“What’s that?” she asked, pointing.
“It’s a baseball bat.”
“I can see that. What’s it doing here?”
Butch shrugged. “I ran a bar, remember? Some people believe in Glocks. I believe in baseball bats, and, believe me, I know how to use them. If somebody turns up here looking for Jenny, I’ll be ready.”
“You’d go after someone with a baseball bat?” Joanna asked. “Wouldn’t you?”
Shaking her head, Joanna switched off the light and climbed into bed beside him. He threw one arm over her shoulder and pulled her close. Joanna lay snuggled next to him, grateful to feel his solid bulk against her, for the sturdiness of his chest against her back, and for the strength in the arm that encircled her.
“Who’s Richard Bernard?” she asked a little later.
“Who?” Butch asked, and Joanna felt guilty when she realized he already must have dozed off.
“Richard Bernard. He called Saturday morning, but he didn’t leave a message. I saw his name on caller ID and figured he was someone you knew.”
“I have no idea,” Butch told Tier. “Never heard of him.”
“Neither have I,” Joanna said.
“Eva Lou and Jim Bob were here then. Maybe he’s a friend of theirs.”
“Could be,” Joanna said.
Within minutes, Butch was snoring lightly. Tired as she was, Joanna lay awake for what seemed like hours. She tossed from side to side, trying to find a comfortable position and hoping to quiet the paralyzing fear in her mind, the suspicion that a crazed killer was lurking somewhere outside in the dark, hiding and waiting and looking for an opportunity to make Jennifer Ann Brady his next victim.
Operating on a minimum of sleep, it was an edgy Joanna Brady who took her daughter to the Cochise County Justice Center at eight o’clock the next morning. They entered the department using the keypad-operated private entrance that led directly from the parking lot into Joanna’s office.
After having been gone for several days, Joanna knew she’d have mountains of paperwork to attend to. A day like this wasn’t the best time to bring her daughter to work, or to have to deal with the added complication of being present during the course of Jenny’s homicide investigation interview.
“Should I go get you a cup of coffee?” Jenny asked as Joanna dropped her purse onto her desk and eyed the stacks of correspondence awaiting her there.
Jenny had been so quiet on the ride in from High Lonesome Ranch that Joanna’s spirits rose at this hint of normalcy. “Sure,” Joanna said. “That would be great.”
Jenny darted out of the room while Joanna settled in behind her desk. Before she could reach for the first stack of correspondence, the door opened and Kristin Gregovich came into the office. The blond, blue-eyed Kristin greeted her returning boss with a cheerful smile.
“Welcome back,” she said. “Did you have a good trip?”
Kristin was newly married to Joanna’s K-nine officer, Terry Gregovich. She was also pregnant and due to deliver their first baby—a boy—in November. She had survived the first few months of fierce morning sickness and now was far enough along in her pregnancy that she no longer had to keep soda crackers and a glass of Sprite on her desk at all times. She glowed with a happiness and sense of well-being that Joanna usually found endearing. This morning, though, knowing what had happened to Dora Matthews and her unborn baby, Joanna felt a clutch in her gut at the sight of Kristin’s new but still relatively unnecessary maternity smock.
“It was fine,” Joanna told her. “Right up until people down here started dying left and right.”
“How did the poker game go?” Kristin asked.
“I won,” Joanna answered.
