Allie drew a brush through her dark hair, put on lipstick, and pulled her prescription pad out of her purse. She quickly wrote out a prescription to herself for amoxicillin. One dose of it would have saved the life of Muppet creator Jim Henson, she thought, and Mira would get much more than that.
The inside of the drugstore looked like any Walgreens at home, with one exception: the lunch counter along the far wall had red and black twirling stools that had dated back to Leave It to Beaver. An overweight man was the only customer.
Allie walked over to the pharmacy window and a dour-looking man said, “May I help you?”
“I’d like to fill this.” She handed him the prescription. He looked at it, at her. “You on our computer?”
“No, I’m not.”
He looked up at the clock on the wall, one of the large, round, ugly clocks that Allie associated with elementary school. The hands stood at 9:15. “Don’t know if I can fill it before we close.”
Allie glanced around. “But I’m the only customer.”
“Reckon so, ma’am, but it takes time to get you entered in the computer and all and to clear the prescription through your insurance company and—”
“Then I won’t go through my insurance company.” She brought out her medical license and her driver’s license and set them on the counter. “I’m the physician and the patient. I’ve got a terrible sinus infection.”
He poked at his glasses and frowned as though this were the most unusual request of his entire career. He glanced from her photo to her face, then back at the medical license. “You’re from Tybee.”
“Right.”
“But you’re in Prescott.”
She was ready to strangle this idiot. “And I’m on my way to New York, but won’t get there without something for this sinus infection.”
“Uh-huh.” He looked again at the clock on the wall. “Reckon I can fill this before we close. Give me five minutes, Dr. Hart.”
“Thanks.” Moron.
Behind her, the lights blinked once, twice, a signal that the store was about to close. Hurry up, hurry up. The pharmacy phone rang and the man answered it. The lights blinked again. The fat man who had been at the counter now shuffled up next to her and said, “Ma’am, we’re about to close.” He had a name tag on his shirt that identified him as the store manager. Shit shit shit.
“I’ll just be a minute. He’s filling my prescription.” ‘Jobie, you goin’ to be able to finish that script in the next two minutes?” the manager called. “I need to get home on time tonight. The wife’s been spittin’ bullets about these late nights.”
Spare me morons with no social skills, no public-relations skills, and minimal intelligence. I will not scream. I will not act in a way that will cause him to remember me. I will stand here quietly, waiting.
“One minute, Carl,” the pharmacist called back. “I’ll be done in a minute.”
The manager smiled at Allie, his fat cheeks dimpling in the corners of his mouth. “We close promptly at nine-thirty every evening, ma’am.”
He’s a postal employee in disguise. “Right,” she murmured.
“We just can’t have people sailing in here at the last minute every night and expecting us to remain open.”
“I understand.” One more word outta you, fatso, and that’s it. I lose it.
“Here you go, Dr. Hart.” The pharmacist handed her the medication. “Do you have any questions about it?” Then he laughed at his own snafu. “Well, no, of course you don’t. That’s $7.80.”
She handed him a ten and he rang up the sale. But as the cash drawer popped open, he sighed. “I don’t have enough change.”
“That’s fine. Keep the change.”
She picked up the bag and practically ran toward the door. The fat manager opened it for her. “Our hours are eight A.M. to nine-thirty P.M., ma’am.”
She stopped, turned, and stared at him so long that he blinked repeatedly. “Let me give you a piece of advice, my friend. You’re badly in need of public-relations skills. The people who come in here are the ones who keep you employed. I’m calling your boss to file a complaint about the way I was treated here. And then let’s see what kind of bullets your wife spits when you lose your goddamn job. Have a great night.”
With that, she walked out into the cold, empty street, feeling so incredibly good, so wonderfully optimistic, so perfectly in control, that she laughed out loud.
