by J. A. Jance
For a few moments, Stella Adams was silent. During the silence Joanna was struck by the peculiar intimacy of their conversation. They might have been girls off on a double date, sharing secrets between locked stalls in a ladies’ rest room. “How did you know that?” Stella asked finally.
Because you all breed true, Joanna felt like saying. Because all of Eddie Mossman’s daughters look like twins. And his son looks just like him.
Far ahead, Joanna caught sight of the winking flash of approaching lights. The additional officers she had summoned were coming toward them from the opposite direction. “Tell Tica we’re talking to the suspect. Tell our backup to stay back until I give the word,” Joanna ordered. Moments later Deputy Gregovich was relaying the information through the radio attached to the shoulder of his uniform.
Meanwhile Joanna turned her attention back to the suspect. Nathan was Stella Adams’s Achilles heel, and that was where Joanna focused her efforts.
“Think about Nathan,” she said. “Turn yourself in.”
“That’s what my father said, too,” Stella returned. ” ‘Think about Nathan.’ But I am thinking about him. Everything I did, I did for him. To protect him.”
“Your father wanted you to turn yourself in?”
Stella erupted in a mirthless chuckle. “Right. That’s what he 339
wanted, but I told him, ‘No way!’ I told him he owed me-he owed us all-but he owed Nathan more than anybody. So, at first, when I asked him, he was willing to help.
He agreed to send the e-mail to try to get Pam and Carmen to back off.”
“You knew they were coming?”
“Sure, I did. Because they wanted to talk to me. After they finished talking to Carol, they were going to interview me, too. But the threat didn’t work. They didn’t back off. Pam and Carmen showed up anyway, so I got rid of them, and Carol, too. Dad was headed back to Mexico from Kingman. When I told him what had happened, he offered to move the bodies for me. He said he’d try to make it look like some pervert had done it.”
That should have been easy for Ed Mossman, Joanna thought.
“So he moved them and stripped them and tied them up,” Stella continued.
“You shot them?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In their car. What a mess! I didn’t think I’d ever get all that blood washed off.
It was everywhere.”
“Where’s the car, Stella?” Joanna asked. “The car you shot them in. Where is it?”
“I ran it off the road, somewhere the other side of Animas. Then I hitchhiked back.
I told the guy who gave me a ride that my husband had beaten me up and that I was going back home to my parents. He believed me, too. Nice guy.”
Her voice was softer now, with a funny dreamlike quality that made it sound as though she was struggling to concentrate and stay connected.
“Sounds like she’s fading some,” Ernie whispered. “I think she really is hurt.”
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“Are you all right, Stella?” Joanna asked. ‘Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. Leave me alone.”
“We can’t leave you,” Joanna returned. “Throw down your weapon and come out. Let us help you.”
“No. If anyone comes near me, I’ll shoot.”
“Mom?”
The sound of Nathan Adams’s voice coming from twenty-five or thirty yards away sent a surge of fear coursing through Joanna’s body. Hair stood up on the back of her neck. Her hands tingled.
“Where’d he come from?” Joanna demanded. “What’s he doing here, and where the hell is he?”
“Off to our right,” Terry Gregovich returned, pointing. “I saw him a second ago.
Now he’s dropped behind some bushes. He must have followed the railroad bed out of town.”
Joanna couldn’t see Nathan Adams, but she could hear him as he dashed forward once more. He must have run the better part of the mile and a half to two miles from his house to the scene. As he drew closer, Joanna heard him panting with exertion.
“Nathan!” Joanna shouted. “Stop. Go back. It isn’t safe!”
But Nathan Adams paid no attention. “Mom,” he gasped. “What’s going on? Are you all right?”
Stella, who must not have heard him the first time he spoke, did this time. “Nathan!”
she exclaimed forcefully. “Get out of here! Go back to the house! This is none of your business.”
“But it is my business,” Nathan argued.
“Terry,” Joanna ordered. “Ernie will cover you while I try to keep her talking. You and Spike go get that kid and do whatever it takes to get him out of here!”
