walking, which she did until her fried brain registered the fact that the road had split in two. One track continued in a more or less straight line, the other curved off to the west, leading to the same mountains, only closer.
Two roads, neither looking well traveled. It was a Robert Frost nightmare.
Her gut said the straight road was the right road but her gut didn’t have a great track record. Not today anyway. “West,” she muttered, vaguely comforted by the fact that the Pacific Ocean lay in that direction, albeit a hundred miles away.
That’s when the strap on her left sandal snapped in two.
She stood for a moment on her right foot, her throat as dry as the sandy earth burning through the thin sole.
Now what?
Jack Wheeler frowned at the sight of the white compact abandoned halfway across his access road. Bumping over small rocks and tumbleweed, he pulled around the car, coming to a stop amidst a billowing cloud of sandy dust. He popped open his door and jumped to the ground, both boots hitting the road at the same time.
As he approached the car, he noticed it sported a Washington State license plate and a sticker on the front bumper advocating the practice of random acts of kindness. He couldn’t imagine whom the car belonged to; he wasn’t expecting anyone from Washington. He impatiently strode to the driver’s door and, using one of his gloves as a makeshift pot holder, tried the handle.
Locked. Leaning down and gazing inside, he spied on the passenger seat an empty bottle of water, a sky-blue woman’s jacket, a cell phone and a plastic folder with an unfamiliar logo: a stylized raindrop, inside of which were call letters.
A wave of irritation flashed across the stern contours of his lips. Oh, brother, not another reporter, radio or otherwise.
Maybe just a curiosity seeker.
The logo suggested otherwise.
Jack recalled the last big-city reporter who had tried to cozy her way into the tattered remains of his dignity. He’d caught on to her act just in time, but it hadn’t saved him from her half-truths.
But that had been right after Nicole left, when the public’s curiosity about the whole affair was still white-hot. Besides, this car was parked in a weird spot for a thrill seeker or a writer. It was way too far from the house to see anything, too far from the mountains to provide cover.
Kneeling, he looked under the vehicle and saw a puddle of black fluid and a jagged piece of lava rock, which explained a lot but still left the question: Where was the driver?
He didn’t have time for this, he thought with an impatient glance at the pocket watch his father had left him. He was running behind schedule.
It didn’t matter. You couldn’t leave someone stranded out in the desert. Not even if that someone was a reporter.
On the other hand, he couldn’t leave this car partially blocking the road, either. Swearing under his breath, he flattened out on his stomach and dislodged the rock—no easy feat. Then he took a rope from the back of his truck and looped it around first his hitch, then the car fender. Within a few minutes, the automobile sat harmlessly off to the side, tucked up against a sandbank.
Back in the truck, Jack drove north until he hit the fork in the road. It occurred to him that only someone who knew about the studio would stray from the main road, but he stopped anyway and grabbed a pair of small binoculars from the glove compartment.
The desert heat rippled like airborne ocean waves as he scanned the trek leading to the house and found it empty. Next he tried the west road. Was that a figure up ahead? If he or she was from the car, they’d walked almost five miles. Setting aside the binoculars, Jack gunned the engine and swore under his breath.
Another reporter on her way to snoop around the abandoned studio?
Whoever it was would soon regret their decision to invade his privacy.
A few minutes later, he slowed the truck and gaped at the apparition in front of him. Irritation turned to amazement as he took in the figure of a young woman, her expression just as startled as he supposed his was.
She was tall and willowy, with long, dark blond hair caught in a high ponytail, sunglasses perched on a straight nose, wearing what once must have been a silky white blouse and a perfectly cut light blue skirt. Both articles were covered with a film of dust. The sunburn on her throat and arms extended down two shapely pantyhose-free legs. Her right foot was just barely embraced by a delicate white sandal that looked as alien out here on the desert plateau as an ice cream parlor would look in hell, and on her left foot, she wore…a purse.
That demanded a double take and he gave it one. Sure enough, the woman had stuffed her left foot into a straw shoulder bag. A long strap extended upward, clutched tightly in her left hand. As he stared, she started hobbling toward him, the purse acting as a makeshift shoe.
He jumped out of the truck, a canteen in his hand. As she drew closer, she tried smiling but it apparently hurt because she winced. In that instant, he realized that under the sunburn and the dust she was pretty. Okay, extremely pretty. His defenses immediately went back on to full alert.
“Who are you?” he heard himself bark.
This stopped her in her tracks.
He knew he should show compassion—she looked miserable. Even if she was a reporter, she wasn’t in the best of straits right now. But what he felt was alarm as he registered how, one by one, his traitorous senses were springing back to life. Even the air had a new sharp smell, and the sun, hitting the back of his neck, felt warmer than it had in two years.
“What are you doing out here?” he grumbled, reminding himself that this woman was definitely not his type. He liked small women with fluffy hair. He liked women with more curves, and most importantly, if she was indeed a reporter, he liked women who didn’t get their kicks out of snooping into a person’s life.
“Didn’t you see the No Trespassing signs?” he added.
She gasped, “Is that water?”
He finally got his act together enough to twist off the cap and hand her the canteen, which she immediately upended. He watched her greedily gulping the precious fluid, her throat rippling, water dribbling down her chin, plopping onto her pink bosom and running in tiny rivulets between her breasts, down under the clinging fabric of her shirt.
Jack swallowed hot dry air. “Who are you?” he repeated as she finally lowered the canteen.
“Roxanne Salyer,” she said breathlessly. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, smearing the fine coat of dust into a minor mud slide.
“Is that your car back there?”
She nodded and tried to return the canteen.
“Go ahead and keep it,” he told her, handing her the cap, “but take smaller sips.” He studied her for a second, his gaze eventually drifting down to her unusual footwear. “Are you hurt?”
Her eyes followed his. She bit her lip and winced again. All she said was, “My shoe broke.”
“Any cramps? Dizziness? Are you nauseous?”
“No,
