Blind Descent

A sickening possibility stirred her thoughts with an icy finger. Could it be she was dead wrong and making a world-class ass of herself? A shudder vibrated her bones. Curt's strong arm threaded between her elbow and her ribs. He snugged her up against his side and kept her there till the last clods were thrown and the mourners were allowed to escape the grave.

"What's the matter, don't you like dead people?" he asked as they followed Peter and Zeddie back to Zeddie's rusting Volvo. "They seem inordinately fond of you, judging by the numbers dropping at your feet."

"I like them fine," A

"I wouldn't have any idea what that was like," Curt said with apparent sincerity.

"Bloody awful."

"I love it when you talk dirty in foreign languages."

In the car, A

"I thought I shot Brent," she said. "Don't tell me you're going to bump me in favor of his wife? I've already opened negotiations with Meryl Streep to play me in the movie."

A

To A

"Gee, yuh think?" Zeddie returned. A second laugh at A

"Would he have gotten them?"

"Ah ha! You have replaced me. What do you think, little Mrs.

Roxbury toddled over the desert in her high heels with the dentist's deer rifle?"

"Maybe the dentist did it for her," Peter suggested.

"Right. 'Local Dentist Goes Berserk in Love Triangle.' He's got three kids of his own. I doubt he'd risk everything to bring the total up to five. She was the one who ended the marriage," Zeddie admitted. "My bet is the dentist has been fixing more than her teeth. She might have lost a custody battle."

Not wanting to waste a perfectly good trip to town, Zeddie pulled in at the supermarket before they started back up for the park. As soon as she and Peter wandered off down aisle six, A

"You never give up, do you?" he said with a hint of exasperation.

"I may have to," A

Curt sighed, took the basket from her arm, and began sniffing apples. "I called a bunch of people. Pete's mom, Sondra's dad. The Pioneer Press and the YMCA. Pete and I work out there. Well, Pete does. I sit in the sauna. Sondra's an aerobics fanatic. It's great. They wear those thong things and you're not even considered a pervert if you watch. Just admiring glut definition." Two apples passed muster and made it to the basket. "Nobody's seen or heard from her."

The bad news was waiting for A

A

And Sondra's disappearance?

A

The clock set into the Neon's dash read 1:27. A

The litany clicked through her mind with the familiar resonance of rosary beads, and A

No sense getting his hopes up.

Deciding to be late, A

A

As A

With patience and unfailing good ma

Having no appreciable weight to throw around in New Mexico, she couldn't lean on Becky. But she could lean on Jewel. Before Laymon's secretary had managed to blank her computer screen, A

Dr. Coontz was a woman. The hour went quickly, and A