Dead to Rights

Joa

“Je

“Somebody’s here,” Je

Alarmed, Joa

“Get in the car, Je

“I can’t.” Je

“Who are you?” Joa

“I don’t mean you nor your little girl no harm,” a woman’s voice said. Her words had the slow, soft cadence of someone who, at some time in her life, had lived in the hill country of east Texas. “I got to talk to you, Sheriff Brady,” the woman continued. “I got to talk to somebody.”

Despite the curiously cull-spoken speech, Joa

Twisting and turning, Je

“Who are you?” Joa

“My name’s Ha

“And did you?” Joa

That instinctive question shot out of Joa

Still squirming, Je

II she heard her, Ha

Joa

What would all those textbooks she had read up at the Arizona Police Officers’ Academy have to say about this kind of situation? Call for backup? Of course, but how? And who? What backup would she find, way out here, five miles from town? Joa

Joa

She was still fighting panic and searching for direction when Ha

“Me an’ the little girl here is go

The woman sounded calm enough. Afraid of doing something that would provoke her, Joa

“Get in, then,” she ordered. “Both of you.”

Without having to be urged a second time, Je

The pungent stench of body odor filled the Blazer as Ha

That assumption didn’t change when Ha

The thought of a gun in the hands of a suspected killer terrified Joa

In the limited confines of the Blazer’s front seat, in a confrontation where Je

Sick with her own impotent terror, Joa

Make her talk, Joa

“Hitchhiked some.” Ha

“But why did you come here?” Joa

“Didn’t plan on comin’ here at all,” Ha