the cars left, Maggie picked up the rifle and walked outside. She placed the .22 on the gun rack in her grandfather’s black truck, near the barn where she had parked her Mustang so that whoever was in the house wouldn’t hear her arrival. Yes, she’d known how to shoot since she was a young girl, but as a doctor she’d seen what people could do with a gun and she hadn’t picked one up in years.
After slamming the truck door shut and locking it, she stood and let the silence enfold her in its comforting embrace. For days people had surrounded her, giving her no time to think, to feel.
Now she was finally alone.
She leaned against the pickup and stared at a mesa in the distance. Stark, sharp lines jutted upward toward the sky. Sunlight glittered off the red-and-white surfaces of the rock. In this land of harsh beauty, the mesa stood alone, like her. Suddenly, with all that had happened in the past hour, she couldn’t handle the solitude she had sought so desperately after the funeral. The quiet screamed at her, declaring to the world just how defenseless she was, miles from Santa Fe, alone, with only the wind’s whisper and the occasional rustle of an animal scurrying across the yard.
She peered at the dirt road leading to the highway, at the remains of the dust kicked up by the cars settling back into place, as if nothing had happened. Alone, until someone intruded, she thought. Why? What did Gramps have that the creep would want?
Most likely nothing was gone. Anything the intruder had taken would have been on his person or in his car, and the sheriff would recover that. Unless someone else had been with him and had already left. The scope of the destruction was vast, almost too much for one man. She would never know if something was missing unless she went inside and started the laborious task of straightening up.
Shoving away from the truck, she scanned the ranch. Mine now. The feelings she’d held at bay for three days inundated her all at once. Anger, bereavement and a bone-weary tiredness flooded her and made her steps leaden as she trudged toward the house.
On the porch she paused, not wanting to go back to the chaotic mess in the house that had once been so neat and orderly. She whirled around and stared off into the distance, at the top of the mesa near the highway. She watched a lone hawk circle, looking for its prey. Then suddenly the bird swooped down for the kill. Maggie closed her eyes. She couldn’t take seeing the hawk rise triumphantly with its catch in its talons. That man today had made her feel like helpless prey, vulnerable, afraid and not in control. She’d struggled never to feel those emotions again.
“What am I going to do, Gramps?” she whispered, needing to hear the sound of her own voice. With his death, she had no family left. She was as alone as that bird’s quarry. As alone as that time…No, she wouldn’t think about the past.
A dull throb began to pound behind her eyes. She massaged her temples, putting off for a few more seconds what she knew must be done.
When she went inside, the raw impact of the destruction hit her all over again. Everything she loved and cared about was strewn and ripped apart before her. Drawers were emptied, their contents flung all around. The cushions on the chairs and couch were sliced open to reveal the stuffing. Cherished photos were tossed on the floor, the glass from the frames shattered.
In the midst of the disarray, pages of the old family Bible, torn and crumpled, lay scattered about the room. She might be angry with the Lord for taking yet another loved one, but the sight ripped through what composure she had left. What kind of monster could do that to the Bible?
A picture of the intruder invaded her thoughts and iced her blood. Tears pooled in her eyes and streaked down her cheeks. Her grandfather’s possessions were her last link to him. All destroyed! Bewildered, she took a few more steps into the middle of the living room. Slowly she turned in a full circle, feeling as though she were in a dream, none of this real.
But it was very real.
She bent down and found the Bible partially hidden beneath the couch. She sank down onto the coffee table and fingered the black leather of the book, which was missing most of its pages. Her grandfather had treasured this above all, and it was beyond repair. It had been in her family for almost a hundred years. Through the sheen of tears she tried to gather the crushed pages into a pile. Her vision blurred, she blinked several times. The tears flowed even more. She gave up and allowed them to fall.
Finally, when she had no tears left to shed, she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand and started once again to pick up the pages of Gramps’s beloved Bible. Once she had collected all of them, she moved to the contents of the drawer covering part of the coffee table and tried to bring some kind of order to it. Then she went to another disheveled pile and did the same.
Evening shadows crept into the room, forcing Maggie to switch on a light. Still she labored, determined to make the living room look like it had when she had left for the funeral that morning. No one was going to come into her life and totally disrupt it as that man had earlier. She’d had too much of that in the past. She wasn’t going to allow it. She’d finally managed to have some control over her life, and she wasn’t going to give it up without a fight.
After hours of working nonstop, Maggie rose and stretched her cramped, aching muscles. The pounding in her head had subsided to a dull throb, but her eyes felt heavy, gritty. She glanced at the mess still about her. It wasn’t going anywhere, and she needed coffee.
In the kitchen, she waited at the sink for the brew to percolate, staring out the window at the darkness. The feeling of total isolation swamped her again, suddenly making her quake in the warm night air. The lock on the front door was flimsy, obviously not a good deterrent. She should leave and return some other day with several friends to help her, to keep her company, she thought to herself.
She would only stay a little longer.
The scent of coffee infused the night, temporarily reviving her spent body. Reviving her soul was a lost cause.
She poured herself a cup, took a few sips and started for the living room. She would finish the cabinet and then call it quits. As she reentered, the phone’s jarring ring startled her, and she nearly dropped her mug.
Hurrying to answer the call, she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Maggie, this is Tom. Just wanted to tell you we let the man go.”
Her grip tightened. “Why?”
“Because his story checked out. He’s a respected professor at Albuquerque City College. He had an alibi for most of the day, except the time it would have taken him to drive to the ranch. There’s no way he could have been there long enough to do the kind of damage I saw.”
“Who is he?”
“Dr. Zach Collier.”
The man’s name renewed her seething emotions. “I want him arrested for trespassing, then.”
“Now, Maggie, I know you’re upset about what happened, but the man only came inside because he thought you were there and in danger.”
“A Collier would never feel that way about a Somers. He’s lying.” Ever since she could remember, she had heard that from her grandfather, and after what Red Collier had done to Gramps, she believed him.
“Sleep on it. If you still feel that way tomorrow, come see me. Go home, Maggie.”
After hanging up, she lifted her mug to her lips and drank. The brew flowed down her throat, warming her cold insides.
