The niece was there in the house with a small child; there must be a way to turn that to advantage. On the other hand, Teresa had reported that she had said she might be able to get someone to help—Sweet assumed this to be a man—and he would have to watch a while for that.
He was cold at his vantage post. He was not nearly as cold as Ellie Peale.
Chapter 6
Amanda resettled herself purposefully with her book, discovering by page twenty-three that she was going to have to start all over again. It had begun with a fashionable funeral, but now she was looking at something incomprehensible about children gathering strawberries.
Her worry about Apple had largely dissipated—nothing much could happen to a dog under the escort of a full-grown Doberman pinscher—but Drougette was another matter. All else apart, what about the spectre of a wrongful-death suit? Very occasionally a car traveling at speed collided with a galloping horse, with disastrous results to all concerned. So far as Amanda could judge from the complex directions given to her by the woman caller and her own hazy notion of this area, the mare couldn’t be more than a mile and a half away, but would she stay there, harmlessly nibbling at bark and enjoying the company of other horses?
She must, because it would be unthinkable to leave a sleeping two-year-old while she found a rope and drove off into the night with no idea of the extent of her mission; that was the kind of errand undertaken by the Judge Craters of the world. It was equally unthinkable to wake and dress her small charge and take her along on this bitter night. A developing chill which would be only a mild concern with another child could be perilous indeed for Rosie Lopez.
Was it possible that, even though she had been fed and watered so recently, Drougette might wander back to the corral by herself? If so, she had better find the gate open. Amanda put on her coat, stood for a moment while she pinned down an associated thought, and took her car keys from her handbag.
She couldn’t remember locking her car, in her preoccupation over Mrs. Balsam, and although the chances were probably less than those of winning the Irish sweepstakes it had to be considered that there was an escaped convict still abroad, presumably looking for transport or (far worse) a place to lurk until morning and the emergence of the unsuspecting car owner.
From outside, there was a curious rushing, whomping sound. The timing was eerie, and Amanda snatched her hand back from the knob of the patio door and stayed riveted for long seconds before, nothing further ensuing, she opened the door and peered cautiously out.
A huge cottonwood limb, of killing weight to anyone standing inattentively under it, had been weakened by the earlier winds and taken its time about crashing down. After a little wary listening Amanda skirted it, undid the catch on the corral gate and propped it wide open, and proceeded around the house to her car.
She hadn’t locked the driver’s door. She shone the flashlight in and used her key. The scrupulous person who had restored Mrs. Balsam’s car keys to her handbag hadn’t locked the Rabbit, and Amanda did that now; for some reason the slamming echoes seemed as sharply telltale as black footprints in new snow. She ran back the way she had come, the flashlight beam swinging brilliantly, but that was a mixture of cold and superstition. She had no sensation whatever of being watched.
She had now, as stoically as though she had actually reached him and been told that he was sorry he couldn’t get away from wherever he was, given up on Justin, which meant that she had to close her mind to the problem of the palomino. There was no one else to whom she could say, at this hour, Would you bring a rope and catch a horse for me?”
She had left her own telephone number at the hospital, not anticipating the night’s turn of events, and although it was unlikely that they had tried to reach her she dialed.
“Would you hold on a minute, please, Miss Morley? I believe there’s something—”
This could not be bad news, Amanda assured herself, still gripping the receiver in surprise because she had expected the stereotyped statement, and the alert voice was presently back. Mrs. Balsam had been sedated for the night, but earlier she had managed to speak. Just the one word—the nurse with her at the time thought it was “sell’—but she had said it more than once.
Sell the house, that would mean, thought Amanda when she had hung up. Well, that was only logical. Stroke victims sometimes recovered almost completely, but that would be a long process, and even though Mrs. Balsam had been left comfortably well-off and a part-time nurse could be arranged, the place where she had lain helpless and terrified would hold indelible memories.
Meanwhile, her terrible silence had been unlocked, however tinily; it must have been like a pinprick in an intolerable tension. As if some of the release extended to her too, Amanda took off the heels she had been wearing since seven-thirty that morning, padded down the hall, looked in at Rosie, and switched on a lamp in her aunt’s bedroom.
It was attractive and tranquil, part sitting room as well, with a small desk and striped satin chair, a long bookcase under the big window which looked across a river of lights to the mountains, a comfortably tufted hassock. And, of course, the ubiquitous gray-blue carpeting.
Amanda drew the curtains and took off the very simple larkspur suit she had also worn all day. She was taller than her aunt, but one of the closets behind louvered doors yielded a robe which was wearable and a pair of slippers too small but backless. Hand on the light switch, she took
