Читать книгу The Baby Season - Alice Sharpe - Страница 11

The house within the rolling hills turned out to be a sprawling white stucco structure with a red tile roof. Desert plants brought to life by vivid spills of flowers enhanced the aura of an oasis. Only a huge helium-filled bouquet of pink and white balloons tied to an old-fashioned pump provided a jarring note.

“Is this your place? It’s gorgeous.”

He cast her a speculative look as he circled the house and parked in front of a small barn. Next to it was another wooden building, this one long and low with a split-rail corral attached to one side. Within the corral were two horses who ambled over to the fence to stare at the truck and its passengers.

“Aren’t they cute?” she said. “What are their names?”

“The pregnant white mare is called Sprite and the bay gelding is Milo,” he said with a sidelong glance at her.

When Jack got out of the truck, the brown horse whinnied and the white horse tossed her head and snorted. After running a hand along their sleek necks, Jack reached back into the truck and snagged the pink box, keeping a firm grip on it in his large hand. His gaze met Roxanne’s, and he produced a shy grin.

It looked good on him, she decided. He really should try doing it more often.

This thought was cut short when a side door on the barn opened and out walked a large man with rounded shoulders. He wore a hat much like Jack’s though his was black and crisp instead of crumpled and dusty.

The newcomer slapped his leg and a shaggy black-and-white dog appeared.

Jack slammed his door. “Carl, this is Roxanne. How’s the new filly?”

Carl nodded his greeting, his gaze lingering on Roxanne’s face a moment longer than was necessary. Roxanne touched her cheek. Her fingers came away gritty.

“She’s doing great,” Carl said. “What about the south fence?”

“Fixed for now, but Monday morning you’ll have to get the boys to make it more permanent.”

Jack looked toward the house, then back at Roxanne, as though trying to decide something. Finally he said, “I’d like to check on the new filly. Do you want to see her?”

What Roxanne wanted was a phone, more water and a clue to Dolly Aames’s location. But Jack was watching her with a question in his eyes and it was impossible not to respond. “Sure,” she said.

He opened the barn door and entered, followed by Carl. Roxanne limped past him, watching the ground for rocks that might gouge her bare foot.

The barn was cool, narrow and deeply shadowed, smelling pleasantly of hay and horses. There were four stalls, a stack of bales at the far end and a smattering of equine paraphernalia hanging from walls and dividers. Only one stall was occupied. A palomino mare and her foal glanced at the humans with obvious curiosity.

“Ah, now, isn’t she sweet?” Jack said softly, draping himself over the gate and petting the mare’s velvet muzzle, his eyes on the baby. “There you go, Goldy. You got yourself a real beauty this time.”

The mare snorted and sniffed and managed to look proud of her offspring. The youngster stayed back by her mother’s flank, as though bashful.

Roxanne’s impatience with this diversion dissipated as her television producer instincts kicked in—babies of any kind sold a story.

The image of this little filly, for instance, and the strong, good-looking guy hanging on the fence admiring her, was great. Even the shadowed stall and the glint of sunlight from the open door spilling across the hay-scattered floor would come alive on the screen.

As for Jack? Well, besides an interesting face and eyes to die for, he had broad shoulders tapering down to a trim waist, and an absolutely top-rate denim-clad rear end. Add the way he moved, kind of long legged, and the way he spoke, kind of warm but with an edge, and you had a man captivating enough to interest any female with a pulse.

Even the hat was perfect. Crushed, dusty, sexy as all get out, especially when Jack peered from under the brim with those laser-blue eyes.

She wondered if her boss would be interested in a story about modern cowboys. Maybe they could dig up a few cows to lend credibility…

The mare nosed Roxanne’s arm, making her jump about six inches in the air and cutting short her reverie. She must have made a startled sound, because she heard one. The two men stared at her with raised eyebrows and twitching lips.

“This is the closest I’ve ever been to a horse,” she mumbled.

“Really?” Jack said. The filly moved toward his outstretched hand, and he ran his fingers through the tufts of her sprouting mane.

“How old is the baby horse?”

Jack and Carl exchanged quick glances. Finally Jack said, “About twelve hours. Goldy always births in the wee hours of the morning.”

The baby was the same color as the straw, lighter than her mother. She had a white blaze running down her face and one white sock on her front left leg. Roxanne said, “She’s just the most darling thing I’ve ever seen.”

