Her mother had died when Parker was ten. Breast cancer at thirty-one. Her father died eight years later. Lung cancer at thirty-nine. Neither parent had made it to their fortieth birthday.
Longevity simply didn’t run in Parker’s family. She’d known it and worried about dying all her adult life, and at thirty-seven, she realized her number would come up soon. Only she’d been smarter than all her ancestors. She would leave no offspring. There would be no next generation of Laceys. She was the last in her family.
There were also no lovers, or close friends, she thought. Her funeral would be small.
The beep of her cell phone interrupted her morbid thoughts.
“Hello, Parker speaking,” she said.
“I’m in!” came a soft voice. “I followed the map. It was just a few miles from where the bus stopped. The house is perfect, and your housekeeper delivered more groceries than I’ll be able to eat in a year. And, Parker, you were right. This isolated place will be heaven.”
Parker forgot her problems. She could worry about dying later. Right now, she had to help one of her artists. “Tori, are you sure you weren’t followed?”
“Yes. I did it just the way you suggested. Kept my head down. Dressed like a boy. Switched buses twice. One bus driver even told me to ‘Hurry along, kid.’”
“Good. No one will probably connect me with you and no one knows I own a place in Crossroads. Stay there. You’ll be safe. You’ll have time to relax and think.”
“They’ll question you when they realize I’ve vanished,” Tori said. “My stepfather won’t just let me disappear. I’m worth too much money to him.”
Parker laughed, trying to sound reassuring. “Of course, people will ask how well we know one another. I’ll say I’m proud to show your work in my gallery and that we’ve only met a few times at gallery openings.” Both facts were true. “Besides, it’s no crime to vanish, Tori. You are an adult.”
Victoria Vilanie was silent on the other end. She’d told Parker that she’d been on a manic roller coaster for months. The ride had left her fragile, almost shattered. Since she’d been thirteen and been “discovered” by the art community, her stepfather had quit his job and become her handler.
“Tori,” Parker whispered into the phone, “you’re not the tiger in a circus. You’ll be fine. You can stand on your own. There are professionals who will help you handle your career without trying to run your life.”
“I know. It’s just a little frightening.”
“It’s all right, Tori. You’re safe. You don’t have to face the reporters. You don’t have to answer any questions.” Parker hesitated. “I’ll come if you need me.”
“I’d like that.”
No one would ever believe that Parker would stick her neck out so far to help a woman she barely knew. Maybe she and Tori had each recognized a fellow loner, or maybe it was just time in her life that she did something different, something kind.
“No matter what happens,” Tori whispered, “I want to thank you. You’ve saved my life. I think if I’d had to go another week, I might have shattered into a million pieces.”
Parker wanted to say that she doubted it was that serious, but she wasn’t sure the little artist wasn’t right. “Stay safe. Don’t tell the couple who take care of the house anything. You’re just visiting, remember? Have them pick up anything you need from town. You’ll find art supplies in the attic room if you want to paint.”
“Found the supplies already, but I think I just want to walk around your land and think about my life. You’re right. It’s time I started taking my life back.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Parker had read every mystery she could find since she was eight. If Tori wanted to disappear, Parker should be able to figure out how to make it happen. After all, how hard could it be?
The hospital door opened.
Parker clicked off the disposable phone she’d bought at the airport a few weeks ago when she and Tori talked about how to make Tori vanish.
“Miss Parker?” A young doctor poked his head into her room. He didn’t look old enough to be out of college, much less med school, but this was a teaching hospital, one of the best in the country. “I’m Dr. Brown.”
“It’s Miss Lacey. My first name is Parker,” she said as she pushed the phone beneath her covers. Hiding it as she was hiding the gifted artist.
The kid of a doctor moved into the room. “You any kin to Quanah Parker? We get a few people in here every year descended from the great Comanche chief.”
She knew what the doctor was trying to do. Establish rapport before he gave her the bad news, so she played along. “That depends. How old was he when he died?”
The doctor shrugged. “I’m not much of a history buff, but my folks stopped at every historical roadside marker in Texas and Oklahoma when I was growing up. I think the great warrior was old when he died, real old. Had six wives, I heard, when he passed peacefully in his sleep on his ranch near a town that bears his name.”
“If he lived a long life, I’m probably not kin to him. And to my knowledge, I have no Native American blood and no living relatives.” By the time she’d been old enough to ask, no one around remembered why she was named Parker and she had little interest in exploring a family tree with such short branches.
“I’m so sorry.” Then he grinned. “I could give you a couple of my sisters. Ever since I got out of med school they think I’m their private dial a doc. They even call me to ask if TV shows get it right.”
“No, thanks. Keep your sisters.” She tried to smile.
“There are times when it’s good to have family around.” He said, “Would you like me to call someone for you? A close friend, maybe?”
She glanced up and read all she needed to know in the young man’s eyes. She was dying. He looked terrible just giving her the news. Maybe this was the first time he’d ever had to tell anyone that their days were numbered.
“How long do I have to hang around here?”
The doc checked her chart and didn’t meet her gaze as he said, “An hour, maybe two. When you come back, we’ll make you as comfortable here as we can but you’ll need—”
She didn’t give him time to list what she knew came next. She’d watched her only cousin go through bone cancer when they were in high school. First, there would be surgery on her leg. Then they wouldn’t get it all and she’d have chemo. Round after round until her hair and spirit disappeared. No, she wouldn’t do that. She’d take the end head-on.
The doctor broke into her thoughts. “We can give you shots in that left knee. It’ll make the pain less until—”
“Okay, I’ll come back when I need it,” she said, not wanting to give him time to talk about how she might lose her leg or her life. If she let him say the word cancer, she feared she might start screaming and never stop.
She
