His smile disappeared. 'You lazy bitch,' he said. 'You lazy fucking bitch. You think you can just waltz in and out every time you feel like it while all of The Store's hardworking _loyal_ employees stay here and bust their asses to take up your slack?'
She was stunned, frightened, caught off guard as much by the vehemence of his delivery as the violence of his words. She shrank back in the chair, feeling deeply afraid as he leaned across the desk toward her.
'All of our rules and regulations, all of our work and responsibilities have to be altered and put on hold because one fucking little part-time slut can't do her damn job correctly. Is that what I'm hearing?'
Shannon shook her head meekly. 'I . . . I'm sorry. I . . . didn't --'
'Quit your whining,' Mr. Lamb ordered.
She shut up, and he leaned back in his chair, fingers pressed together, pretending to think. 'The Store is not a charity,' he said finally. 'Give me one good reason why I should allow you to take off on a vacation, galavanting around the country when you're supposed to be working.'
'There is no good reason,' she said. 'I'm sorry I asked. I didn't mean to disturb you --'
Mr. Lamb suddenly burst out laughing. He spun around in his swivel chair, pointed at her. 'Gotcha!'
She blinked, confused. He was watching her, still laughing, and she tried to smile but was not sure why.
'I knew why you wanted to talk to me before we even came in here,' he said. 'It's all taken care of. Your shifts are covered for that time period. You may go on vacation with your family.'
She shook her head. 'How --'
'-- did I know?' he finished for her. 'Your sister stopped by before her shift and told me _all_ about it.'
'Sam?'
'Oh, yes,' he said, and the playfulness was suddenly gone from his voice.
He was still smiling, but there was a slyness to it now, something unpleasant that made her squirm in her seat. 'Samantha and I had a nice long talk early this morning before The Store opened.'
He pulled from his desk drawer a pair of panties.
A pair of panties stained with blood.
Sam's.
Shannon recognized the pattern, and she felt as though her guts had just been scooped out. Grandma Jo had sent each of them underwear last Christmas, identically patterned h'oliday panties with holly and teddy bear designs. She hadn't wanted to wear them, had been embarrassed to let Jake see her in anything so goofy, but Sam hadn't minded, and she'd taken all four pair.
Shannon stared at the reddish brown stain obscuring the festively dressed bear on the French-cut underpants.
Mr. Lamb played with the panties absently, stretching them between two fingers. 'She's a very good sister to you,' the personnel manager said. 'Very caring, very supportive. You should consider yourself lucky.'
Shannon nodded absently, unable to concentrate.
What had happened? And why? What had he done to her?
_What had she allowed him to do to her?_
No. Samantha would never allow this sleazebucket to touch even the toe of her boot.
_Would she?_
Shannon felt sick. Hurt and angry and afraid all at once. She stared with hatred across the desk at the personnel manager.
He put away the panties, closed the drawer. 'You can go on vacation with your mommy and your daddy,' he said in a mincing singsong voice. Abruptly, his tone grew serious, his smile cruel. 'And you can thank your sister for it. Now get your worthless ass back to work. Your break's over.'
3
They left early, before dawn. He'd packed everything the night before, loaded up the car, set the alarm for four. They'd given Sam an extra key to the Jeep, as well as a copy of their itinerary: the list of motels at which they would be staying, phone numbers, and approximate arrival times.
'Be good,' Ginny told her.
Sam seemed almost sorry that she was not going with them, an expression of regret on her face as she held her bathrobe closed and waved from the doorway, and Bill took that as a promising sign.
There was hope yet.
They stopped by Len's before they pulled out of town, bought a sack of donuts for the road, coffee for him and Ginny, hot chocolate for Shannon.
Then they were off.
He marked out their route on a map ahead of time, sticking to the blue highways, the scenic roads, as much as possible. Shannon fell asleep immediately after finishing her hot chocolate, lulled by the rhythm of the wheels, but Ginny, as always, remained wide-awake, and she put her left hand on his right thigh and squeezed gently as they traveled east toward the dawn.
Juniper's radio station faded out an hour or so later, and Bill twirled the dial, searching in vain for music, but all he could get was a syndicated early morning talk show out of Flagstaff and a Navajo station from Chinle, so he popped in a tape.
He felt good. Gordon Lightfoot on the stereo, the sun coming up over the mountains. This was what it was supposed to be like, this was the life he should be living.
Shannon woke up, started to take the last doughnut out of the bag, then changed her mind and simply stared silently out the window.
They passed through towns that were recognized as such by mapmakers only - wide spots in the road consisting of little more than old broken windmills and dirty little gas stations. The forest segued to farmland, the farmland to desert. There were no strict dividing lines, the boundaries were fluid, and the shifting landscape along the narrow, seldom-driven secondary roads was both beautiful and continually surprising.
They talked as they drove, not discussing The Store but just about anything and everything else: music, movies, world events, feelings, thoughts, friends, family, the past, the future.
Shannon was quiet at first, subdued, almost withdrawn, but she seemed to relax and open up the farther away from Juniper they traveled, first jumping into the conversation at odd and irregular points, then finally being drawn in.
Bill smiled to himself as he drove. God, there was nothing better than traveling. He loved everything about it. Not only did he enjoy seeing new and uncharted country, but, as he'd told Ginny last night, taking vacations together strengthened the family bond. The enforced intimacy of an enclosed car mandated greater interaction. In real life, Shannon had enough space of her own, enough opportunity for physical movement, that the boundaries of their relationship could be voluntarily controlled. But here, they were stuck with each other, could not get away even if they wanted to, and the traditional teenage distance she'd kept from them the past few years was gradually broken down, worn away. It was like she was a little girl again, a fully integrated member of the family, and that nostalgic familiarity felt good.
'How far are we from the border?' Shannon asked.
'A hundred miles or so.'
'I've never been to New Mexico before.'
He smiled. 'That'll only be true for another hour and a half.'
The smile faded on his face even before he'd finished the sentence. Ahead, on the desert hillside, he could see the clustered clinging buildings of Rio Verde and, dominating the landscape of the town, The Store. It stood amidst the older structures like a rocket among biplanes, drawing attention to itself, its recently constructed windowless facade and bright shiny sign looking exactly like its Juniper counterpart, calling to him, mocking him.
He said nothing, did not point it out or mention it, but Ginny and Shannon could not help but notice the building, and they were silent as they drove through the town, not speaking until they had gone some miles beyond it and the low mesas of New Mexico were in sight on the cloud-crowded horizon.
Sometime after two, they stopped for a late lunch in Socorro, eating at McDonald's, a mile or two from the Rio Grande.
Socorro didn't have a Store, but Las Palmas, the next town, did -- a huge, conspicuously expensive building