“The second most darling,” Jack said, and glancing up at him, she found him looking at her. Wait a second now…Was he saying that she was more darling than this horse? Was that a compliment?

For a second, she lost herself in the pure blue of his eyes, amazed he would express such a tender sentiment—assuming that comparing a woman to a horse was indeed tender—after knowing her such a short time. No, amazed wasn’t the right word. Dazzled, perhaps. Intrigued. Breathless.

Stunned.

He was the most impressive guy she’d ever met, hands down, flat-out mesmerizing.

What about Kevin?

Kevin who?

But the moment passed and it dawned on her that his gaze was really fixed on the open door. She turned to see what he found so fascinating, and discovered he hadn’t been talking about her at all. A very small girl stood just inside the barn. She was wearing denim overalls, a pink shirt and matching pink shoes. Her yellow hair was wound up into two blond pigtails that glowed with the sunlight behind her. And she was undoubtedly adorable.

“Daddy!” she screeched, running at Jack with open arms.

The commotion unsettled the jittery new mother horse, who snorted, stamped a foot and turned in her stall. The baby whinnied and turned, too.

Jack caught the child and swung her up on his hip. “Shh,” he said. “You’re frightening Goldy.”

“And the baby,” the child said with a lisp.

“Yes, and the baby.”

“Is that mine?” she asked, pointing at the pink box in Jack’s hand.

“Yes, but not until your party.”

The little girl finally noticed Roxanne. She buried her head against her father’s shoulder, revealing just one blue eye, which she fixed on Roxanne’s face.

Roxanne smiled and the child completely buried her head. Roxanne wasn’t surprised. This was not only her first experience with a small horse, but also with a small human. She’d probably frightened the poor little thing.

“This is my daughter, Ginny,” Jack said, looking from Roxanne to his child. “Ginny, this lady’s name is Roxanne.”

“Hello, Ginny,” Roxanne said in her best put-a-child-at-ease voice. “Is it your birthday?”

Ginny pushed her head away from her father’s chest and produced a grin that looked just like her father’s. “Yes,” she said holding up three pudgy fingers.

Jack said, “Hey, pumpkin, how are Aggie’s puppies doing?”

“Good.”

He tickled her and she wiggled to the ground. With another shy glance up at Roxanne, the child said, “Wanna see?”

“The puppies?” Roxanne said.

“No.” Pressing one small finger against her lips and whispering, she added, “It’s a secret.”

Roxanne felt like scratching her head. The puppies were a secret? From whom?

“I think I know what she means,” Jack said as they both watched the little girl make her way across the barn to an empty stall, glancing back over her shoulder at them periodically. “Follow me,” he added.

Jack walked into an empty stall, Roxanne right behind him, watching her step. The straw might look innocent, but she’d found it poked at her tender city toes if she stepped on it wrong. Ginny was halfway up a stack of bales, scrambling at such a pace it was obvious she was experienced at this kind of thing. Jack climbed a couple, and reaching down, took Roxanne’s hand and pulled her up beside him. She teetered a second, and his grip tightened. A totally unexpected shiver ran up her arm.

“You okay?”

“Just not used to climbing around in the hay.”

“Shall I keep hold of your hand or are you steady now?”

“Oh, I’m steady,” she said as he dropped her hand. The truth was that she was anything but. His touch had spurted up her arm like a fizzing fuse. She was loathe to have him take his hand away, but even more concerned that he should sense this.

What was going on? She felt kind of dizzy. Perhaps it was the effects of dehydration.

They climbed up beside Ginny who motioned for Roxanne and her dad to take a look. Roxanne peered over Ginny’s bent head into a crevice formed between the bales, and found six faces staring back.

Kittens.

One orange, two black, a gray-and-white, a pure white and a tabby. Little meows. Tiny little pink tongues and blurry bluish eyes.

“Go ahead, touch one,” Jack said as he gently stroked a tiny white-and-pink ear.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” Roxanne said. They looked far too fragile to touch. Jack seemed to know what he was doing, but his finger looked huge next to the kitten’s head.

Pointing at each kitten in turn, Ginny said, “Blinky and Fuzzy and Foggy and Casper and Blackie and George.”

Just then, the mother cat appeared at Ginny’s elbow and jumped down into the crevice. As she flopped onto her side, the kittens, meowing in earnest now, jockeyed for position until everyone was lined up with their own nipple and settled in for lunch.

