You Can't Escape (9781420134650)

by Bush, Nancy

  “And the missing Fread girl,” she said. A lot of news for Rock Springs.

  Rusty waved that off. “Todd’s just thinking about her ’cause she’s pretty, too, but we all know she just ran away from her weird family. One of those super religious ones that are against everything, y’know?”

  “You should shut up about stuff you know nothin’ about,” Douglas suggested congenially.

  Rusty snorted. “Me and Todd have differing views on how to save our sorry souls. He finds God and church in the mountains. I find it in a good lager, y’know?”

  “You’re goin’ straight to hell, cuz,” Douglas said.

  Rusty started laughing and shot back, “You sound just like Reverend Miles. Good God in heaven, there’s someone to stay away from.” He retook his seat. “Jordanna, I’m not kiddin’. Come on down to the Longhorn later.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  A dead homeless man near her family’s homestead? And a missing girl? She’d been looking for a story to present to her editor with that kind of edge, but she’d never expected to find it in Rock Springs. Maybe it was just Rusty and his friend blowing smoke, but she thought she might actually show up at the Longhorn later and see what they had to say.

  And it would give her a reason to put some space between herself and Dance, who clearly wanted to be left alone.

  As Jordanna walked down the street, sipping her coffee, she wondered where the Rock Springs Pioneer had relocated, or if it even existed any longer. It was a biweekly that mostly covered the social happenings around town with a smattering of information about the local businesses, farms, and ranches. She also wondered, if it did still exist, if it printed a police report of any kind. Unless he’d drastically changed, which she highly doubted, she just didn’t think Chief Markum would be the kind to work in tandem with the press.

  Braxton’s Pharmacy was cheek to jowl with the local Thriftway and it sported a long, maroon awning over its front door. As she pushed through one of the double glass doors, she was greeted by country/western music and the scents of vanilla and something fresh and spring-smelling. Dropping her empty cup into a trash receptacle, she made a mental note to pick up candles for the dusty and dry house, then looked above the rows of shelves ahead of her to view the signs that directed her to bandages. While she walked along the ends of the rows, looking down the aisles, she caught glimpses of the dinerlike counter at the back of the store that served breakfast and lunch off a grill. Jordanna had spent many hours there as a kid, living off grilled cheese and hamburgers, especially as her mother grew more ill.

  She found the correct aisle and perused the stock of bandages and antibiotics and various and sundry supplies for cuts and sores. She had no desire to change Dance’s bandages, but it didn’t hurt to be prepared. If, and when, he wanted to make that choice, she would do her best, as she wasn’t great with the sight of blood.

  She had a vision of her mother staring vacantly out the kitchen window across the empty field while blood ran down her palm and off the tips of her fingers from an accident with a knife, though many had questioned whether it was really accidental. Jordanna had grabbed the roll of paper towels and yanked wads of paper free, wrapping them around her mother’s hand, more because she wanted to stop seeing the blood than because she’d been old enough to understand the concept of direct pressure. Didn’t matter. Blood had soaked through as quickly as it was sopped up. Jordanna’s shrieking had brought her sister, Emily, who’d called 9-1-1 and told Jordanna that she was an imbecile for not immediately making the call herself. Their mother had been sped to Dayton’s clinic as the nearest hospital was an hour away in good traffic, and Dayton himself had stitched her back together. The scar on her palm had been thick and jagged, and every time Jordanna had seen it, she’d gotten a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  Now, grabbing up the largest cotton bandage pads she could find, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some Neosporin, and several rolls of elastic bandages as well, she then searched around for a basket, finally finding one by the front doors. She dumped the armful of items inside, then picked up the black plastic basket and headed toward the prescription counter, where two pharmacists were on duty. She thought she recognized the older woman but couldn’t place her. The young man with the big smile who came to see what she wanted was a stranger. “You rent crutches here?” she asked.

  “We do. Among other things. What size?”

  “Jordanna?” a voice behind her asked in wonder.

