know I’m twenty-three. I told you I didn’t care much about—”
“Know what I think? I think I’m old enough to be your dad.”
She tried hard not to react. Don’t let on. Don’t stutter. You’re past that now. “I thought you said you were thirty-five.” Her voice sounded smooth even to her own ears. In control. “That would mean you were…what…twelve when I was born?” She forced the corners of her lips upward.
He stalked across the room and back, once again rubbing his scalp. “You know what? I’ve got a daughter who’s fifteen.” He stopped and looked at her. “Haven’t seen her in five years, but every time I see a kid around her age, I think about her.” He gestured toward Fawn’s hand. “I got my girl a ring just like that.”
Fawn watched him without moving, barely daring to blink.
“Why is it I think more and more about my daughter when I look at you lately?”
She leaned back in the sofa and crossed her legs, keeping her spine perfectly straight. “You saw my driver’s license.”
“I’ve seen enough fake ID cards in my lifetime to fill the public library in Las Vegas. You know what, Fawn? Even though I don’t see my kid, if I knew a big fat guy my age was shacking up with her, I’d shoot the loser right in the face. Why isn’t your dad chasing me down?”
She couldn’t prevent the scowl, or the gut response. “What dad?” The words bit into the air, making Bruce blink.
He wiped at the sweat again. “Are you even legal?”
“Of course I’m legal.” She was old enough to drive. That was legal.
He reached down and fingered several strands of the blond hair that curved past her shoulders. “What year did you say you were born?” His voice strained tightly in his throat.
Get back in the act. Quick! She forced a husky laugh. “Bruce, don’t be silly. Of course I’m flattered…I think. But I can’t help it if I remind you of your daughter. Do I act like some little sixteen-year-old?” Please believe me, Bruce. I can’t go back to the Keno job. And I sure can’t go back to the street.
“Not when you’re awake, except when you bite your nails.”
She held up her perfectly groomed hands. She’d had a manicure just yesterday. “A woman needs her little vices. You should be glad mine are so innocuous.” That was the right word, wasn’t it? Bruce wasn’t exactly an English professor, and tossing in an intelligent-sounding word now and then helped keep him guessing.
He continued to stare at her, as if he couldn’t quite remember the true color of her eyes behind the brown contact lenses—lenses that, according to the advertisement, made her look friendlier and more approachable. More exotic as well.
Or maybe he was trying to make a decision about something. Fawn held her breath for a long moment, until the sound of a horn blast reached through the sliding glass door that opened onto the lanai.
Bruce glanced toward the door, then at his watch. “I want you to run another errand for me, Princess.”
She pouted again. “So I really am your errand girl?”
“Let’s just pretend that you are for now, okay?” He reached down and patted her cheek. “I think you can handle playing a role.”
She watched him for a moment, fighting back a horrible fear that skittered through her stomach like a line of swarming termites. With as much cool as she could project, she reached for her purse on the counter. “Tell me what you need, oh master.”
She endured his gaze. She would not beg.
“Did you withdraw the cash limit?” he asked.
“Only from one card. I don’t know why you suddenly want all this—”
“Use the other card and withdraw that limit, too, but don’t do it downstairs. I want you to take a taxi to an address I’m going to write down for you.”
She didn’t argue. How could she? He was trying to get rid of her. “You’ll be here when I get back?” she asked, voice soft, conciliatory.
“I’m not leaving you, Princess, but I have some work to do, and I’ve got to be alone to do it.”
Karah Lee Fletcher yawned for the third time in less than five minutes as her eyes glazed and she struggled to maintain her attention on the highway ahead of her. She was too close to her destination to give in to sleep now, or to the slight nausea she’d battled ever since eating that greasy hamburger in Springfield.
She was going to have to start eating healthier. And she needed to get more sleep. Working with sick people all the time left her open to just about every virus in Missouri, and when she didn’t take care of herself, her immune system let her know about it.
The center line of the road blurred, and Karah Lee jerked the steering wheel to the right. “Come on, focus,” she muttered to her ten-year-old Ford Taurus sedan, as if the car were the culprit weaving back and forth inside the boundary of her lane. “It isn’t that late, and we’re almost there. Only a few more miles.”
Actually, it would be closer to ten miles before she reached Hideaway, and darkness had descended over Missouri some time ago. She glanced at the glowing numbers on the dash. Nine-thirty. Okay, not that long ago, but she’d worked last night. Big difference.
She felt another yawn coming on, and reluctantly closed the vents that allowed the sweet Ozark air to drift through the car. Time for the big guns.
She switched on the air conditioner full force and took a few deep breaths, aiming all four vents toward her. Ah, yes, that chased away most of the nausea and blew off some of the fog that hovered in her brain. The improvement wouldn’t last long, judging by her experience of the past hour. Highway 76 west of Branson had very little traffic to keep her occupied, and it made her wonder: Did someone know something she didn’t? Or could she be lost?
She pulled over to the side of the road and checked the directions Ardis Dunaway had given her. Follow the Highway 76 signs and ignore the strangeness of the new roads that had been added in the past few months. This place had changed a lot, but she still knew how to follow directions.
The stars congregated in the darkness of the country sky, but the moon was nowhere in evidence. The trees on either side of her seemed to swallow any excess light. Another attack of the yawns beset Karah Lee as the night invaded the car with increasing heaviness…and her eyelids drooped ever closer to catastrophe….
She jerked upright. “Time to get serious.” Karah Lee hated talking to herself. To her, it meant that, after thirty-four years, the loneliness of single life had finally affected her mind. People who talked to themselves became so addicted to it that they did so in public. Death knell for a social life. So she wouldn’t get into the habit of it, but if she fell asleep now and ran off the road and killed herself, that, too, would end future prospects.
She reached for the radio knob, then thought better of it. The blare of noise would only cheapen the experience of driving into this magical land that had made such an impact on her when she was a teenager—when the roads had been so much narrower than they were now.
Finally,
