“My daughter went to Las Vegas?”
“Yessir.”
“Oh. Well, I hope she has fun.” With an uncertain smile, he reached for his door handle.
“No, wait,” Dylan said. “I don’t mean she went there for a few days. I mean she left town for good.”
The smile slid off his face. “How do you know this?”
“I saw her get on the bus.” Realizing this wasn’t proof enough, he dug into his pocket for the note she left. “She wrote me this,” he said, handing it over. “I tried to stop her from leaving but she wouldn’t listen.”
Fernando inspected the note, his brows raised. He didn’t say anything about Angel’s odd style of writing, or the content, but Dylan’s face burned with embarrassment.
“Angelita is a grown woman,
“You don’t understand,” Dylan said, trying not to panic. “She went to Vegas to sell her body or something. She thinks she’s dumb. She thinks she has no future!”
Fernando’s dark eyes narrowed with suspicion. “You were with my daughter this afternoon, no? Did you pay her… for her body?”
“Of course not,” he said, starting to sweat. He’d offered to pay her, but that had been his bruised ego talking. “Maybe she’s going to be an exotic dancer,” he conceded, picturing her sexy lingerie. “All I know is that she went to find work, and she wouldn’t tell me more. Whatever her plan is, it’s really bad.”
“What is this exotic dancing? Taking off clothes?”
“Yes,” Dylan exclaimed, finally getting through to him.
Unlike prostitution, which he didn’t seem to believe his daughter capable of, Fernando was visibly upset by the idea of Angel stripping. “When did she leave?”
“At least an hour ago.”
“You know this bus, if you see again?”
Dylan nodded.
Fernando jerked his chin toward the passenger side.
Shay waved good-bye to Dylan in the parking lot and promised Fernando she would check in on his kids. He didn’t know how long they’d be out looking for Angel.
She wasn’t sure she approved of her brother going off on a wild goose chase to Las Vegas, but he was almost an adult now and she had to let him grow up. Although she’d like to continue sheltering him, that time had come and gone.
Luke’s absence also worried her. Like most bullies, Garrett was a coward at heart, but such men were dangerous when cornered, and he seemed to have his back to the wall. His marriage was crumbling, and as far as Shay knew, his career was in jeopardy.
The way Garrett treated Lori was none of Shay’s business, she supposed, but he had no right to get physical with Dylan. She might file a formal complaint with the county.
“You need a ride home?” Betty asked. Not one to miss out on any Tenaja Falls action, she’d been standing right beside Shay, watching the drama unfold.
“To the Martinez place,” she corrected. “If it’s no trouble.” Shay would have waited for Luke, but with Angel and Fernando both gone, no telling what the Martinez kids were up to. They were too young to fend for themselves.
“Grill’s still hot. I’ll whip them up some cheese sandwiches.”
“Thanks, Betty.” Shay crossed her arms in front of her chest and blinked at the last sliver of sunset, feeling fatigue settle over her. “That would be great.”
Betty had the sandwiches ready in a snap. She handed them to Shay, piping hot in a large paper bag, and locked the front door. Rubbing her tired eyes, Shay followed her through the kitchen and out the back exit. Betty’s shiny new pickup was right behind the building, facing outward, its rear bumper almost kissing the stucco.
Lying on a corrugated liner in the back of the truck, there were a half-dozen fresh rabbit carcasses, tied together with straw-colored twine.
Betty had probably bought the rabbits from Fernando, who’d tossed them in the back of her truck before he came inside. People around here ate plenty of wild game, especially when money was tight, so the sight wasn’t unusual.
Shay’s reaction to the dead animals was strange, however. While Betty locked the back door, she stared at the stiff legs and beady eyes. Rabbits were typical mountain lion prey. In a flash of intuition, she replayed Betty’s explanation of the bandage covering her forearm.
Cat scratch? Must have been a hell of a big cat.
A creepy feeling came over her, dancing along the nape of her neck. Shay didn’t know why this scenario had never occurred to her before. It was tragic, but not all that uncommon, for ignorant fools to keep mountain lions as pets.
Her mother’s warning echoed in her ears, and a jumble of nightmare images danced through her head. She saw the hanging tree at the Graveyard. Her mother’s dead hand. A yowling lion, his muzzle dripping blood.
But of course, looking back was exactly what she did, turning to question Betty instead of ducking down.
And saw only the cold glint of metal as she was struck.
26
The ride toward Vegas was tense and silent, but that was to be expected. Dylan felt somewhat responsible for Angel’s sudden departure, almost as if he’d instigated her decision to go, and Fernando was none too pleased about the turn of events.
Dylan also knew Angel would resent his interference. She didn’t want him now any more than she’d wanted him before; their time together had been an aberration. The best aberration of his life, to be sure, but it meant nothing to her. Like Chad, he’d been a vehicle in her quest for self-destruction.
Dylan didn’t have to be a genius to figure Angel’s scarred relationship with her mother had taken her down this path, and he could relate to what she was going through. When your own mother didn’t love you enough to stick around, it was difficult to believe you were capable of being loved.
Even though he understood Angel’s actions on an intellectual level, he couldn’t deal with them on an emotional one. And physically, he was a wreck. Fantasizing about his afternoon with Angel while her dad was in the seat next to him was a bad idea, but his mind kept replaying their encounter, no matter how hard he tried to repress it.
“My daughter,” Fernando began, startling Dylan out of his inappropriate thoughts, “she told you she thinks she is dumb? That she has no future?”
“Not in those exact words.”
“Then in which ones?”
He hesitated, feeling guilty, and a little fearful of Fernando’s wrath. “She said, ‘I know I’m stupid’ once after I saw her handwriting.”
Fernando was quiet for another moment. “My father never learned to read. He was the smartest man I knew. My mother could not write her own name, but she told entire stories from memory. She was very wise.” He glanced at Dylan, as if expecting an argument. “There is more to intelligence than book learning.”
“Yessir,” he replied, not having to pretend he agreed.
“I know Angel struggled in school. She never said it bothered her.”
Dylan shrugged. Obviously, it had bothered her. But he didn’t say that.
“She isn’t stupid.”
“No sir.”
“You are very good in school,
Fernando studied Dylan’s swollen cheek. “And yet you can’t seem to stay out of the way of moving fists. Who did that to your face?”
