sorting through the contents and dumped them on the seat beside Lucia. Still not seeing anything, he climbed out of the car and began ripping up the backpack.