“Deputy Snell.”
“Ah.” He turned his attention back to the road. “Even I know it is better to avoid a man like him, and I have only an eighth-grade education.”
Dylan felt a smile tug at his lips. Fernando made a good point. Dylan couldn’t always dodge Snell, but he could learn how to keep his stupid mouth shut.
“With my daughter…
That wiped the smile off his face. “Yes,” he said, his neck growing hot.
Fernando glanced into the rearview mirror. “Good. You are much too young to be a father. In fact,” he weaved through traffic, “You should not touch Angel again.”
Dylan recognized the threat for what it was and didn’t respond. If they didn’t find Angel, the point was moot, and even if they did, she would probably rather die than sleep with him again. But that was up to her, and nothing Fernando said would stop him.
If she gave him the go-ahead, he would touch her anywhere, anytime, and any way she wished.
Fernando’s 4-runner was built for reliability, not speed. Even so, he was punching it down the highway, passing most cars like they were standing still. The time of day also worked to their advantage. At dusk, there was a lot of traffic, enough to slow down a tour bus, but not so much that Fernando couldn’t get through.
The preferred route to Vegas was pretty much a straight shot. The last convenient stop along the way, and the most likely place to catch up with Angel, was in Midway, an appropriately named town halfway between Vegas and LA.
Dylan knew without having to be told that this was their only chance to find her. It was getting dark and soon he wouldn’t be able to recognize the bus she’d taken among the others on the crowded freeway. The transit station in Vegas would be huge and chaotic. As soon as she stepped onto the causeway, she would disappear.
After they took the Midway exit and pulled into the rest area, Dylan saw one dusty tour bus sitting in the back of the lot under the dismal glow of fluorescent streetlights.
“I think that’s it,” he said, straightening in his seat.
But as they came closer, he saw the insignia painted on the side: “Desert Breeze.” Not “Sunset Tours.”
“No,” he said, his heart sinking. “Wrong one. Sorry.”
Fernando pulled into a parking space beside the bus just as the driver started the engine and began to drive away. Curling his hands around the steering wheel, he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against it in absolute defeat.
Dylan tore his eyes away from the man’s haggard face, watching helplessly as the wrong bus went by, taking their last hope with it. In the space it vacated, he caught a glimpse of a dark, curvy shape, the outline of a black guitar case.
And the girl sitting next to it, using her duffel bag as a cushion, her elbows resting on her bent knees and her chin propped up in her hands, was Angel.
Shay woke up in the passenger seat of Betty’s parked truck, alone and disoriented. She was slumped on her side, stomach roiling with nausea, her head pounding as if she’d been downing shots at the Round-Up all night.
But she hadn’t been. Had she?
No. The last thing she remembered was being behind the cafe… with Betty. And now she had a headache from hell.
Groaning, she raised a hand to her hair. It was matted with blood, sticky-wet. And her clothes smelled like…
That’s right. Betty had clocked her over the head with an aluminum coffeepot. But why?
The world outside was dark, not yet black. It was still early evening. She raised herself up to look around and the interior of the cab went spinning. Moaning, she reached out to grab ahold of the dash and squeezed her eyes shut until the motion stopped.
Luke. She had to tell Luke. She had to find Luke and tell him… what? Rabbits. Something about rabbits.
Her eyes flew open. Fuck the rabbits, she had to get out of here. Her clumsy hands lifted the door handle and she almost went tumbling out. Light flooded the cab of the truck. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision as she searched her surroundings and her person. Damn. No cell phone. No keys in the ignition, either. No escape.
Terrified by the idea that Betty would come back to finish her off, she stumbled out of the truck, and fell facedown in the dirt. Her head throbbed as if she’d been struck by lightning. Her stomach rebelled, threatening to send its contents hurling back up.
She was vaguely aware that she was no longer in the parking lot behind the cafe. The ground beneath her was too soft; earth filled her grasping hands. Panting from fear and nausea, she pushed the passenger door shut and let the night envelop her.
As she lay there, trying to catch her breath, she outlined her choices. Stay here and die. Crawl away and find help.
That last one sounded best. She lifted her head again, moving gingerly, studying the gloom around her. Fuzzy shapes began to take focus. Hills and trees and a dirt road. A long fence and lonely mailbox. It all looked kind of familiar.
Oh, shit. She turned to see Betty’s ranch-style house, looming behind her like something from a nightmare.
They were out in the middle of nowhere. She could crawl for hours before she found a friendly neighbor in this neck of the woods.
Woods. That was it! She could hide in the woods until the pain in her head subsided. There wasn’t much around here but sagebrush and rocks, but the nearby hills offered plenty of cover for a person lying down. At the very least, she should get away from the front yard, and out of sight of the road.
Betty hadn’t brought her home for a game of Monopoly, after all. And any moment, she’d be back looking for her.
Decision made, Shay pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. When no vomiting or head-exploding pain ensued, she struggled to her feet, holding on to the side of the truck for balance.
The wild rabbits were still there, dead, bodies stiff, eyes black in the moonlight.
Everything came rushing back to her. Her strange, foreboding dream. The suspicion that Betty had a pet lion. The blackout blow.
In the close distance, an ear-splitting shriek rang out, shrill and high-pitched, as haunting as a woman’s scream. It was the unmistakable sound of an angered lion.
“Oh, God,” she whispered, feeling her knees shake. What was Betty doing? Letting the lion out to hunt?
She shrank away from the truck, worried that the scent of rabbit would call the lion closer. Then she lifted her hand to her head in horror, aware that the smell of her own blood also filled the air. She couldn’t hide from a hungry lion. And if it came after her, there was no way she could outrun it.
For a moment, she was tempted to crawl back inside the cab of the truck and lock the doors. Betty could still get to her, but the lion couldn’t.
Another set of screams filled the night, causing goose bumps to break out on her skin. This time, the yowl didn’t merely sound like a woman. It
Shay shuddered where she stood, chilled to the bone. Then, still reeling from the blow to her head, she staggered forward, toward the sound.
Along the side of the main house there was an old red barn, open and filled with rusty farming equipment. If Betty had a caged enclosure, it would be out back. On unsteady legs, she passed the barn, moving quietly over the dry earth.
As soon as she rounded the corner, she saw it. A large chain-link enclosure, bathed in the glow of fluorescent light.
The enclosure stretched from the back of the house all the way to the fence line. Camouflaged netting covered the links on top and wooden slats added privacy along the sides. To a casual observer, the enclosure might appear to be nothing more sinister than an extra-large dog run, but Shay recognized the signs of a big cat.
The concrete floors looked clean but smelled of territorial markings. An intact male lion definitely lived here.
