“Cancel it,” Buck told him curtly. The pickup truck had made another dive at the Blazer’s front fender. He couldn’t believe it, but it was trying to run him off the road. “Right now I haven’t got time for any more holiday freaks.”
The pickup dropped back in another sideswipe. There was a metallic tearing sound. The Blazer lurched wildly. Buck seized the steering wheel with both hands. That hurt like hell; he suppressed an anguished yelp.
“Sheriff?” the dispatcher said.
Buck looked in the side mirror.
The blue pickup was accelerating in the left lane. Coming back again. Through the Dodge’s windshield he could see a wild-eyed, contorted face under a cowboy hat.
Buck cursed.
What had old Ancil Scraggs said about trading off for a ’93 Dodge pickup? Some redneck moron named – something. Potter?
Buck gave the side mirror a savage glance. The Dodge pickup gladiator looked as though he were dumb enough to have a name like Potter. Like one of the shiftless Potter clan that ran a service station over White Creek Gap.
The idea that Devil Anse would try to give his own granddaughter to some cretin like the one trying to smash in the Blazer filled Buck with fury. Forgetting his sore shoulder, he jerked the van into the path of the truck as it came on again.
The two vehicles, both doing about fifty miles an hour on the narrow road, collided with an earsplitting clang. Snarling with pain and temper, Buck spun the Blazer’s wheel left again. The Blazer creamed the pickup a second time.
Zigzagging, the truck went out of control and ran off the road on the far side. Buck slammed on the brakes. Before he could get the Blazer turned around, working furiously even with his arm in the sling, the blue pickup backed up, turned with tires skidding, and roared off in the opposite direction.
On the radio, his dispatcher was practically yelling for instructions. Buck fumbled the receiver to his shoulder with his throbbing right hand.
Demon, who had been crouched beside him through the whole thing, now leaned out the window barking wildly at the retreating pickup.
“Shut up!” Buck shouted. He pressed the button to talk. “Yeah, George, I’m okay. I just need an APB on a ninety-three Dodge pickup. License number -”
Hell, with everything going on he hadn’t gotten the license number!
“Pickup’s license number unknown,” he said. “But I would like to talk, in the worst kind of way, to the scrawny snotnose wearing a cowboy hat who was driving it. See what you can do.”
The idiot tried to kill me, he thought, signing off. It damned sure wasn’t anything else.
Anger pounded in his head. Now that he’d gotten a look at Scarlett Scraggs’s would-be bridegroom he had to wonder just how innocent she was after all. Having the side of the Blazer smashed in didn’t exactly put him in the most tolerant mood.
Buck stepped on the gas, feeling justifiably raw. By damn, he had a few questions he wanted to ask!
It took only a few minutes to whip through downtown and head for home. Buck had canceled the meeting with the Hare Krishnas through his dispatcher; there was no reason to stop at the office.
As he turned off the road into the driveway he drove through a spot of chill winter fog, then pulled the Blazer up to the front door. He watched while the dog vaulted out of the front seat and ran up on the porch.
Buck moved more slowly, taking time to circle the Blazer and assess the damage. He swore under his breath. He only hoped the pickup was just as banged up, because the department couldn’t afford the bodywork this was going to cost.
He mounted the front steps, favoring his aching right arm. Once inside the downstairs hallway, a smell of something heavenly greeted him.
Buck missed his mother’s presence in the house, her bustle of pre-Christmas activities with church and her friends, the amount of holiday baking she still managed to do. But miraculously, he saw, something just as good had come to take its place.
There was the odor of simmering, roasting, delectable food in the air. He sniffed, then drew in a long breath. He was practically frozen from standing out on U.S. 29 examining tire tracks. The warmth of the old house enveloped him, and the radio in the kitchen was playing. Buck made out the local station’s nonstop program of Christmas carols, not the secular stuff the Living Christmas Tree was struggling with, but regular old-fashioned carols. Someone was singing “O Holy Night.”
He started down the front hall. The door to the parlor was open. Inside, the tree, lights winking, stretched to the high ceiling.
He paused in the doorway to admire it. A beautiful tree, he thought somewhat grudgingly, even loaded down with all the Grissom family junk.
The dog scrambled down the hall ahead of him and Buck followed it. The old-fashioned swinging door to the kitchen opened to his push and he found the place blazing with lights. Something was boiling and steaming away on the stove. The first thing Buck saw was that the old wooden kitchen table was covered with more food than he’d seen in his life.
It seemed to be all vegetables. Dinner, fixed early.
There were casseroles of what looked like broccoli with melted cheese, and glass baking dishes with what appeared to be onions baked with a crusty cheese top. There were rows of baked potatoes in their skins decorated with bacon pieces and creamed spinach. Then grilled tomatoes, and more cheese. Whipped potatoes with lightly broiled, fluffy tops, french fries beside them. There were braised carrots and candied carrots, a dish of candied yams. A bowl of green peas mixed with slivers of mushrooms. Garbanzo beans with onions and tomatoes.
Buck’s eyes began to glaze over. Obviously Scarlett O’Hara Scraggs had been raiding the freezer again. He turned to look for her and found her there, sitting at the end of the table, her bent head propped in her hands. When she looked up he saw she’d been crying.
“Farrie’s gone,” she said tonelessly.
Twelve
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” buck said.
The girl before him held her head in her hands. “Farrie’s never done this before.” Her voice was rough with tears. “Ever since she was born, practically, my little sister’s never gotten mad with me. And she’s never, never run off.”
Buck looked around. The kitchen was littered with dirty dishes and pots and pans. Scarlett Scraggs was not a neat and orderly cook. After a moment’s hesitation he drew up a chair and cleared a space between the platter of french fries and the garbanzo beans with tomatoes.
“Scarlett, let’s take this from the beginning.” He couldn’t help noticing that in spite of her air of misery, she was wearing her dark hair pulled back with a blue ribbon again and looked adorable. “We’re talking about your sister Farrie?”
She nodded, eyes downcast.
Buck had come into the kitchen wanting an explanation. After all, some Scraggs-appointed boyfriend had tried to kill him. Now, at the sight of Scarlett’s tear-stained face, he found all he wanted to do was take her in his arms and comfort her, kiss that luscious, downturned mouth, the tousled gypsy hair. It was a feeling that slightly amazed him.
He cleared his throat. “Your little sister’s gone somewhere,” he said, “without telling you?”
She shook her head. “Not ‘gone somewhere,’” she corrected him, “she’s run away.” Her voice dropped even lower. “Farrie hates me.”
He found that hard to believe. Not the way Scarlett hovered over her. Besides, the goblin child couldn’t have gone far; it was raining.
“Hates you? How could anybody hate you, Scarlett? Didn’t you say you’ve practically dedicated your life to her? What did you fight about?”