Kiss of the Bees

gun, one that would snuff out Quentin’s life? It didn’t matter if he was drugged or just drunk. Either way, he was almost as incapable of defending himself against Mitch as Lani had been earlier.

While Mitch backed up and turned the Bronco to head off across the wash, that was Lani’s dilemma—to run and try to save herself or to stay and try to save Quentin’s life as well as her own. There was a part of her that already knew Mitch’s real intention was to kill them both. He had no reason not to.

The Bronco bounced across the wash and then paused on the far side. “Come on,” Mitch yelled out the window. “Hurry it up.”

The moment Lani Walker heard his voice, shouting at her over the idling rumble of the Bronco, she made up her mind. Brother or not, she would try to be Quentin’s keeper. If they both lived, she might once again be able to tell her parents in person that she loved them. If not, if she and Quentin were both doomed and if seeing her parents again was impossible, then she was determined to leave some word for them, some farewell message. Slipping one hand into the pocket of her jeans, Lani pulled out her precious O’othham basket. Resisting the temptation to press its reassuring presence into her palm once more, she dropped it, allowing it to fall atop the small hump of rocky gravel that formed the shoulder of the road.

If someone happened to find the basket and was good enough to give it to Lani’s parents, then perhaps Diana and Brandon Walker would understand that it was a last loving message sent from Lani to them. If not—even if the carefully woven hair charm came to no other end than to grace Wosho koson’s—Pack Rat’s—burrow—Lani could be assured the sacred symbol of the Tohono O’othham, the maze, would not be defiled by Mitch’s evil Ohb touch. He might manage to claim other trophies, including some ancient Indian pots, but Lani’s basket would never be his.

Fighting back tears, Lani bent herself to her assigned task, wielding the makeshift broom. As she scraped the tire tracks out of the sand, Lani realized that with every stroke she was also erasing any hope that some rescuer might find them in time.

That meant she and Quentin would most likely die. If it came down to a fight between her and Mitch, there could be little doubt of the outcome. He would win. Lani and Quentin would die, but the terrible pain in her breast told her that in the hands of someone like Mitch Vega, there might be far worse things than death.

That awful knowledge came over Lani in a mind-clearing rush, calming her fears rather than adding to them. Perhaps she would not be able to save either Quentin’s life or her own from this new evil Ohb, but by leaving the basket behind, she had at least saved that.

As long as those few strands of black and yellow hair stayed woven together, then some remnant of Lani’s own life would remain as well, for she had woven her own spirit into that basket—her own spirit and Jessica’s and Nana Dahd’s as well.

No matter what he did, Mitch would never be able to touch that.

For some time after Alvin Miller left, Brandon and Diana simply sat in the living room together, sharing many of the same thoughts, but for minutes at a time, neither of them spoke.

“Should we call Fat Crack?” Diana asked at last.

“I don’t see what good that would do,” Brandon said.

“But what if . . .”

“If what?”

Diana paused for a moment before she answered. “What if he’s right and this is what he meant yesterday when he was talking about the evil coming from my book?”

“How could it be?” Brandon returned. “I don’t see how Lani’s disappearance now can have anything to do with Andrew Carlisle showing up here twenty-one years ago.”

“I don’t either,” Diana said. “Forget I even mentioned it.”

Again they were quiet. “What if we’ve lost her forever, Brandon? What if we never see her again?”

Swallowing hard, Brandon Walker leaned back and rested his head on the chair. He had already lived through this agony once when they lost Tommy. It had never occurred to him that he might lose a second child.

“Don’t say that,” he said. “We’ll find her. I know we’ll find her.”

But even as he said the words, Brandon’s own heart was drowning in despair. He had heard those same platitudes spoken by other grieving parents about other missing children, some of whom had never been heard from again.

“At six o’clock sharp, I’m going to be on the phone to the department, raising hell. Ford Myers may not be the one who comes out here to take the Missing Persons report, but someone sure as hell will be, or I’ll know the reason why!”

Diana glanced at her watch. It was ten of one. “Maybe we should go to bed. Even if we can’t sleep, it would probably do our bodies some good if we lay down for a while.”

Brandon looked at Diana. Other than having kicked off her shoes, she was still wearing the dress she had worn to the banquet, but she looked bedraggled. Her hair had come adrift. Brandon was startled by the dark shadows under her eyes and by the bone-weary strain showing around the corners of her mouth.

“You’re right,” he said quickly, standing up and helping her to rise as well. “If there’s a phone call, we can take it in the bedroom just as easily as we can take it here.”

They walked into the bedroom together. Brandon stripped to his shorts while Diana undressed and hung up her dress. The bed was still in disarray as a result of their afternoon lovemaking. As Brandon set about straightening the covers, a plastic cassette tape slid out from under Diana’s pillow.

“What’s this?” he asked, picking it up. Other than the manufacturer’s label, there was no marking on it of any kind. “Did you leave this tape here, Di?” he asked.

Diana, dressed in a nightgown, came out of her walk-in closet. “What tape?” she asked.

“This one,” Brandon said, holding it up so she could see it. “I found it under your pillow.”

Diana Ladd Walker swayed on her feet and groped for the door-jamb to keep from falling. Her face turned deathly pale. “Where did that come from?” she whispered.