  She held her breath. She hadn’t really counted on running into so many people who knew her. Turning around, she faced a young woman with sleek, straight, brown hair. She had green eyes with too much black eyeliner and wore a white blouse with a prim Peter Pan collar, coupled with a pair of dark denim skinny jeans. The woman was looking back at her expectantly.

  “Uh . . . hi . . .” Jordanna mumbled.

  “Oh my gosh. You can’t say you don’t know me!”

  The truth hit Jordanna in the gut. It was the straight hair that had thrown her. “Jennie,” she said, picturing her father’s wife with her normally wildly curly hair.

  “What are you doing here?” Hearing herself, she added quickly, “I mean, it’s so great to see you, but goodness, I didn’t think you’d come home for anything.”

  It was a dig about missing the wedding, but Jordanna chose to ignore it. “I’m just cruising through.”

  “Rock Springs? No, you’re not. Tell me why you’re here. And you’ve just got to come by and see Dayton. Are you here for a while?” Her gaze dropped to the bandages in Jordanna’s basket. “What’s this?”

  “Oh . . . first aid supplies. . . .” Going back to her earlier lie, she said, “I’m actually with a hiking group and last time we went out, we weren’t prepared.” She wasn’t good at lying unless given a script. Then, she could generally sell it.

  She glanced over at the guy at the counter, who’d been listening in to her meeting. She hoped to hell he didn’t bring up the crutches, and she hadn’t even gotten to Dance’s prescriptions yet.

  “I’ll come back,” she told the pharmacist as she turned away, hoping to shut him down. She could feel his eyes on her, but didn’t look back, and he stayed mum as she walked toward the diner grill. Jennie, however, was right on her heels.

  “Is your group hiking around here, then?” she asked.

  “No, this is for the future. I’m just doing reconnaissance.”

  The only employee at the diner was an older woman who’d spread The Pioneer on the counter and was reading it as she stood. Looking up, she folded the paper closed and asked, “You want something, dearie?”

  “Um . . . maybe . . .”

  At that moment, a door behind the prescription counter opened, and a middle-aged woman in a smock marched through. She looked vaguely familiar, and as Jordanna catalogued that, the woman glanced her way and stopped short.

  Jennie was saying, “You have to stop by the clinic, if nothing else. Dayton will be there till six today.”

  “I’m sorry. I just don’t think that’s going to happen,” Jordanna said.

  The newcomer’s steel-gray hair was curled to an inch of its life. She looked from Jordanna to Jennie with sharp, assessing eyes, while the employee who’d been reading the paper at the diner casually gathered it up and strolled further behind the counter, moving out of sight.

  “How long’s it been since you’ve seen your father?” Jennie appealed to her. “Really, Jordanna. Just a pop-in will do.”

  The woman behind the prescription counter edged closer and said, “You’re one of the Treadwell girls.”

  Jordanna responded, “It’s Winters, actually. I’m Jordanna Winters.”

  “Your mother was Gayle Treadwell. May God have mercy on her soul.” The woman nodded her head gravely.

  “Well . . . yes.” Jordanna could see down the aisle toward the front of the store and straight through the glass doors to the street beyond. The longing to bolt was nearly overpowering. />
  “Such a shame,” Jennie said, then, “Jordanna, I know you haven’t forgotten Margaret Bicknell. She’s practically an institution at Braxton’s.”

  “I’ve been filling Dr. Winters’s prescriptions since before either of you were born,” the older woman added with a forced smile. Her lips looked like they might crack with the effort. “You have two sisters,” she said directly to Jordanna. “What are their names again?”

  “Emily . . . and Kara.”

  “I remember Emily,” she muttered. “Sad story, there. And your mother was a lovely woman, even if . . . well . . . end of life can be a challenge. God is merciful, though.”

  “Yee . . . es . . . ss . . .” Jordanna said.

  “He took your mother’s pain away,” Margaret added.

  Jennie interrupted, “Say you’ll stop by. Please. It would mean so much to Dayton.”

  “If I have time.”