The cat, purring, began bathing her offspring.

“Isn’t motherhood something?” Jack said.

“I wouldn’t know,” Roxanne mumbled. Motherhood wasn’t something she spent a lot of time thinking about. Out of nowhere, she heard Kevin’s voice again, telling her this very thing just four days earlier.

Jack turned his attention to his daughter. “Okay, sweet-pea, time to leave Flossy and her babies alone. And remember, don’t tell Aggie.”

“’Cause it’s a secret.”

“That’s right.”

As Ginny scrambled down the stack, Roxanne said, “The kittens are a secret from the dog?”

He shrugged. “Not really, but little kids love secrets.”

Ginny was back on the floor within seconds, Jack right after her, Roxanne slowly following. Jack took her hand again and steadied her last few steps to the ground.

By now, Ginny was running out the door. Jack released Roxanne’s hand. She gestured for him to go after his daughter, happy to have a moment to collect what was left of her wits.

“That Ginny is one sweet little kid, isn’t she?” Carl said, emerging from a stall with a bucket of grain.

Roxanne jumped at the sound of his voice—she hadn’t realized he was still in the barn. “What? Oh, yes. Adorable.” For a second, she thought of the little pink-and-blond child and actually felt a smile tug at her lips. She’d had no idea little girls were so…well, cute.

Vaguely uncomfortable with her gut reaction to Carl’s remark, she added, “Carl, have you lived out here long?”

“All my life.”

“Ever hear of a woman called Dolly Aames? She’d be about sixty now. I know she lived in this area forty or so years ago. Maybe right here in this very house.”

He straightened up and scratched his fleshy chin. “The Wheeler family has been here longer than that,” he said. “Jack’s grandfather built the house. Sorry, but I don’t remember anyone by that name ever living here.”

It was getting to be a familiar refrain. “Thanks, anyway. Jack said I could use the phone.”

“Sure thing. Come on into the house,” Carl said.

As she hobbled across the yard beside Carl, she said, “This place is really beautiful.”

“It is nice,” he said with a fond smile. “’Course, what with Doc’s schedule, all the heavy work falls to me and the other hands, but that’s the way I like it. Been here long enough now that the place feels like home. Know what I mean?”

She decided to ignore his question about home—it made her feel funny inside, the way he phrased it. Home? Home was where you slept, where you paid rent, where you got dressed in the morning to go to work. She said, “Doc?”

“The guy you rode in with.”

“Jack Wheeler?”

“Sure. Only almost everyone calls him Doc Wheeler, just like his dad before him.”

Roxanne glanced ahead to find Jack standing on a rock porch. He seemed to be studying her as she hobbled along, his expression hovering somewhere between anxious and…unreadable. She didn’t know why she made him look like that. His daughter didn’t. His horses didn’t. Not even Carl did.

She suddenly found herself wanting to make him relax and maybe even grin, and she racked her brain for something funny to say.

Nothing came to her.

She tried a smile.

He nodded politely while holding out a cordless phone, then he spoke to Carl. “People are going to start arriving soon. Maybe we’d better convince Aggie that she and her pups would be happier out in the barn. It’s about time for them to move anyway.”

Carl nodded and disappeared into the house.

Roxanne took the phone. She was about to ask for a phone book when Jack met her gaze and rattled off a number. She punched it in, got an answering machine saying that Oz, of Oz Repair and Towing, was out on a job, leave a name and number, he’d get back to you. She found a number on the phone and left it on Oz’s answering machine along with her name and on second thought, Jack Wheeler’s name.

“Looks as though you’re stuck with me for a while,” she told Jack.

He grunted. “Oz can be a little…unpredictable. He’s got things going on at home, too. He’ll get back to you, all right, only on his own time schedule.” He stared at her for an eternity and added, “We’re having a party for Ginny. I need to shower and change clothes before the guests arrive.”

“She’s very charming,” Roxanne said.

Now his face softened again. The man was obviously a sucker for his kid. Roxanne found that rather intriguing. She couldn’t imagine either of her parents going out of their way to host a birthday party for her at such a tender age…okay, at any age.

“I can’t believe she’s already three years old,” Jack said.

It suddenly occurred to Roxanne that Jack’s wife hadn’t only abandoned him but their child. How incredible! Having made the decision to have a baby, how could the woman then abandon her?