Crouching low to the ground, Terry set off with Spike at his heels.
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“I’m sure you don’t want Nathan to get hurt,” Joanna said. “Throw down your weapon, Stella. Let’s finish this.”
“It is finished,” Stella returned. “It’s over. There isn’t anything more to do.”
“Mom, let me be with you,” Nathan pleaded. “Let me help. Please.”
In the pale moonlight Joanna caught a glimpse of Nathan Adams as he tripped over some obstacle and fell to the ground. He started to rise, then crumpled again as Terry Gregovich and Spike tackled the boy and sent him sprawling. After a fierce but brief scuffle, the clump of milling figures lay still.
“No,” Stella said, oblivious to the fact that her son had just been physically prevented from coming any nearer to her. “I don’t want you here, Nathan. Go away.”
“Mom, please.”
“You’re better off without me. Go!”
“Watch yourself,” Ernie muttered in Joanna’s ear. “Sounds like she’s maybe gonna take herself out.”
Joanna nodded. “I think so, too,” she agreed. “How many people will she try to take with her?”
Suddenly the night was blacker. It took a moment for Joanna to realize that the softball game was over. There was a flicker as if someone had thrown a switch. Then the moonlight gleamed that much brighter. Off to the right she spied movement. As her eyes adjusted to the changed light, she was able to make out three figures-two human and one canine-moving back toward town as Deputy Gregovich and Spike hustled Nathan Adams to safety.
They disappeared from view behind a small rise, leaving the desert in an eerie nighttime silence that was broken only by the muted chatter of distant police radios.
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“Stella?” Joanna asked finally.
“What?”
“Are you okay? We know you’re hurt.”
“I’m all right.”
The woman’s voice was definitely changed now, as though the effort of dealing with her son’s unexpected appearance had weakened her somehow and left her exhausted.
“Four people are dead,” Joanna said quietly. “Isn’t that enough bloodshed?”
“No, it’s not enough-not nearly.”
Joanna Brady thought about the officers ranged around the buildings now, awaiting her order to move forward. They were young men and women-dedicated law enforcement officers-with wives and husbands and children at home. She was one of those, too, with a husband and a teenager at home and with an unborn child sheltered inside her body. Joanna and the people who worked for and with her had everything to lose. On the other hand, Stella Adams, far beyond the possibility of hope, had nothing whatsoever left to lose.
Sheriff Brady turned to Ernie. “We’re going to wait,” she said.
“Wait?” he demanded. “For how long?”
“For as long as it takes.”
The next two hours, waiting for a gunshot that never came, were the longest ones Joanna could remember, including the three hours she had spent in the delivery room when Jenny was born. She crouched next to the wall with Ernie Carpenter beside her.
Sharp rocks poked into her knees. Occasionally some night-walking creature scrambled across her skin. Meanwhile, the unconcerned desert, oblivious to the human drama playing out
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nearby, resumed its natural nighttime rhythms. Meandering coyotes sent their mournful songs skyward. An hour into the process, Joanna was startled by a single long-eared jackrabbit who loped past within a few feet of where she was lying.
But throughout that long, long time, there was no response from Stella Adams-no further word. Joanna called out to the woman again and again without receiving any reply.
Eventually Deputy Gregovich and Spike returned.
“You took Nathan home?” Joanna asked.
Terry nodded. “His dad was pissed. Denny thought the kid was locked in his room.
He had no idea Nathan had let himself out through a window. What’s happening here?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you want me to send Spike in?”
Joanna shook her head. She wasn’t willing to risk Spike’s life either. “Not yet,”
she said. “We’ll wait a while longer.”
Finally, just after midnight, she gave the word, and the K-9 unit moved forward.
As Terry Gregovich and Spike disappeared from view, time slowed to an even more glacial crawl. Barely daring to breathe, Joanna listened to every sound. Finally Terry shouted out the words she had been waiting to hear.
