the dire circumstances, Patsy felt almost upbeat as she drove into Los Piños a few hours later. She gazed around at the small downtown area with its quaint shops and family-owned restaurants. Though the buildings were old, everything was freshly painted and brightly lit. There was no mistaking that this was a town that took pride in itself. For a second she allowed herself to envision being a part of it, to imagine belonging. For a moment anyway, despair vanished. A feeling of contentment, mixed with a rare smidgen of hope, stole over her.
“We’re here, Billy,” she whispered to the now-sleeping boy. “We’re home.” Whatever it took, she would find a way to make that true.
She reached into the back seat and touched his cheek to seal the vow, then drew back in shock. He was burning up with fever. Hope gave way to panic and desperation.
“It’ll be okay, baby,” she promised. Whatever she had to do, it would be okay.
* * *
“Dadgumit, Justin, if you’d been the law around here when we were kids, I’d have spent my entire teens in jail,” Harlan Patrick Adams grumbled, standing on a corner in downtown Los Piños just before dinnertime.
Justin grinned at his cousin. “Probably should have,” he said.
“You were no better than me,” Harlan Patrick reminded him. “If I belonged in a cell, you surely belonged right there next to me. What happened to you? When did you turn into a saint?”
“Hardly that,” Justin said. “It’s just that there’s right and wrong. Somebody’s got to see to it that folks remember the difference.”
“Yeah, but that kid you just threatened with jail time threw a gum wrapper on the street. He didn’t rob the savings and loan.”
“Stop the little crime and you’ll have less trouble with the big stuff,” Justin retorted. “That’s what that mayor up in New York says and it’s worked.”
“It makes my blood run cold hearing you talk like that,” Harlan Patrick taunted. “Guess that means you won’t be playing poker with the rest of us out at White Pines later tonight, seeing as how gambling’s illegal. Or were you thinking of coming along and arresting Grandpa Harlan when he rakes in his first pot?”
Justin scowled at him. “Very amusing. I’ll be there and I intend to take every dime you lay on the table, cowboy.”
Harlan Patrick didn’t appear unduly worried. “Just as long as you leave that gun locked up at home,” he said. “It makes me very nervous to know that you’re carrying a weapon. You never could shoot worth a damn.”
Justin grinned and fingered his holster. “I’m better now. Want to see?”
Harlan Patrick shuddered. “I think I’ll pass, thanks.” He gave Justin a mock salute. “Later, cousin.”
“Yeah, later.”
After all their years of troublemaking, Justin got a kick out of watching Harlan Patrick squirm at the sight of his uniform. No one in the family, least of all his own father, quite understood what had motivated him to become a sheriff’s deputy. Jordan Adams had saved a spot in his oil company for Justin and he was mad as hell that his son had turned it down. Justin figured his brother-in-law would settle into the position just fine and sooner or later everyone would get over his defection.
Ironically, it was the family’s very own values that had taken root in Justin’s heart and made him long to keep the whole community of Los Piños as safe and secure as his family was on their various ranches. In the cutthroat oil business, his father had a straightarrow reputation for honesty and never cutting corners. Grandpa Harlan’s instinctive decency and tough-love brand of justice were as ingrained in Justin as breathing. Even as a kid, when he and Harlan Patrick had played cops and robbers, he’d always, always wanted to be the good guy. To him, becoming a cop was less a surprise than a destiny.
He stood on the sidewalk in the middle of town after his cousin had gone and surveyed his domain. Not a bit of trouble in sight. Not even a gum wrapper on the sidewalk, he observed, smiling at the memory of that kid’s expression as he’d snatched up the offending piece of paper and thrown it into the litter basket on the corner. His actions had been accompanied by a stern lecture meant to put the fear of God into the boy.
Yep, Justin thought, all was right in his world. Maybe he could actually get fifteen minutes to himself to grab a burger at Dolan’s before it closed for the night. He radioed Becky at the station.
“I’ll be at Dolan’s, if you need me. Want me to bring you anything back?”
“A hamburger, double fries and a milk shake,” the very pregnant receptionist said with heartfelt longing.
Coached on her dietary restraints by her worried husband, Justin asked, “How about a tuna on rye and a diet soda?”
Becky sighed. “It’ll do.”
“Ten-four.”
As he walked down the block, he spotted the dusty, expensive car with the out-of-state tags. Los Piños didn’t get a lot of tourists. He glanced around for some sign of strangers, but everyone out in the heat of the day was familiar. He shrugged and walked on after making a mental note of the tag number.
Inside the drugstore, he glanced at the counter, expecting to see Harlan Patrick’s sister, Sharon Lynn. His cousin had taken over a job once held by her mother and now was thinking of buying out Doc Dolan so he could finally retire. If she actually went through with it, she would hire a new pharmacist and continue running the rest of the store as she had been for the past couple of years anyway.
“Hey, Sharon Lynn, you in here?” he called out, even as he dragged a notebook from his pocket and wrote down the Oklahoma tag number.
“Back here, Justin,” she replied from the back of the drugstore. “I’ll be with you in a sec.”
He’d barely settled on a stool at the counter, when he heard what sounded like a whispered argument. His cop’s instincts, already alerted by the out-of-state car, kicked in. Drawing his gun, he moved silently down the aisle in the direction of the voices.
At the end of the row of shelves, he spotted Sharon Lynn and another woman, her blond hair scooped up into a careless ponytail, damp tendrils curling and clinging to her neck. The desperate expression on the stranger’s face spelled trouble.
She was talking so fast he couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was saying, but he didn’t waste time trying to figure it out. While she was distracted, he moved in beside her and laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. Though she was dressed in expensive, tasteful clothes, she was so thin he could feel her bones. At his touch, she jolted as if she’d been shot, her panicked eyes clashing with his. It all added up to the kind of vulnerability that could make a man lose sight of the job he was being paid to do.
Keeping her firmly in his grip, he glanced at Sharon Lynn. “Everything okay?”
The stranger’s eyes pleaded with his cousin. Sharon Lynn touched her hand gently.
“It’s okay. Justin’s my cousin. He’s not going to hurt you.”
“That all depends,” Justin said, contradicting her. “What happened?”
“I