On the other hand, how could she abandon Jack Wheeler?

She said, “Carl said you’re a doctor. What kind?”

“General practitioner. I have a little office in Tangent. I’m one of a dying breed of small-town doctors. I do everything from tending to the dying to delivering babies.”

“Delivering babies,” she mumbled. “Why am I not surprised?”

“Listen,” he said, obviously trying to figure out what to do with Roxanne. “A kid’s party is going to be boring as hell for you.”

“I don’t mind.”

“It’s a big house. There are plenty of places to relax until Oz calls back.”

“Will there be any adults at the party?”

“Yes—”

“From around here?”

“Of course.”

“Maybe one of them will know something about Dolly Aames,” Roxanne said. “Would you mind if I invite myself to your party?”

He looked her up and down. Until that moment, she wasn’t even aware she knew how to blush, but under his scrutiny, imagining what a mess she was, she felt her cheeks grow warm. Maybe it was just the blasted sunburn catching up with her.

“I could wash first,” she said. “And maybe borrow a shoe.”

He looked unconvinced that washing or shoes would help her appearance. How he managed to suffuse this skeptical expression with enough sexual energy to rival a nuclear power plant was fascinating and would require further contemplation on Roxanne’s part.

But not now.

Now she was too busy inviting herself to a child’s party.…

“You’re welcome to come,” he said.

“And what about Sal? Will she be there?”

“Yes. Sal will be there and you can ask her about Dolly Aames. You’re persistent, aren’t you?”

“I am indeed,” Roxanne said.

Carl reappeared just then, loaded down with a box. A glance inside showed four black-and-white puppies. The mom was the shaggy black-and-white dog who was now hanging around down by Carl’s knees, casting him worried looks. “I’ll settle them in the barn and then I’ll see to the barbecue and the ice.”

“Thanks, Carl,” Jack said. Holding the door for Roxanne, he added, “This way.”

The door opened into a large, square kitchen with rough ceiling beams. Long windows faced away from the sun and the room was cool even though Roxanne detected no air-conditioning. There were reddish tiles on the floors, the drain boards were made of thick wooden planks and were covered with several bowls of salad, platters of meat, cheese and vegetables, stacks of sandwiches and a pink birthday cake.

It was a gorgeous room filled with delectable smells that reminded Roxanne she was hungry. Starving. She wondered if she could sneak a cucumber wedge. Or a sandwich. She politely kept her hands to herself as she met the gaze of an attractive woman of about thirty wearing blue jeans and a baggy fringed cowboy shirt. Jack’s girlfriend? The woman smiled at Roxanne.

“Roxanne, meet Grace, our housekeeper slash cook,” Jack said. “Grace, this is Roxanne.”

Grace, who was at the huge stove, was busily stirring a pot of something that smelled good enough to…well, eat…said, “Hi.”

“If you have time, could you show Roxanne where to clean up, and maybe loan her something to wear to Ginny’s party?”

“Oh, I couldn’t impose like that—” Roxanne said, but Grace laughed.

“Trust me, this is one time when you want to impose,” she said, her gaze assessing Roxanne. “Besides, it’s no bother. This stuff should simmer for a while anyway.” With that, she turned down the gas flame under the pot of what smelled like barbecue sauce.

“I’ll leave you in capable hands,” Jack said with a lingering look that was hard to read. He took off his hat and ran a tanned hand through his short hair, his gaze still fastened on Roxanne, and she had to remind herself to breathe and blink and not gape.

There was something about this man that had her catching her breath like no other man ever had. It wasn’t just his startling good looks—she regularly spent her days around men the camera loved, Kevin among them. It was something else, something elusive, something that seemed to charge the air between them that had Roxanne’s fertile imagination conjuring up some mighty interesting scenarios. She could almost feel those hands of his running through her hair, could almost see his eyes close with passion as his lips touched hers…

He finally shifted his gaze to Grace. “Where did Ginny disappear to?”

“Sal is helping her get ready for her party.”

With a last look at Roxanne, Jack left the kitchen, and she watched his retreat with a combination of fascination and lust. Damn, the man looked as good leaving a room as he did entering it!

Grace touched her arm. A glance down at Grace’s hand revealed a wedding band, which made Roxanne foolishly happy.

“We have a couple of rooms of our own behind the kitchen,” Grace said. “You need a shower and some lotion for that sunburn. Come with me.”

