“What was I supposed to do, let the truck run out of gas?”
“You could’ve taken an exit and found a place out of sight of cruising Feds, but, no, you had to park right out in plain sight, where anybody watching for us-”
“Everybody’s watching for us!” His voice clattered like a chain saw in the truck cab, making Doriann wish she could disappear into the seat cushion. “It doesn’t matter where we are, they’re after us!”
Doriann held her breath as Clancy’s fingers turned white on the steering wheel. She peered sideways at him, though trying to appear as if she wasn’t. His lips disappeared in a red streak, and his eyes narrowed to the point Doriann wondered if he could see the road. She knew that look. Her cousin Ajay looked the same way just before one of his screaming fits.
“I’m making you famous.” He spat the words at Deb as if he was shooting bullets.
“Being on the FBI’s Most Wanted list isn’t my idea of fame,” Deb snapped back.
He cut a look at her. Would he punch her in the stomach again? He’d already done it once, when they’d stopped for gas. Doriann braced herself.
He held his cold stare on Deb, as if his eyes controlled a razor blade. And then, one by one, slowly, his fingers returned to their dirty pink color as he relaxed his grip on the steering wheel. His lips regained their shape. He stuck out his jaw, took a deep breath, blew it out-the way Doriann did when her cousins were getting on her last nerve.
“Why didn’t somebody call the police on us sooner?” he asked, sounding almost normal. “We’re heroes, that’s why. Those idiots deserved to die, and people realize it,” he snapped, then muttered, “Bunch of rich thieves who make their living on the backs of the working class. Bloodsucking scum. That’s why this country’s in the state it’s in.”
Doriann stared at the dashboard. So this guy hated rich people.
“Think again!” Deb said. “The callers were probably scared. Or stupid. Or just found out about the search for us. But they called, all right?”
Clancy turned his attention to Doriann, and his eyes narrowed again, but not as if he was mad. It was as though he became a different person all of a sudden. Very weird. Very scary. Doriann couldn’t take a breath.
He patted her leg, leering at her as if she was a banana split with extra nuts and chocolate syrup. “This here’s our little protector. They can’t get to us without coming through her.”
Deb pounded a fist against the passenger door and spat out a stream of words that made Doriann’s eyes bulge, and started her breathing again.
Doriann was proud of her vocabulary, and always tried to use words properly. These didn’t sound like words she’d need to know, but the anger behind them scared her. They were crazy.
Jesus, help me, please! These people are killers, and I know I shouldn’t have lied about being sick and skipped out to the zoo today. Oh, yeah, and I know I shouldn’t have drank coffee after Mom and Dad told me I couldn’t have it. But I was so far ahead in my studies after this weekend, and I was so tired of Danae and Ajay and Coral and the baby all being so noisy at once, and now the coffee’s going right through me, just like Mom said it would…Oh, Jesus, please don’t let these people kill me, and don’t let me wet my pants.
“Got to get off this highway,” Deb snapped. “Now!” She reached in front of Doriann and grabbed the steering wheel.
Doriann wished she had a seat belt; there was no exit. The truck bounced off the road and nearly hit a tree and Doriann closed her eyes and focused on not screaming as her chest bounced against Deb’s arm.
Clancy was going to kill somebody for sure this time.
Doriann thought about home and Mom and Dad and the great work both her parents did at the hospital, and about how Jesus was always with her, and about how she loved her cousins even though they drove her crazy, and about her schoolwork, and the great future Aunt Renee said Doriann would have when she graduated high school early and-
Clancy jerked the wheel hard to the left. Deb’s head hit the window. Doriann screamed.
Chapter Two
On Monday morning, when Dr. Jama Keith stepped from her ten-year-old Subaru Outback onto the gravel parking lot in front of the brand-new River Dance Clinic, a chorus of birdsong merged with the familiar splash and gurgle of multiple waterfalls. A serenade. Like old friends welcoming her home.
A wave of unexpected hope and longing struck her.
She fought the hope. This would be a temporary stop. An extended one, yes, but temporary. She had to keep that in mind.
Maybe memories would be short for the citizens of River Dance, her tiny, isolated childhood home. Maybe, at least, those memories would be gentle, smoothed over and worn down by time.
“Hey, Dr. Keith!” someone shouted to Jama from across the street.
She turned to see sixteen-year-old Kelly Claybaugh on her way to school. Jama waved and smiled, surprised that she recognized the kid after so many years. And that Kelly had recognized her. And called her “Doctor.” Very cool.
“How’s your great-grandpa?” Jama called to the pretty teenager.
“Still at the nursing home. He said you visit him every time you come to town.”
“I’ll be by to see him in a couple of days.”
“He’d love that!” Kelly said, and Jama guessed by the perky sound of her voice and the bounce in her step that the girl must be a cheerleader at River Dance High. Her great-grandfather, Ted Claybaugh, former teacher and football coach, must be proud.
Jama was an hour early. She needed time to adjust before putting on her professional face for the new director.
River Dance, population eight hundred and thirteen, was a picturesque town built into the hillside above the northern bank of the Missouri River. The location’s charm and beauty drew tourists in spite of the remoteness from more commercial river towns such as Washington and Hermann and the state capital, Jefferson City.
River Dance had inspired more than one calendar company to feature the quaint, restored homes, gift shops, waterfalls, gardens and vineyards. The new clinic was within sight of two rivers, if one could catch a view through the trees. The scent of pine needles wafted over Jama, along with the moist perfume of fresh water and rich, freshly tilled soil.
The whisper of the wind in the treetops harmonized with the mad waterfall rush of the rocky Show-Me River as it danced steeply downhill and into the mighty Missouri. The springlike gentleness of the air belied the weather forecast of a freeze tonight.
Someone honked from the street, and Jama waved instinctively before she recognized Mildred Lewis on her way downtown to her café. Best pies on the riverfront for fifty miles in either direction.
Jama’s new, thick-soled shoes crunched gravel as she strolled to the log building that had recently replaced Charla Dunlap’s sprawling old bed-and-breakfast. To Jama’s joy, the construction crew had managed to preserve five of the seven grape arbors that Charla had so lovingly tended on her property over the years. Grapevines were the lifeblood of this town.
The solid pine porch of the new River Dance Clinic echoed Jama’s footsteps as she strolled past the wooden rockers to one of the multipaned windows and peered inside. The waiting room was well furnished, with tasteful prints on the walls.
She hoped Mayor Eric Thompson had arranged for enough staff to support this place. She grinned to herself. Eric Thompson. Who’d have thought that wild rascal would someday be mayor?
The racket of a loud engine broke the tranquility of wind and water. Jama turned to see a faded blue pickup slide into the parking lot and lurch to a stop barely three feet from her Outback.
She’d have known that farm truck anywhere-she ought to, she’d learned to drive in it. And the brawny sixty-year-old rancher inside had been her teacher out on the dirt tracks that crisscrossed the vast Mercer Ranch.