Rattlesnake Crossing

Turning off the water, Joa

And it was true. Joa

Naked and still damp, she fell into bed. She was so exhausted that she should have dropped off right away. But she didn't. She kept seeing that bare, bony skull glowing tip at her in the glare of Ernie Carpenter's battery-powered trouble light.

Finally, after an hour, she got up, went out to the kitchen, and poured herself a shot of whiskey, emptying the last of the Wild Turkey that Maria

That, too, reminded Joa

"Sorry, Andy," she said aloud, raising her glass in his memory. "Please forgive me. I didn't know what I was talking about."

Had there been more booze in the house, she might have been tempted to have another drink. As it was, though, she drank only the one, and then she went to bed. She might have tossed and turned some more, but the whiskey, combined with the hard physical labor of moving all those rocks, made further brooding impossible.

She lay down on the bed, put her head on the pillow, pulled the sheet up around her shoulders, and fell sleep. Not sound sleep. Not a deeply restful sleep, but sleep haunted by vague and disturbing nightmares that disappeared as soon as she awoke and tried to recall them.

Considering all she'd been through that day, maybe that was just as well.

CHAPTER TEN

The phone awakened her. Groggy from restless sleep, she almost knocked it on the floor before she finally managed to grasp the handset and get it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Joa

"It's all right," Joa

"I'm at Jeff and Maria

Joa

"She is," Angie replied. "And it's the most wonderful thing-wonderful and terrible at the same time. Jeff and Maria

As a wave of impatience washed over her, Joa

"You talked to her then?" Angie asked.

"No, she left a message, but I should have known."

"Known what?" Angie asked.

"That something was going on. When I got the message I decided it was too late to call her back. What time did the hospital call?" Joa

"Right around midnight," Angie replied. "Maria

Helping rehabilitate Angie Kellogg, a former L.A. hooker, had been a joint project assumed by both Joa

Taken under Joa

"What can I do to help?" Joa

"I already talked to Bobo about it," Angie said. Bobo Jenkins was the African-American owner of the Blue Moon Saloon and Lounge in Bisbee's famed Brewery Gulch, where Angie worked as a relief bartender. "He said I could take both today and tomorrow off. And I talked to De

Angie had met De

Knowing that the man had spent years living a hermitlike existence, Joa

Now, though, Joa

"Of course he would," Angie answered confidently. "Why wouldn't he?"

Why indeed? Most men wouldn't volunteer to do that on a bet, Joa

"Not right now. Maria

Joa

"This morning sometime," Angie responded. "That's all I know."

"I'll head into the office right away," Joa

"University," Angie said.

Joa

"I'll be there," she said. "As soon as I can get cut loose from the department."

Ignoring the dogs and without even bothering to go to the kitchen and start coffee, Joa

By a quarter to eight, she was at her desk, mowing through the stack of unanswered messages that had come in the previous afternoon. By five after eight, she had corralled Dick Voland and Frank Montoya into her office for the morning briefing.