The breathing stopped, then resumed at an accelerated pace. I tried the doorknob. Locked.
“Amy, I’m a friend of your Uncle Ramon. Please open the door.”
Gasping now; she’d begun hyperventilating.
“Please, Amy!”
A click as the lock turned. When I pushed inside, I found her crouching on the floor to the right of the door, her arms clasped across her breasts. Her shoulders heaved; she looked up at me with wide, frightened eyes.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Stay there.”
In the kitchen I found a drawer full of folded grocery bags, took the smallest back to her. “Breathe into this.”
She stared, not understanding. I put the bag over her nose and mouth and repeated, “Breathe.”
The bag helped her get herself under control. Then she was able to stand, lean on me as I led her to one of the chairs.
“I know you…”
“Yes. I saw you outside the Food Mart, and then again on the highway when Boz Sheppard threw you out of his truck.”
“… You asked me if you could help.”
“And you walked away.”
Silence.
“I don’t think you want to walk away again.” Dusk was gathering outside, so I turned on a lamp. Amy was pale and much too thin; I could see her ribs outlined by her tube top.
A burning smell from the kitchen. I went in there and took a saucepan I hadn’t noticed before from the stove. Turned a control knob off. Ravioli, courtesy of Chef Boyardee. The empty can sat on the counter.
When I returned to Amy, she had pulled her legs up onto the chair and was wrapping herself in an afghan that had been slung across its back.
I tucked it around her, sat in the other chair.
“You’ve been here since whatever happened at Willow Grove Lodge?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Amy, talk to me.”
“Okay, I been here since the day after. I was asleep that night when somebody broke in. I fought him, and he stuck me on my forehead with a knife.” She touched a bandage above her right eyebrow. “So I kneed him in the balls and got away and hid in the grove. Next day, when I thought it was safe, I used the pay phone and called Bud. He brought me here. That night he went back to get my stuff from the cabin, but before he could pack it all somebody almost walked in on him, and he had to run off.”
So it had been Bud Smith, not Boz Sheppard, I’d chased through the grove. But whose presence had I sensed while I was having my picnic there? Not Amy’s or Boz’s; they’d been in his truck on the highway. Probably some trespasser who saw me and thought I belonged there.
“Where’s Bud now?”
Amy shrugged.
“Answer me. We don’t have much time.”
“Why?”
“I found Bud’s Forester this morning in the Toiyabe National Forest. The sheriff’s people are searching for his body. When they find it, they’ll come here.”
“Bud? Bud’s not dead.”
“Then where is he?”
She shook her head. “He said he’d come back. I been waiting every day…”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know.” She pulled the afghan up to her chin. “He had a phone call and he left in a big hurry, didn’t even unhitch the empty boat trailer from his SUV. Said something about a relative… I don’t know!”
I considered my options. None of them were good. Finally I said, “You go get whatever stuff you need. Two minutes, no more.”
Big dark eyes filling with suspicion. “Where’re you taking me?”
“Home, to Ramon’s.”
Home is the place where…
Ramon and Sara fussed over Amy, crying and hugging her and bundling her up in front of their fireplace. Sara fetched homemade soup and the four of us sat around the coffee table to eat it.
After we were finished, I asked Ramon and Sara if we could speak privately. We went into the kitchen.
“She’s been living in Bud Smith’s mobile home since the day after the attack on her at Willow Grove. It happened the same night her sister was killed. I should’ve figured it out sooner: I sensed somebody was close by when I first went to the trailer looking for Bud. Amy heard my car and hid in the trees. The door was unlocked, so I went in and found clothing in the guest room-Amy’s. At the time I thought it belonged to a roommate.”
“Poor kid,” Sara said. “Why was she living at the lodge in the first place? She had a perfectly nice room here in town.”
“From what she told me on the way here, I gather it had to do with Hayley. Amy used to worship her big sister, even though she hadn’t seen her for years. But when Hayley came back to Vernon, Amy found out she was a prostitute. It tore up the fragile new life she’d built for herself. She regressed and, essentially, went home to the lodge.”
“But after the attack, why didn’t she come to us?”
“Because it was the logical place for whoever attacked her to look. She was scared, though she didn’t know Hayley was dead till Bud told her.”
Ramon’s face darkened. “That pervert had our Amy-”
“Smith’s not a pervert, and he didn’t do anything to Amy but give her shelter. The problem is, he’s likely been murdered up in Toiyabe. When the sheriff’s department finds his body, they’ll go to his trailer and discover somebody else besides Smith has been living there. After that, it’s only a short step to finding out it was Amy.”
He glanced helplessly at Sara. “What should we do?”
I said, “Do you have a lawyer?”
“Yeah, but I don’t think he’s up to handling something like this.”
“Well, then, just make sure that she gets a lot of reassurance and a good night’s sleep. Chances are they won’t find Bud’s body till tomorrow-the light in Toiyabe was already bad when the sheriff’s people started searching. I’ll be back here around eight in the morning, take Amy to talk with the deputy in charge of the case. If she needs a lawyer, I can call one.”
Ramon asked, “What was this business with Boz Sheppard throwing her out of his truck?”
“On the way here we passed the spot where it happened. She told me he picked her up in town and came on to her, wanted her to go down to Inyo County with him. She refused, things got ugly, and he threw her out. I’d say there’s a good possibility that Sheppard was the one who attacked her in the cabin.”
“Did he rape her?”
“No.”
“But he cut her-the bastard!”
“If he’s the one who attacked her, he won’t get away with it.”
Two pairs of hopeful eyes looked back at me; Amy was all they had left of their family, and they needed me to sort this out.
Please help me. You can make this horrible thing right.
I don’t know what to do. Please help me.
I always wanted to say to clients, “Maybe I can, maybe I can’t.”
I always said, “I’ll give it my full attention. Don’t worry.”
There were various messages on my machine when I got back to the ranch house: Hy, Ted, Adah Joslyn, Ma, Patrick, Mick. I noted them down and began returning them in order of importance. Mick, since he’d said it was urgent, came first.
“I did a nationwide sweep on this Trevor Hanover, using some really sophisticated software Derek and I have worked up.”
“You’ve been creating sophisticated software on my time?”
“No, on ours. At night and on the weekends. Derek’s between women and, well, you know where I’m at. Anyway, today was the first time I’d put it through its paces and judging by its performance, I’d say he and I are due to make a bundle on the licensing. I’d’ve gotten back to you sooner, but the nurses keep taking my laptop away and telling me I should rest.”
“Well, you should. What have you got on Hanover?”
“I concentrated on the gap between when he was born and when he was rewarded with the cushy job for bringing the investment broker’s drunken daughter home. But Trevor Hanover-the one born in Tennessee-never lived in New York City or worked as a bartender. He and his folks died in an apartment house fire in Chicago when Trevor was thirteen.”