Chapter 10
1
Mira’s grandmother, Nadine, sat on the living-room floor across from Sheppard, her salt-and-pepper hair tumbling over her shoulders, her slender legs folded in a perfect lotus position. She turned the pages in one of the files that John “Goot” Gutierrez had brought with him, one of Sheppard’s old cases—hell, they were all his old cases. The rustle of the pages and the hiss and snap of logs in the stove were the only sounds in the room. Annie had fallen asleep on the couch next to Ricki the dog, Goot had run into town for some groceries, and Kyle King had left earlier.
Nadine hadn’t said much of anything since Sheppard had picked her and Goot up at the airport. Even though she had hugged him hello, it had been an obligatory hug, that of a woman toward the man to whom her granddaughter was now engaged. Sheppard knew that in Nadine’s eyes, he always would be the bastard gringo stepson. Yes, he enjoyed moments of reprieve, moments when Nadine accepted him fully. Those moments, though, were few and far between and he suspected that from here on in, those moments were history. She was pissed and he knew that, sooner or later, she would let him have it. Might as well get it out of the way, he thought.
“Stop blaming me,” he said suddenly.
Nadine raised her head, removed her half-moon--shaped glasses, and glared at him. Fire poured into her dark eyes and she leaned forward, elbows resting against her knees. When she spoke, her voice was sharp enough to cut diamonds. “You and your macho world, your world of guns and supposed justice are responsible for this, Shep. Some loco has taken Mira and it all comes back to this.” She waved the file in the air, papers spilling out of it, then slapped it against the floor and rose in a single, fluid motion. “Your world disgusts me,” she spat, and went into the kitchen.
Sheppard squeezed the bridge of his nose and dropped his head back against the cushion of the chair behind him. He rubbed the aching muscles in his neck and thought back to the first time he had met Nadine. Lauderdale, the bookstore she and Mira owned. He had gone there looking for information about a deck of tarot cards, leads in a murder investigation that ultimately had involved Mira. In those days, Nadine’s hair had been cut short and she had limped slightly from a broken hip some months earlier. Even then, she hadn’t looked her age, had taught yoga, been a full-fledged vegetarian, and had deplored violence of any kind. Even then, she had radiated a mysterious presence, as if she saw and understood things that no one else did.
She had lived in the apartment above the bookstore, a woman alone with her mystical inclinations and her prodigious talent. She had outlived two husbands, most of her five children, and was closest then—as now—to her eldest granddaughter. Her roots were Cuban and her spiritual beliefs were an amalgam of Buddhism and paganism. She claimed that her intuitive abilities had waned with age, but Sheppard knew otherwise. When she was plugged in, she was nearly as good as Mira.
He pushed to his feet and joined her in the kitchen.
She was sitting at the small wooden table and stared out the window at the falling snow. Sheppard helped himself to beer from the fridge, sat in the chair opposite Nadine, and turned the cap on the bottle of Coors. “Every year, Nadine, crime in this country accounts for more death, injuries, and loss of property than all the natural disasters combined.”
Her eyes met his. He had her attention, but not much else.
“Annually thirteen million people are victims of crime. That amounts to about five percent of the population. Of these, a million and a half to two million are victims of violent crime. Rape, murder, assault, kidnapping. I don’t
create these statistics. These are facts.”
She raised a bottle of cold water to her mouth, sipped, set it down. “Violence attracts violence. There’s no other law, Shep. You live by a violent code. Every cop does.”
“It’s not that simple and you know it.”
“I’m not saying it’s simple. I’m saying that we create change a step at a time, one person at a time, one set of beliefs at a time. In my ideal vision of the world, everyone has access to the necessities—food, shelter, education, medical care, the pursuit of happiness, and prosperity. Give people those things, and your statistics shrink dramatically. I’m not saying that crime vanishes overnight, but that the motive for crime is drastically diminished. As beliefs change, experience changes.”
“None of that eradicates revenge, Nadine. Or crimes of passion. Or greed.”