“It’s all clear,” Deputy Gregovich called. “She’s cut her wrists. She’s dead.”
Joanna gave the order to stand down, then she and Ernie Carpenter helped each other to their feet. They limped stiffly around the protecting wall, guided by the glow of Terry’s flashlight. Stella Adams sat slumped against the wall just inside the empty doorway of a crumbling concrete building. She still wore a single tennis shoe on one foot. The other foot had been scraped raw in her desperate flight across the nighttime desert.
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Stella’s hands lay her in her bloodied lap, cradling the Colt .45 and a bloodstained Swiss Army knife. Joanna looked from Stella Adams to Ernie.
“Maybe you’ll be able to keep your promise to Denny Adams after all,” Joanna said softly. “At least Stella had the good sense to spare her son the shame of a trial.”
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Joanna was home by two o’clock in the morning. At three she was still sitting on the couch in the family room with Lady cuddled in her lap, considering the mind-numbing series of tragedies that had befallen the entire Mossman clan. The seeds for that human disaster had been planted by Ed Mossman himself, and Joanna Brady had no sympathy for him. A fatal gunshot wound to the chest was actually far better than he deserved.
But her heart ached for the others-for the unwilling victims of Ed Mossman’s abuse, his own children-from Carol right on down to Nathan and Cecilia. Jaime Carbajal had described the film of Cecilia Mossman’s supposed wedding. Joanna had yet to see it, but she could well imagine the frightened and reluctant child bride forced by her father into a situation she could neither handle nor stop.
“Well, I’ll stop it,” she told Lady aloud. “Tomorrow morning I’m calling Sheriff Drake and telling him to go get her. With any kind of luck, Harold Lassiter will go to jail for child rape. If she’s
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only twelve, that should work. Otherwise, they can nail him for involuntary servitude, if nothing else. Slavery’s illegal in this country, even out on the Arizona Strip.”
Butch, barefoot and clad only in a pair of shorts, came into the family room. “Who are you talking to?” he asked.
“The dog,” Joanna said. “I’m telling Lady all about it.”
“It’s late,” Butch said. “Shouldn’t you come to bed?”
“I can’t sleep.”
He settled down on the couch beside her. Lady opened one eye and looked at him, but made no effort to move away. He put one arm around Joanna’s shoulders and the other on Lady’s hip. “Then maybe you’d better tell me about it, too,” he said.
And so she did.
“Will it come out in public?” Butch asked when she finished. “The part about who Nathan’s father really was?”
“Not if I can help it,” Joanna said. “It’ll be tough enough living down the fact that his mother was a murderer who committed suicide. As far as Nathan is concerned, Denny Adams is his only father. They’ll both be better off if we can leave it that way.”
Butch nodded thoughtfully. “What about the other little girl?”
“Cecilia?”
Butch nodded again.
“I’ve been thinking about her. For one thing, we’ve got Pam Davis and Carmen Ortega’s film. I’m hoping that’ll be enough to get the Mojave County sheriff off the dime.
And Andrea Mossman told me she has at least one undercover contact inside the Lassiter compound. One way or another, we’ll get that little girl out of there and pack Harold Lassiter off to the slammer. Cecilia’s only twelve, for God’s sake, Butch. She’s a whole year younger than Jenny.”
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“Supposing you do rescue her from that situation, what will happen to her then?”
Joanna sighed. “I’m not sure. Child Protective Services will have to be called into play. I would imagine her mother is still in Mexico. The problem is, her mother is also hooked in with The Brethren.”
“If you send her back home, she might be going from the frying pan into the fire.”
“Exactly,” Joanna said.
“So what are you going to do?”
“Talk to Andrea Mossman, and to Edith. Cecilia is Edith’s granddaughter. And she’s Andrea’s half sister. They may be able to work with GPS and establish some kind of custody arrangement. That’s probably about the best we can hope for.”
Butch yawned and looked at his watch. “Wrong,” he said. “The best we can hope for is an hour or two of sleep. Come on. We’ve got to go to bed now. You’ve done all you can for one day.”