“But Sal might know of a woman I’m here to find. Her name is Dolly Aames. Do you know anything about her?”

“Nope,” Grace said. “I’ve never heard that name before. I hate to be rude, but now is when I can take a few minutes to get you settled. Later I have to get the chicken ready for the grill and—”

“I’m the one who’s rude,” Roxanne said. “Of course, I’ll talk to Sal later.”

Within moments, Grace had shown Roxanne the bathroom, secured a clean towel and washcloth, even produced a toothbrush still wrapped in cellophane. “Help yourself to whatever else you need,” she told Roxanne. “Here’s lotion with aloe for after your shower. I’ll put clothes out on the bed. We’re about the same size, more or less. You’re in luck—I bought underwear a while ago that I haven’t had the occasion to wear. Not likely to any time soon. Holler if you need anything.”

As Grace closed the bedroom door behind her, Roxanne came face-to-face with her reflection in the long mirror that backed the door.

“Oh, my,” she said.

Her clothes were a wreck, streaked with dirt, splotched with something greasy, covered with tiny pieces of straw. The dry cleaner back home wasn’t going to be amused. Her fancy shoe—the one she hadn’t broken—was history. And her straw purse looked like something she should donate to the cats in the barn.

Bad as all that was, it couldn’t touch what she looked like above the neck. Straw-encrusted hair struggling to escape the ponytail, face sunburned and dirty, crimson and white and brown.

She turned away from the mirror. A cool shower would help. A shower had to help.…

She emerged sometime later with tingling pink skin and a mop of wet hair. A glance in the bathroom mirror revealed a face still colorful, but clean. A blow-dryer took care of the hair as long as she was careful to keep it away from her skin. Lotion helped with the burn. She didn’t want to use Grace’s cosmetics, and her own were still locked in the trunk of her car, so she’d have to go without mascara, her one concession to beauty. She didn’t need blush she thought with a smile, but when she found a tube of Vaseline, she smeared a little on her finger and gently applied it to her lips, sighing with relief. Heaven!

Wrapped in a towel, she let herself back into Grace’s bedroom and found a black dress laid out on the red-and-yellow quilt. Next to it were two pieces of lacy black underwear, the tags still attached.

Roxanne put on the black strapless bra and panties that fit like a second skin. She didn’t own any lingerie as beautiful or luxurious—it always seemed silly to spend money on something no one else ever saw.

Not even Kevin, thank the Lord. The swine.

The black rayon dress had an elastic waist and neckline and a full skirt that draped softly to below Roxanne’s knees. She cinched it at the waist with an incredible silver-and-turquoise concho belt she found lying beside the dress. She pulled the neckline down off her shoulders and looked in the mirror. Not too bad. Considering everything.

She left her hair loose on her shoulders, slipped her feet into a pair of Grace’s black sandals that were only a little snug and piled her own belongings into a pitiful heap on a chair.

She was ready to look for Sal.

Grace handed Roxanne a glass of iced tea the minute she entered the kitchen. “I knew that dress would look great on you,” she said.

“Thanks. I really appreciate the loan. It smells heavenly in here.”

“Doc said to remind you to keep drinking fluids and to take a couple more buffered aspirin. I put them out on the counter for you.”

As Roxanne swallowed the pills and hoped they would somehow magically make her skin feel less prickly, she said, “I don’t suppose Oz called?”

“Nope.”

“You waitin’ for Oz, you’ll be here a while,” Carl said as he pushed a wheelbarrow full of blue sacks of crushed ice into the kitchen. He started emptying them one by one into the large bowls that cradled the smaller bowls of perishable food. Looking at Grace, he abandoned his ice and went to stand beside her. “How you feeling, honey?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You look tired. Maybe Doc should—”

“No, Carl. Now, stop, honey. I’m fine.”

They exchanged a lingering look. Roxanne finally noticed that Carl wore a wedding ring identical in design to the one Grace wore.

“I just don’t want you overdoing it,” he said. “Doc said you have to take it easy this time.”

Grace patted his cheek tenderly, lifting a spoon from the pot of bubbling sauce to his lips. “Tell me what it needs.”

He tasted. “Salt.”

As Grace added a pinch of salt, she glanced at Roxanne and explained, “I’m pregnant,” she said. “I had a miscarriage last year, so we’re being extra careful this time.”