She cupped the bottle in both hands and shook her head. “Revenge is born of a festering wound. If the system is changed, there are no wounds because there are no injustices. Crimes of passion are born of anger and greed. If people have equal access to the necessities, anger and greed become practically nonexistent. You’re a cog in the wheel, Shep. So is Goot. Find another line of work, something that feeds into a vision of potential rather than a vision of cause and effect—and your life will change.” She paused. “And so will Mira’s because of her feelings for you.”
Sheppard sat back, disgusted, angered, offended. “The world hasn’t caught up to your vision, Nadine. Politics is corrupt, we have a president who stole the election, we’re now a colonial power that invades sovereign nations for oil profits and lies about what they’re actually doing, and we have a nation still so traumatized by nine/eleven that they’re terrified of speaking out. The Bill of Rights has gone south, three million people have lost their jobs, we have racial profiling, and every neighbor has become a suspect. So don’t talk to me about utopias, okay?”
She smiled. “A rebel in the bureau’s midst. You’d best keep your political views to yourself, Shep. Or you’ll find yourself railroaded out of a job.”
“It won’t be the first time.” In 1992, after Hurricane Andrew, his letter of resignation to the bureau detailing what he’d seen and experienced in the aftermath of the hurricane’s devastation, had prompted a visit from Department of Defense officials. They had told him he was suffering from posttraumatic stress and that he could seek treatment at the government’s expense. Sheppard had gotten the message, all right, and had fled the country with his secrets about the true horrors of Andrew.
“Look, I didn’t come here to argue about the differences in our worldviews. But I’ll tell you this. Mira is gone because of choices you made in the past. This is about you, not her. She’s just a pawn. And that’s what you need to be looking for. Who hates you enough to try to hurt you through her?”
Just then, the door opened and snow and wind blew in side as Goot returned with bags of groceries. He kicked the door shut and hurried in, griping about the cold, the snow, the whole weather mess outside. ‘That road up here is so slippery now, I’m lucky the van made it.”
He set the groceries on the counter and proceeded to put them away. If he noticed the tension in the room, he didn’t comment. Sheppard and Nadine sat there a moment longer, eyes locked in mortal combat, then she pushed away from the table and got up.
“Juanito, you complain too much,” she muttered, and headed down the hall. “Tomorrow we need to organize this effort. I’m going to bed.”
As she left, Sheppard said, “She’s right. We need lists—names, places, years. We need a systematic way of sifting through all these cases.”
“I’m with you, amigo. But right this second, I need food. I need Cuban coffee. I need arepas, black beans, and rice. How about you?”
“I need sleep.” Sheppard put a couple more logs in the stove and weaved down the hall to the bedroom where, twenty-four hours ago, he and Mira had been making love when the Stevenses’ arrival interrupted them.
2
Allie drove slowly along the icy road out of town, wishing that she hadn’t stopped for groceries. She had gone into an all-night Kroger and been shocked to find a long line of shoppers at the only register that was open. Most of them seemed to be buying booze and staples, perhaps stocking up for the next storm. She probably had gone overboard on the food, but better to do it at night, on the outskirts of town, than in downtown Prescott during the day. This way, she wouldn’t have to go into town again before she headed south.
As she turned down Riverside, the headlights impaled a man walking at a brisk pace along the side of the road.
Nick Whitford. She wanted to believe that she was slowing down because it would be too unneighborly not to stop; nothing aroused suspicion faster in a small town than an unfriendly stranger. But the truth was that she was attracted to Whitford.
Allie drew alongside him and he glanced up and waved. She lowered her window. “It’s awfully cold out, Mr. Whitford. You want a ride back to your place?”
“I’d love one. Thanks.”
He hurried around to the passenger side and ducked as he got in. He immediately pulled off his gloves and blew into his hands. “I certainly appreciate this, Dr. Hart.”
“Allie.”
He smiled at that. “And I’m Nick.”
“How’d you know I’m a doctor?” She didn’t recall telling him that.
“Keith mentioned it.”
