Desert Heat

The flight was already boarding when she reached the gate. She hurried inside and found her seat. Then, when the flight attendants were coming down the aisles, closing the over-head luggage doors in preparation for departure, Angie suddenly leaped to her feet, grabbed her bags, and with one hand covering her mouth, bolted for the door. The flight attendants were only too happy to let her go. After all, the flight would be busy enough without taking along a passenger who was clearly too sick to fly before the plane ever left the run-way. When she wasn’t in the jetway by the scheduled departure time, the attendants didn’t spend any time waiting for her, either.

Angie didn’t stop ru

Angie Kellogg had entered the restroom as a distinctively dressed fashion plate. She left twenty minutes later disguised as a dingy young woman who might have been a harried housewife or an impoverished graduate student. With the addition of a large pair of sun-glasses, it was possible not even the cab driver who had picked her up would have recognized her, but Angie wasn’t taking any chances.

She walked back out into the terminal and made her way to the arriving passenger entrance where a driver was loading a stack of luggage into a hotel van. The van said “Spanish Trail.” Angie had no idea where or what the Spanish Trail was, but it was good enough to have a van, and that would take her away from the terminal.

“Room enough for one more?” she asked the driver. He was probably within months of being the same age as Angie herself, but he seemed much younger.

“You bet,” he said, smiling and reaching for her bag. “For you we’ve got plenty of room.”

Angie wasn’t willing to let the beach bag out of her hand. “I’ll carry this,” she said. “It’s not that heavy.”

She climbed into the van and went all the way to the back where a businessman sat with his briefcase resting on his knees. In the middle seat sat an older couple. The man smiled appreciatively at Angie as she went by, and she returned the smile. When she sat down behind him, though, she saw him jump as his wife elbowed him viciously in the ribs and scolded him in an exaggerated whisper.

You’re not working now, Angie reminded herself. Lay off. She was out of the life, and she wanted to stay that way.

As the van made its way through the city, Angie ignored her fellow passengers. Instead, she watched the scenery moving by outside the window, noticing how the desert seemed alive with vivid colors. The shadows on the pavement had hard, clear edges to them, and the silver-blue sky seemed to stretch away into forever. For the first time in her young life Angie Kellogg was free to go and do whatever she wanted.

The Spanish Trail I

“Will you be staying long?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Angie returned seriously. “If I like it well enough, I may just stay forever.”

Alone in the room, Angie closed the curtains, kicked off her shoes, and lay down on the bed. A

Why indeed? There were times, over the years, when Angie Kellogg had imagined what she would do with her life if she ever managed to slip her leash and escape the watchful eyes of her various pimps. Now, though, the issue of starting over in a new life was no longer a matter of idle imagining. Sitting up, Angie switched on the bedside lamp and reached for the newspaper. With the air conditioner turned up full blast, she thumbed through the paper to the help wanted ads.

Within minutes it was clear that there were hardly any openings for someone with her lack of skills and background. The office jobs all required at least “60 wpm,” and she couldn’t type any wpm. There were jobs for experienced fashion merchandisers. She was experienced in merchandising, all right, but not in the fashion arena. One sounded promising. It called for a motivated self-starter interested in earning up to 40k per year. She was interested in earning that much money, but when she dialed the number listed in the ad, it turned out to be an automobile dealership. She hung up without saying hello. Angie Kellogg didn’t know how to drive.

Chastened by the dawning realization of her limited employment options, Angie retrieved her beach bag from the closet, unloaded the money, and counted it carefully. Considering what she had spent getting here, including the cob fare, plane ticket, and hotel room, she must have started with exactly $50,000. That much money sounded like a nice round figure, and it seemed to be a fairly large sum, but Angie knew it wouldn’t last forever.

She put the money back in the bag and dug out the notebook. It was soft, made of high-grade, leather cowhide, with Tony’s initials-A V-embossed in gold in the lower right-hand corner. For a moment, she held it close to her face, breathing in the clean leather smell. She would have to make sure that particular item went to the highest possible bidder, whoever that person might be.

Angie put the notebook safely back in the bag along with the money. It was time to decide what to do. As soon as he realized she gone, Tony would be out searching for her, and if the cops ever learned of her existence, they would be, too. And both Tony and the cops would be eager to lay hands on the money. The trick now was to find a way to immobilize Tony without getting caught herself. As she sat there thinking about it, Angie realized that there was probably only one person in the world who wanted Tony Vargas caught worse than she did, and that was Joa

She picked up the phone and dialed information. While she waited for someone to answer, she almost hung up. It didn’t seem likely to her that a cop would have his name and telephone number listed with information, but within seconds the mechanically reproduced voice was telling her “The number is…”

Quickly she jotted it down then dialed it before she lost her courage. A woman answered. “Joa

“No. This is her mother. Joa

Angie put down the receiver without saying another word. Slightly discouraged, she slipped her shoes back on. Never trusting of hotel housekeeping folks, Angie took the beach bag with her when she went downstairs to have di