horror.
She grabbed the newspaper and stuffed it into the pocket of her robe, thinking that perhaps if she could no longer see that smiling face, the pain would diminish enough so she could at least breathe. But even with his visage squashed in her hand like an unwary cockroach, she could still see his face. She could still remember.
And then, in a moment of terrifying clarity, she caught a single glimpse of her own danger. Bolting upright, she knocked over the kitchen chair behind her.
Isabel started at the sound of the falling chair.
Thinking Holly had fainted, she spun around, almost spilled the full cup of coffee she had just poured. When she caught sight of Holly’s stricken face, she nearly dropped it altogether.
Was the woman having some kind of seizure? a heart attack perhaps? Her mouth gaped open.
She seemed to be trying to speak, or maybe even scream, but no sound came out of her open mouth.
Slamming the cup back down on the counter, Isabel hurried to Holly’s side. “Miss Patterson,” she said. She pulled out one of the remaining chairs and pushed it in Holly’s direction. “What’s the matter? Sit down. Sit down right here. You look like you’re going to faint.”
“She’s going to kill me!” Holly whispered hoarsely.
“Miss Patterson, please. No one’s going to kill anybody. You’re imagining things. Please sit down.”
With surprising agility, Holly Patterson dodged out of Isabel’s reach and made for the stairway.
Isabel stood there listening as heavy feet pounded down the long overhead corridor that led back to her room.
Isabel’s first impulse was to follow the woman.
It was clearer to her now than ever before that Miss Baxter was right. In Isabel’s world, Holly Patterson’s “emotional problems” meant the woman was crazy as she could be.
Upstairs, the bedroom door slammed shut, and Isabel breathed a sigh of relief. If Miss Patterson had tried to go outside or run away, she would have been far more worried.
Instead, she had gone back to her room, back to where she was supposed to be.
As soon as Miss Baxter and Mr. Rogers came back from their ride, Isabel would have to report the incident, although she still wasn’t entirely sure what had happened.
Miss Patterson had been looking at the paper. Whatever she saw there, it had upset her terribly at a time when she had already been through too much. Remembering the look on the fleeing woman’s face, Isabel knew she had gone over the edge.
Isabel stood waiting, expecting to hear the sound of the rocking chair resume, and finally it did. Isabel crossed herself and breathed a small prayer. “Let the poor soul alone,” she said to her self ‘Just let her be.”
Burton was less surprised by the fact that Maxine had been able to locate Ivy and Yuri Malakov than he was by where they were found. They had stayed at the Lodge, a grade-B motel on the far side of Tombstone.
The very look of the place offended him. Certainly, Ivy deserved a better honeymoon suite than this. He called their room from a house phone in the lobby. It was almost noon, but when Ivy answered, she sounded as though the phone had awakened her out of a sound sleep.
“You’re where?” Ivy demanded, finally coming to her senses.
“i’m in the lobby. I’ve got to talk to you, to both you and… Yuri. It’s important.”
“Burt, I’m on my honeymoon. I’ve waited for it for forty years, and this is the only one I’ll ever have. Whatever you need, it can wait until tonight. We have to come back to the ranch then to do the chores. We’ll take on the funeral arrangements this evening.”
“This isn’t about your father,” Burton said. “It’s about Holly.”
“What about her?”
“Her attorney called my office just a little while ago.”
“Why?”
“She intends to continue to fight you, Ivy, to file against the estate unless you want to negotiate now. Her lawyer will go to Judge Moore and amend the suit.”
There was a long pause. “Holly can’t do that, can she?”
“Yes.”
“What do we do about it?”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about.”
There was a pause. “All right,” Ivy said finally.
“Wait there in the coffee shop. We’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Burton went into the coffee shop, sank into a booth, and ordered himself a cup of coffee. He noticed Dave Hollicker come in a few minutes later, and Burton casually waved at the deputy as he went by.
It didn’t occur to Burton Kimball that Dave’s appearance had anything to do with him, or that by interrupting his cousin’s honeymoon, he might be adding fuel to the fire of Ernie Carpenter’s growing conspiracy theory. Because by then, the Cochise County homicide detective was hot on the trail of the possibility that Burton Kimball, Ivy Patterson, and Yuri Malakov might all be in it together.
Detective Carpenter was growing more and more convinced that the three of them, acting in concert, had murdered Harold Lamm Patterson.