Of course he would. But she wondered in what context he’d mentioned it. “He said he’d spoken to you.” There. That just let him know that she, too, had spoken to her brother. “Which way is your place?”
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t know where I live. You need to make a U-turn. I’m about half mile east.” He held his hands up to the heat that blew out of the vents. “I was chasing whatever got into my garbage, trying to get a good look at it. I lost it in the trees and didn’t realize I’d come so far.”
“Was it a raccoon?”
“That’s what I thought at first. But this looked like a bear cub. That’s when I decided I’d better give it up. Wherever there’s a cub, there’s a mother bear.”
“Bears ?Around here?”
“I spotted one a couple years back, a full-grown brown bear on the other side of the river. But it’s rare.”
“I thought bears hibernated during the winter.”
“They do, but they come out from time to time. Could be that the mother or the cub or both of them are sick. Could be haywire weather patterns that drove them out.” He shrugged. “No telling. Did you find the firewood I left at the side of the house?”
“I did, thanks. It beats electric heat.”
“Cheaper, too. I’ll drop some more wood off tomorrow morning.”
She didn’t want him just dropping by. “You don’t need to make a special trip.”
“It’s not a special trip. I drop off bundles of wood a couple times a week at certain houses along the river.”
“I can pick mine up now. I actually need it tonight, what with this cold front.”
“Well, it’s bundled and ready to go. I’m up here on the right.”
She slowed and turned into a long, curving driveway that led to a two-story Victorian house. A floodlight on the lawn illuminated a sign that read, NICK’S BED & BREAKFAST. “This is gorgeous,” she said.
“Business booms in the spring and summer and isn’t too shabby in the fall. But as soon as the temperature drops, the place is dead. My wife and I bought it seven years ago. She died a year later. It’s really too big for me to run by myself, but I’ve gotten rather fond of life up here. Park in front of the garage. That’s where I keep the wood.” A widower. Lonely. Nosy. Back off, back off. The spot where Mira had stabbed her began to ache and throb, a reminder that she should stick to the plan, that she needed to get back to Keith’s so that she could give Mira her first dose of amoxicillin. She stopped in front of the garage and they both got out.
Wind whipped off the river and whistled through the eaves
. She zipped up her leather jacket and followed Whitford into the garage. Bundles of wood were stacked against the wall closest to the ATV. “How many do you want?” he asked.
“How many can you spare?”
“You can have the lot if you smile.”
It was an unexpected remark and such an obvious come-on that she laughed. Her laughter sounded as self-conscious as she felt. “Better?”
He grinned. “You won the lot.”
She laughed again and went over to stand against the stack of wood, holding the bundles in place as he reached for the top two. Barking erupted inside the house and
Whitford’s monster dog suddenly exploded through the lower half of the door, a pet door, and went straight for Allie. Whitford dropped the wood to grab the dog’s collar, Allie wrenched back, and then the pile of wood was on the move and crashed to the floor of the garage.
In her haste to get out of the way of the tumbling wood, Allie stumbled and fell back into the ATV. She landed hard against the front seat, air rushed from her lungs, and for seconds she lay there, unable to draw a breath, to pull air in, panic shrieking inside her. It seemed that her vision dimmed, that her brain turned to mush, that her hearing began to fade. Whitford grabbed her hands and pulled her up, out of the ATV and to her feet, and she sucked desperately at the air, pulling it deeply into her aching lungs.
“Are you okay?”
“I—I . . .”
Whitford held on to her shoulders, his body so close to hers that she could smell the wood on his hands, the distinctly masculine scent of his skin. She heard the dog’s wild, frantic barks inside the house and noticed that the glass storm door was now shut, preventing the pet door from swinging open. And then they were pressed together, hip to hip, mouth to mouth, their hands roaming, hungry, desperate. Something happened deep inside her body, she felt it, the violent shifting of a tectonic plate that released a volcanic eruption of desire. It seared through her like some white-hot flame, purging her of every other thought, desire, need.
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