Страница 29 из 52
"Credit where credit is due," A
"We stayed and petted him for one half of a hour," Alison added. "I kissed him on his head." That seemed to finish the subject in the child's mind. The top of her head disappeared from A
"Thank you," she repeated, this time for Christina's ear alone.
Christina had brought a change of clothes, a comb and brush, hand mirror, colored hairbands, and some "Safari" cologne. "It seemed more fitting than 'White Shoulders,'" she explained.
Again, A
"Heaven forbid!" Christina returned with easy laughter. "We can't have A
A
"Well, you can either go to beauty school or have a four-year-old daughter who is a little V. A. I. N."
"Vee, ay, eye, en: vain," Alison chanted by rote from the floor, where she'd dragged A
A
"Well, well," Christina said. "We learn something every day. So. Learn me. What happened? I thought you were Ms. Backwoodswoman, able to leap tall trees at a single bound."
"Fell off the trail," A
"Yes," Christina said simply and A
"Comb too hard, Momma," came a correction from the floor. "You make groves in people's heads."
"Grooves," Christina said mildly. "Gee, are, oh, oh, vee, ee, ess: grooves."
"Grooves," Alison repeated obediently and added: "In people's heads. Look! Magic! Alley shazam!" She stood. A
"Alison!" her mother cried. "Stop that. For heaven's sake! You know better." If she hadn't held three strands of half-plaited hair strung through her fingers, A
Unperturbed, Alison lifted the bit of gravel carefully off her tongue and stuck it on the bed's footboard. "Tastes like the paste in Dottie's toy box," she said.
Christina wrapped A
"I thought about it," Christina admitted. "Sometimes you are such a pain in the pasta fazzouli, A
"Why did you come today?"
"I don't know. To clear my good name?" Christina smiled as she folded herself gracefully into the uncompromising right angles of the red plastic visitors' chair. "You're hurt. I like you. I'm here."
"Thanks," was all A
"I wouldn't take that kind of abuse from a lesser person, you know," Christina said. "I hope you're duly flattered."
"I hope you never take any abuse from anybody, ever," A
"Will you come shoot anyone who tries?" Christina teased.
"No problem."
"Why, A
"It's a promise. I'll bake you a cake with a file in it every year on your birthday."
Then they talked of baking, both glad to change the subject.
Christina and Alison stayed another hour, an hour that passed quickly for A
When she was again alone, she looked at the mail that Christina had brought. Too tired to read but not sleepy, she flipped through bills and credit card offers. Near the bottom of the tidy bundle was a phone message from the police lab in Roswell, New Mexico, where she'd sent the samples scraped from Karl's truck. All the note said was Tim Dayton had called and the number.
The next item was a blue, sealed, For Your Eyes Only envelope. Inside A
Last in the pile was a packet of photos. The pictures A
Rogelio didn't come and A
Irritably, she rang the nurse and demanded more painkillers. She was given two Advils.
Simply to spite consciousness, A
Reality came with its usual quick brutality. Zach vanished. A
Harland Roberts stood in the doorway. He leaned against the doorframe. The setting sun, slanting through the hospital windows, dyed the white streaks at his temples a rich gold and glowed on his sunburnt skin.
Surprise cleansed A
"A bribe," Harland said. When he smiled the resemblance to Stewart Granger was startling. He held up the flowers. Yellow roses. "Can I buy your silence?"
"I'm easy," A
"I doubt that," he returned and there was that in his voice that would've made A
"Yellow rose of Texas," A
He stopped his deft fiddling and looked straight at her, his gray eyes unwavering. "That stretch of trail above Turtle Rock should've been brushed and leveled. I've been meaning to send someone up to do it. I put it off. You could've been killed. It's fixed now. Nothing like shutting the barn door after the cows get out."