Joanna persuaded Lady out of her lap, then the two of them followed Butch into the bedroom. Butch was asleep again within minutes. So was Joanna. It seemed like only minutes later when he was shaking her awake. “Rise and shine or rise and barf,” he said. “It’s late. We’re due at Dr. Lee’s office in half an hour.”
Joanna looked at the clock and was astonished to see that it said nine-thirty. “I’m late for work,” she objected.
“No, you’re not. I called Frank and told him you’d be in after your doctor’s appointment.
I know you. If I let you go into the office for even a minute, you’ll forget.”
Joanna would have argued with him about that, but there wasn’t time. She had to race for the bathroom.
An hour later, with the physical part of the prenatal exam 348
behind her, Joanna-now fully dressed-and Butch sat in Dr. Thomas Lee’s office in the clinic portion of the Copper Queen Hospital. Dr. Lee frowned in concentration as he consulted a calendar.
“From the date of your last period, I’d estimate your due date to be March 7. Of course, human pregnancy isn’t an exact science,” he added. “I can tell you the due date but the baby will arrive when it’s ready-before or after, depending. Are you going to want to know in advance whether it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Yes,” Butch said at the same time Joanna was shaking her head no.
Dr. Lee laughed. “Welcome to parenthood,” he said. “This is only the first of many things the two of you will need to discuss and decide on. Let me know next month, when you come in for your next appointment.”
“What about morning sickness?” Butch asked.
“What about it?” Dr. Lee replied.
“Is there something she can take … ?”
“Never mind,” Joanna put in quickly. “It’s not that bad, and it’ll probably go away in a few more weeks. It did last time.”
Dr. Lee nodded. “If you can tough it out without taking medication, it’s usually better for the baby. There can be side effects, you see …”
“I know,” Joanna said. “I’ll be fine.”
For the next several minutes, Dr. Lee went over a list of general dos and don’ts.
Finally he looked at Butch. “Th
is is your first?”
Butch nodded.
“If you plan to be in the delivery room with her, you’ll both need to sign up for a Lamaze class.”
Butch looked at Joanna. “Is that what you want?”
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“Of course it’s what I want, silly. If you think I’m going through that all on my own, you’re nuts.”
“All right, then,” Butch said. “Tell me where and when to sign up and I’m there.”
It was close to noon by the time they finished up with Dr. Lee, so they stopped by Daisy’s for lunch. Wednesday was Cornish pasty day, and Butch and Joanna split one of Daisy’s massive, plate-sized meat pies.
“You’re sure you don’t want to know the sex in advance?” Butch asked.
“I’m sure.”
“But that means we have to come up with two names-one for a boy and one for a girl.”
“That’s right,” Joanna agreed. “So start thinking.”
They had driven into town in separate cars. When lunch was over, Joanna kissed Butch goodbye in the parking lot. While he returned to High Lonesome Ranch, Joanna headed for the department. She felt slightly guilty about showing up late on a day when there was bound to be so much catch-up paperwork to do, but then again, she didn’t feel that guilty.
She was at her desk and surveying the damage when Andrea Mossman called. “I heard about it on the news,” she said. “I just got off the phone with Denny.”
“How’s Nathan?” Joanna asked.
“About how you’d expect. He’s pretty broken up.”
‘And your grandmother?”
“She’s a tough old bird,” Andrea said. “She’s doing remarkably well.”
“I have a note here from my chief deputy,” Joanna said. “Police officers in Obregon have been dispatched to the ranch to notify Kelly and …”
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“… and Dad’s other wives,” Andrea supplied.
“Do you have any idea what kind of arrangements will need to be made as far as your father’s remains are concerned, once the autopsy is done and the body is released?”
“I don’t care what happens to him,” Andrea said. “And I doubt Grandma does, either.
Talk to his other families. If they want him, they can have him-as long as they pay for shipping. I already discussed this with Grandma. She’s not paying a dime, and I’m not either.”