  “I’ll give you my number. Put it in your phone.” Jennie waved at Jordanna’s purse, so Jordanna reluctantly pulled out her cell. Then Jennie carefully listed the digits, hovering over Jordanna to make sure she entered and saved them.

  Feeling Margaret Bicknell’s sharp gaze still on her, Jordanna flicked the older woman a look and said, “You’re wondering if I’m the crazy one with the rifle. Yep, that’s me.”

  “Oh, goodness, don’t say that!” Jennie declared.

  Margaret Bicknell frowned, as if she found Jordanna’s behavior unsavory. Then she said, “We’re all susceptible to the devil’s influence. Sometimes we win the battles and sometimes we don’t.”

  “Well . . . huh . . .” Jordanna murmured.

  “You didn’t kill your father,” Margaret said. “God has a plan for us all.”

  “Yes, he does,” Jennie agreed, grabbing Jordanna’s arm and practically dragging her away. Out of earshot, she said, “You’ll have to forgive her. Margaret’s had some troubles of her own. A close friend was killed in a drunk-driving accident. He was the drunk driver. No one else was hurt.”

  “Oh . . .” She wanted to peel Jennie off her arm, but didn’t know how to politely.

  “I really should be going. I’ve got stuff to do,” she said a bit lamely.

  “Oh, so do I. But call me, okay? Really. It would be so nice to get you and your father together.”

  Jordanna nodded, hearing her anxious tone. Jennie might act like everything was hunky-dory, but she knew about the rift between Jordanna and her father. She gave her a smile that she hoped didn’t look too fake, then walked away from the diner counter, heading for the front of the store. Though she’d had some half-baked idea about sitting down at the grill counter and having a moment of reflection, hoping maybe that Jennie would leave her to remember the few good moments from her childhood, that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

  She placed her basket on the counter next to the cash register. The clerk, a young girl with solemn blue eyes and a bored attitude, took Jordanna’s credit card. All of a sudden, Jennie, whom she’d thought had left, popped up beside her.

  “Where are you staying?” Jennie tried.

  “I’m not. Staying. Like I said, I was just scouting around for hiking places.”

  “Um . . . you never gave me your cell number.”

  “I . . . never can remember it. You’ll get it when I call,” Jordanna said.

  “You’re not putting me off on purpose, are you?”

  “No . . .” Jordanna sighed and finally relented with, “I think you overestimate my father’s interest in seeing me. He’s not likely to forget I shot him.”

  “With a gun?” the girl at the register couldn’t help bursting out. She ripped off the credit card receipt and slid it and a pen across the counter to Jordanna.

  “Yup.” Jordanna signed and handed back the merchant receipt while the girl’s wide eyes grew wider.

  “It was an accident,” Jennie told the girl frostily.

  Jordanna picked up her sack of purchases and turned toward the door, but Jennie was in front of the double glass doors. “Seriously?” Jordanna asked. “You’re not going to let me out?”

  “You’re not going to call.” Jennie looked sad and distressed. “For heaven’s sake, am I really asking for so much? Your father hasn’t seen you in years and here you are. You picked this area for your hike for a reason. It looks to me like you want to make amends.”

  Jordanna gazed past her father’s wife with longing for the outside street once again. She’d fooled herself into thinking she could get away with hiding out at the homestead for a while. She should have checked Jay Danziger into a motel somewhere under her name and let him work out his problems with the Saldanos on his own.

  Except you wanted him for yourself. Lie to others all you want, you’ve always been more interested in him than you want to believe.

  “Jennie, get out of my way, or I’m going to push you through this door and let you fall on your butt.”

  She whipped her phone out. “Give me your number.”

  Jordanna started laughing. She couldn’t help herself. “Oh, for Christ sake,” she muttered, then snapped out the numbers, which Jennie quickly inserted into her phone.

  “I never believed everything they said about you,” she said, not looking up as she moved out of the way. “I defended you.”

  “Well, you made a mistake.” Jordanna pushed through one of the glass doors. Heading toward her RAV, she was supremely aware of Jennie, just inside the pharmacy, tracking her progress.

