her over so she was leaning against his chest.
“That’s not all.”
“What else?”
“I’m a sworn police officer, but I deliberately disturbed evidence at a crime scene.”
Butch’s carefully placed his empty cup on the granite-tiled surface of the counter.
“You did what?” he asked, keeping his voice low.
“The boy was dead when I found him, Butch,” Joanna confessed. “I know I should have left him where he was, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. Instead, I picked him up and carried him to his mother. She was in a helicopter on her way to the hospital in Bis-bee, but I called it back. I gave her the boy’s body-so she could hold him one more time, so she could say goodbye. I know I shouldn’t have, Butch, but with all the other bodies lying everywhere, I didn’t think it would hurt …”
Joanna’s voice trailed off into a stifled sob. Butch pulled her close and let her weep into the shoulder of his terry-cloth robe.
176
“It’s okay, Joey,” he said soothingly. “It’s okay. It sounds like this was one of those times when you had two choices, both of them right and both of them wrong.
You did what you had to do.”
Butch and Joanna sat that way for several minutes. Finally Butch pushed her away.
“With all this going on,” he said, “I’m sure you’ll have to go into the office tomorrow, right?”
Sniffling, Joanna nodded. “Probably.”
“Well, then, come on. It’s late. We’d better go to bed and try to get some sleep.”
Taking Joanna by the hand, Butch led her into the bedroom. It wasn’t until she was lying in bed next to Butch that she finally thought to question him about the results of Jenny’s barrel-racing performance.
“She did all right,” Butch answered.
‘All right?” Joanna asked.
“Jenny didn’t bring home a ribbon, if that’s what you mean,” Butch said. “But she was out there making the effort. She and Kiddo did a good job, but remember, it was also their first time out. Not only that. Jenny was by far the youngest competitor in the bunch. Don’t worry. She can hold her head up.”
“Was she upset that I wasn’t there?”
“I don’t think so,” Butch said. “Jenny knows you have a job to do, Joey. We both do.”
“I wanted to be there. I meant to be there.”
“I know you did, but allow me to let you in on a little secret. You can’t be in two places at once. Now hush up and go to sleep.”
Within seconds, Butch had turned over onto his side and was snoring softly. With the day’s events taken into consideration, Joanna expected to lie awake, tossing and turning, but she didn’t. Within minutes she, too, was sound asleep.
177
In her dream, the SUV driver was on his knees, cowering in front of her. She was holding a gun in her hand. Not one of her little Clocks, but her father’s old .357-magnum.
“Please, lady,” the guy begged. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was an accident.
I was just doing my job.”
“Those people didn’t have a chance,” she told him scornfully. ‘And neither do you.”
With that she pulled the trigger and the back of his skull exploded. He fell onto his back. As a pool of blood spread out beneath him, Joanna turned and walked away, still carrying the .357.
178
The horror of the nightmare woke her up. Shaken, Joanna reached across the bed, hoping to find Butch Dixon’s comforting presence, but he wasn’t there. His side of the bed was empty. With one hand over her mouth to stave off the retching, she piled out of bed. By then, Lady knew the drill and was smart enough to scramble out of the way as Joanna once again raced for the bathroom to deal with that day’s worth of morning sickness.
She was still pale and shaken when she made her way into the kitchen. “How long is this going to last?” Butch asked as he handed her a mug of tea.
Joanna shrugged. “Last time I was fine for the first month, sick as a dog for the second, and fine again after that-except for drinking or smelling coffee.” That was when she noticed that the coffeepot next to the sink was empty. “No coffee for you this morning, either?”
He held up a stainless-steel covered mug. “Iced,” he 179
answered. “Made from yesterday’s coffee. I thought if you didn’t have to smell me making it, maybe you wouldn’t get sick. Obviously that didn’t work.”
“It was nice of you to try,” she said, smiling wanly.
“Maybe I should start marking off days on the calendar,” Butch said. ‘And how long do you go on eating mostly peanut butter? It’s not what I call a balanced diet.”
“No,” Joanna agreed, “but I’m sure I won’t starve.”