“Of course. Uh—congratulations.”

Beaming, Carl and Grace said, “Thanks,” in unison.

As they worked side by side, Roxanne thought to herself that Jack Wheeler’s house had a very nice feel to it. How wonderful it must be to grow up with kind people like these, in a house this warm and welcoming, with a father whose eyes flooded with joy when he caught sight of you.

Lucky little Ginny.

Even without a mother?

Well, as Roxanne knew, there was more than one way for a mother to absent herself. Her own upbringing had been adequate but formal. Her mother was fond of saying she just wasn’t demonstrative, as though being aloof was a commendable character trait. Roxanne had known she was an “accident” before she had the slightest idea what that meant.

If she ever got married and decided on having children, what kind of mother would she make? Would she be like her own mother or might she be more like her grandmother? The two of them represented opposite ends of the parenting spectrum. One was perpetually annoyed at any inconvenience, one was full of serendipity. One threw money at any problem, the other gave love. How could Roxanne tell what she would be like?

After downing the tea, she rinsed out the glass in the copper sink. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Carl shook his head as he moved his operation to a large metal kettle filled with cans of soft drinks. Grace said, “No, really, everything is under control. Why don’t you go on out? People are beginning to arrive.”

Roxanne turned in the direction Grace gestured and saw double French doors. Peering through the glass, she saw a large, enclosed courtyard paved with brick in a herringbone pattern, boasting a bubbling fountain and haphazard pots of flowers. Chairs were clustered around tables heaped with nonperishable food and piles of presents. Two huge creamy umbrellas created shade over half the area. The perimeter was dotted with more doors leading into other rooms and an arch open to the outside. A few people had arrived, and Roxanne searched for a sign of Jack.

Face it, she thought in a moment of truth, she’d been straining for a sight of him or the sound of his voice ever since entering the kitchen. She’d been pleased he’d thought about her sunburn, though she supposed that kind of concern went with being a doctor. Now she scanned the few assembled people. Jack wasn’t among them and she fought to hide her disappointment, even from herself.

Was she anxious to show him what lay beneath all the dirt and grime? Did she want to surprise him, intrigue him, the way he’d been surprising and intriguing her from the first moment he rumbled into her life?

“Now, who are you?”

Roxanne turned to find a small woman peering at her. She wore her silver hair cut short around a heavily lined face to which the sun and passing years hadn’t been kind.

“I thought I knew all of Jack’s friends, but you’re a stranger,” the woman added.

Roxanne introduced herself.

“I’m Sal. Glad to meet you, Roxy.”

Roxanne shook hands as she smiled at the friendly, wrinkled face of the woman staring back at her. All she could think was that this woman had to be close in age to the missing Dolly Aames. If she’d lived here long enough, they would have been peers, maybe even friends. Her mission, which had begun to seem daunting, suddenly came into focus. In a few minutes, she’d hopefully know more about Dolly.

Roxanne explained about her car. “I’m waiting for Oz to call,” she added.

“He won’t call this afternoon,” Sal said, shaking her head. “Lisa is in a state. The twins have colds.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Jack will have to go see them tomorrow.”

“You call him Jack? Everyone else seems to call him Doc.”

“I helped raise him,” she said proudly. “Once you wipe a kid’s nose, it’s hard to start thinking of him as a grown man.”

Roxanne smiled at the image that suddenly sprung before her eyes, of Jack as a child, with a runny nose. Had he looked like his daughter or did his daughter look like his wife? Why did she care? Anxious to get the conversation—and herself—back on track, Roxanne added, “Jack said you might be able to help me. I’m looking for someone.”

“Glad to help. I know most everyone in these parts. Bound to after all these years.”

“Great. The woman I’m looking for moved to California almost forty years ago. I think she ended up right here or very close by. Of course, she might have married and taken a new last name or moved away entirely. Anyway, I’m trying to find her. Her name is Dolly Aames.”

There was a heartbeat when the scant ten inches between the two women suddenly seemed to close to millimeters, then just as abruptly crack open like the Grand Canyon.

Sal blinked rapidly and said, “I’ve never heard that name. I can’t help you.” With a decisive nod, she let herself out into the courtyard.

Roxanne narrowed her eyes.

That hesitation had spoken as loud and clear as the sudden blanching of Sal’s face.

Sal knew something about Dolly Aames.