  She pulled out of her spot, then drove around the block, taking her time. When she returned, she caught sight of Jennie heading north on Main Street, out of town, ostensibly back to her home. Quickly, Jordanna hurried back inside the pharmacy and ordered the prescriptions. Luckily, she got the younger guy this time, though he warned her he would have to call them in.

  “Do it,” Jordanna told him. Of course, it would pinpoint their location to Dr. Cochran, but she was pretty sure the doctor couldn’t hand out that information indiscriminately so unless the authorities requested the information, they would be left alone. “And I’ll take those crutches,” she added. “Ones for around a six-foot-two man.”

  “Hope these work,” she told Dance an hour later when she handed him the bag of scones and then lifted up the crutches. She’d made a big show of heading north through town in Jennie’s wake, then east toward the nearby town of Malone before circling back and returning along a perimeter road that kept to the outskirts of Rock Springs before finally ending up back on the two-lane road that led to the homestead driveway. The whole time she’d questioned herself, wondering why she hadn’t just made up a false number to give to her stepmother.

  “Thanks,” Dance said. He took a scone and handed the bag back to her, eyeing the crutches. “Those oughta do. What about the prescriptions?”

  “I have to go back for those. They’re working on ’em.”

  He nodded. “I did manage to get to the bathroom and back while you were gone.”

  “Progress. Good.” She pulled out the other scone, bit into it, and mumbled, “I shoulda got more coffee. And groceries.”

  “I thought that’s why you went.”

  “It was. Just didn’t work out that way.”

  “What happened?” he asked, but Jordanna shook her head.

  “How’s the leg doing?” she asked.

  “I think I’ll need to change the dressing soon.”

  “Oh . . . yeah . . .” The last bite of scone seemed to stick in her throat. “Like at a doctor’s office?”

  “I’d like to avoid that if I could. I’ve got enough antibiotics, but it’ll probably have to be looked at soon.”

  Jordanna could feel herself growing squeamish and tried to hide it. And what was the alternative anyway? Her father’s clinic?

  “I just need some time to figure out what’s going on,” he said.

  “You can’t go back yet,” she agreed, worried that’s where his thoughts were heading.

  “Well, I’m not leaving today, clear
ly. You said you have an iPad . . . ?”

  “Not charged.”

  “How about paper and pens, then? Old school. I want to make some notes.”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Jordanna went back to the kitchen, which was the catchall where she’d dumped not only the pharmacy supplies, but everything she’d brought from her apartment as well.

  “What happened in town?” he asked again, when she returned with a letter-sized, lined notepad and several pens.

  “Nothing.”

  “You weren’t kidding about being a terrible liar.” The light from outside the window illuminated his blue eyes and the three days’ growth of beard darkening the strong line of his jaw. Jordanna forced herself to look away from his very male attractiveness.

  “Okay, I ran into some people I knew,” she admitted.

  “Not a happy reunion,” he guessed.

  “Nope.”

  “When are you going to tell me the whole story?”

  “Hopefully never,” she said, only half kidding. She had a thing for him. Had for a long time, but had never believed she would have the opportunity to actually be with him in any capacity, especially one-on-one. “I’m going out tonight to a bar to meet some people I know.”

  “Really? So, the whole town’s not against you, huh?”

  “Not all of them.” She almost told him all about her father, and sister, and mother, but when it came right down to it, her tongue wouldn’t form the words. Instead she said, “Apparently the body of a homeless man was found close by here and I wanted to follow up.”

  “Close by here?” He circled a finger to encompass the house.

  “That’s the rumor. And there’s a missing girl, but it sounds like she’s probably just run away from a strict, religious home. There are a lot of churches around Rock Springs and some of them with a lot of rules. Anyway, I’ll get some more food while I’m out this time, I promise. And the prescriptions, and tomorrow, fingers crossed, we’ll have electricity.”

  She left him then, and returned to the kitchen with her cell phone, checking on her own e-mails, which were practically nil, but mostly just using the time to be by herself and away from the appeal of Jay Danziger.