Devil’s Claw

Making her way across a threadbare rag rug, Joa

“Clayton?” she repeated. Still nothing. He wasn’t in the kitchen or on the screened back porch, either. Leaving the kitchen behind, Joa

Shaking her head, Joa

Bounding back to the Blazer, Joa

Sprinting now, she raced up to the windowless shed and tried the door. Nothing happened when she yanked on the outside handle. Too heavy to be raised by hand, the door refused to respond to her pulling. Pounding on the garage door, she shouted again. “Clayton! Are you in there? Answer me!”

This time Joa

“Tica,” she said urgently. “Send an ambulance. I’m pretty sure Clayton Rhodes is locked in his garage-with a car engine ru

Back at the garage, Joa

Only then did she reach for Clayton. As soon as she touched his cold, lifeless hand, she knew it was far too late. By then she had run out of breath. As soon as she breathed, her lungs filled with smoke. Coughing and choking, she stumbled back outside, pulling out her cell phone and dialing as she went.

“Nine-one-one,” Tica Romero responded. “What are you reporting?”

“Cancel that ambulance,” Joa

CHAPTER 3

Agnes Hooper looked back longingly at the good old days-before CNN. Once her husband had watched the news only twice a day-after work in the evenings and again at ten o’clock. That was back before Wayne’s heart went bad and before Dr. Loomis put him on total disability. The next thing Agnes knew, he had installed one of those little satellite dishes up on the roof. Now the news went on and on, hour after hour, all day long, with the same smiling faces endlessly repeating the same stories over and over.

Tonight the big story was from Te

“He was just a regular kid,” a tearful principal was saying into the microphone someone had shoved in his face. “Something of a loner, but he never gave his teachers any trouble. This just came at us out of the blue, with no warning.”

“See there,” Wayne said. “Now they’re turning school buses into war zones. You should stop driving that thing, Aggie. The way kids are today, it’s too dangerous.”

The stricken principal’s words had already chilled Agnes Hooper’s heart. Loner, she thought. Never gave teachers any trouble.

“That’s what people say about Lucy Ridder behind her back,” Agnes said softly. “That she’s a loner.”

Wayne turned away from the blaring television set and studied his wife’s face. “Lucy Ridder,” he said thoughtfully. “Isn’t she that Indian kid who lives with her grandmother out on Middlemarch Road?”

Agnes nodded. “Lucy’s the last one off my bus in the afternoon and the first one on in the morning.”

Wayne covered his face with both hands. “Dammit, Aggie!” he exclaimed. “I wish you could quit that damned job. Just haul off and quit. Walk away from the whole stupid mess.”

But they both knew quitting wasn’t an option. Driving a school bus didn’t pay beans, but the benefits were good. And it was Agnes Hooper’s medical benefits with the Elfrida Unified School District that were keeping her husband alive.

“You know I can’t do that, hon,” she said calmly. “It’s just not in the cards.”

Wayne shook his head. “It’s not right,” he said. “I’m the one who should be out working and taking care of you. That’s how life’s supposed to be, not the other way around. The last thing you should have to do is be out dealing with a bunch of crazy kids day in and day out!”

“They’re good kids,” Agnes said soothingly, wanting to calm him down. Dr. Loomis said it was bad for Wayne to be stressed. “They’re not crazy. As for Lucy Ridder, she’s never given me a moment’s trouble.”

“Right,” Wayne Hooper said with a despairing shake of his head. “As I recall, that’s the exact same thing that principal just said about the kid who shot up the school bus back there in Te

After finding Clayton Rhodes’ body, Joa

Turning from the picture, Joa