Chief Cobb looked up. His voice was level. “I wanted to equip each car with a GPS. It was voted down by the city council. Unnecessary expense. Like the mayor said, ‘How could we lose a police car?’” He bent again to the radio.
“Calling Car Six. Calling . . .”
C H A P T E R 1 8
My eyes adjusted to the almost impenetrable darkness.
Slowly shapes formed, dark shadowy bunches of trees, tangled shrubs, branches that let through scarcely a glimmer of cold moonlight.
I heard an eerie echo of Chief Cobb’s voice, tinny and distant.
“Calling Car Six. Calling Car Six.” I moved nearer the sound, bumped into metal. Anita’s cruiser was parked alongside a tall stand of cane.
I ran my hand along the side of the car, found an open window. I poked my head inside.
“. . . report immediately. Calling Car Six, report . . .” Taking a quick breath, I opened the door. The light flashed on. I glanced front and back. Nothing. No one. I had feared what I might find, but Anita had taken Bayroo with her. I closed the door and walked through crushed grasses to the gravel road.
Branches creaked in the ever-stirring Oklahoma wind. I faintly discerned the road. Obviously, I was out in the country, some remote and untraveled area.
Was I too late? My heart twisted. Dear, sweet, fun Bayroo, where are you? I had to search, move as quickly as possible. I rose high, G h o s t at Wo r k
looking for a light, a sign of movement. Whatever Anita planned, let me be in time. It seemed an eon and yet I knew only seconds had passed.
Below me were woods and beyond the trees an overgrown field, dark and quiet in the moonlight. A ramshackle barn loomed perhaps twenty feet away, silhouetted against the night sky. A derelict combine lay on one side amid a jumble of trash, coils of barbed wire, rusted milk cans, the frame of a windowless jalopy, lumber scraps in a haphazard pile. An owl suddenly rose from the barn roof, hooting, his wavering mournful call a warning of trespass.
Light flickered from a hayloft, a brief, dancing dart. A spear of light through the wide window illuminated the dark and leafless limbs of a huge maple. A wooden shutter creaked into place and the vagrant gleam was gone.
The hayloft . . .
I arrived in the filthy, junk-filled loft.
A Maglite lay atop a battered wooden table. In its beam, Anita struggled to push an old chest of drawers against the shutter, throwing a monstrous shadow against a stack of galvanized tubs.
Bayroo’s frightened eyes followed Anita’s every move. Bayroo’s face was pale, her wrists manacled, her pirate costume torn at one shoulder. She was a few feet behind Anita. As Anita shoved the chest, the wood grating on the loft floor, Bayroo edged toward wooden steps that descended into a black void.
The handcuffs clanked.
Anita whirled. She clamped her hand to her holster, drew out the gun, whipped it level with Bayroo’s head.
If I rushed her, the gun might fire. I was poised to move, knowing a desperate struggle would ensue. Anita was young and fit, trained to overcome attackers.
Anita held the gun steady with both hands. “How old are you?” Her voice was thin.
Ca ro ly n H a rt
“Eleven.” Bayroo’s green eyes were wide and staring.
I wished I could take her in my arms, tell her she was going to be safe, that someday she would look back and understand she’d been caught up innocently in the ugly aftermath of dark passions, that anger and murder and violence would not touch her life, take her life.
Bayroo had not yet seen me. Her eyes, young, vulnerable, defense-less, questioning, never left Anita’s ashen face.
Anita’s lips trembled. “Eleven. Vee was eleven when Mama died.
I raised her up. She was always beautiful. You’re beautiful, too.” Her haggard face was heavy with remembered grief and love.
“Thank you.” The words hung between them, Bayroo’s polite response automatic. How often must Kathleen have said, “Always say thank you when you are complimented.”
“Eleven.” Slowly the gun sank until the muzzle pointed at the dust-laden floor, streaked now by footprints.
The moment had passed, the awful moment when Anita had chosen between life and death for Bayroo.
“Why did you have to be in the preserve?” Anita’s voice shook.
“Why? If you hadn’t been there, if you hadn’t seen me, everything would be all right.”
Bayroo looked puzzled. “Weren’t you supposed to be there?” Anita ignored her. She jammed the gun into her holster, flexed her fingers as if her hand ached.
Bayroo shivered. “I’m cold. Are we going to stay long? My mom and dad will be worried about me. Why did you bring me here?”
“Don’t talk, kid.” Anita’s voice was gruff. She swallowed hard, her features drawn in a tight frown as she studied the loft. Her face was pale, remote, distant. I saw no trace of the young woman whose tremulous glance
