Bitch Factor (7 page)

“First time and a quick trip at that,” Dixie told him. “I was hoping to make Omaha before stopping for the night.” Driving up early that morning, even with light snowfall, and the muddy remnants of earlier snowfalls along the shoulders, the
roads had been clear. She couldn’t believe the highway would shut down completely.

“Blue Norther’s pushing a ton of snow and ice down from Canada,” the man said. “Wet front’s moving up from the southwest. Be the devil of a mess when they get together—”

“—and tougher’n the devil to outrun,” said the man beside him in blue flannel. “You got chains for that Mustang, have you?”

“Chains?” Dixie had left sixty-degree weather in Houston the night before. Even if there’d been time, she wouldn’t have thought to bring chains.

Blue plaid shook his head doubtfully. “Those roads will turn to ice before you get five miles.”

In Texas, a favorite small-town pastime was teasing the tourists. She couldn’t help wondering if these South Dakotans were pulling her leg.

“I don’t suppose you have a spare set of chains I could purchase, do you?”

The two men looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Harold would have some up at the Texaco,” said red shirt. “Only he shut down at noon.”

“Good set of snow tires might do,” said blue shirt. “You guys have snow tires on that Mustang, do you?”

Dixie was beginning to regret she’d even stopped. Ten minutes wasted here would’ve taken her ten miles farther south. But the snow snaking across the road in hypnotic waves had started her nodding off.

“No snow tires,” Dixie admitted. Her tires were the best for driving through mud and sand. This time, she’d have to trust them on ice.

The waitress reappeared from the kitchen, to-go bags already turning dark where grease from the fries seeped through. At home, Dixie dosed up on salad greens every day to compensate for the junk food she couldn’t avoid on trips. She dropped some bills on the counter when the waitress presented the check, then eyed the loose button and ruined stockings, dropped another bill, and told the girl to keep the change.

“Watertown’s about a hundred and fifty miles,” red shirt said. “You might make that before dark, if the storm doesn’t close the road south.”

The clock above the counter said twelve thirty-five. Even poking along at fifty, Dixie could make Watertown in three hours. “What time does the sun go to bed around here?”

Red shirt scratched his unshaven jaw. “Four, four-thirty, this time of year. Earlier, maybe, with this storm.”

“Sisseton’s only a hundred miles,” the waitress said. “In case the road gets really bad, you might want to stop there. It’s only three miles off the interstate, and they’ll have a room. Emma Sparks will be sure to stay open for late travelers.” She smiled encouragingly. “Merry Christmas.”

“Thanks,” Dixie said. “I hope you don’t have to work through yours.”

“No, but thanks for asking. We close at one.”

“I was lucky, then, to get here when I did.” Dixie waved at the two men. “Cheers!”

“You guys take care,” blue shirt said.

The elderly couple were still staring, as if Dixie’d walked in naked. Pulling the door shut behind her, she shivered at the shock of frigid wind and started back toward the Mustang.

Her leather boot soles hit a slick of ice. Without warning the sidewalk zipped out from under her. She whumped down on concrete, jarring her spine, tailbone to teeth. Bags and thermos scooted away as tears of pain welled in her eyes.

“Damn! How did it get so fucking cold so damn fast?”

During the few minutes she’d spent in the diner, the sidewalk had iced over. The cold pierced her light jacket as if it were cheesecloth.

Groaning under her breath, Dixie struggled to her knees and clamped a gloved hand around the thermos, thwarting the gust that threatened to roll it into the street. She clutched it to her chest, scooped up the bags, then stretched a hand to a windowsill to pull herself to her feet. The Mustang was only twenty paces away, but looked like a mile.

Head down, she moved off the sidewalk onto the snow-covered dirt and, testing her footing with every step, fought
the wind back toward the car. She couldn’t recall ever being so cold. Why the hell did people live with such weather? She wanted to holler back into the diner, tell all those folks to come on down to Texas where a body can breathe without freezing her pipes.

When she finally ducked into the car and shut the fierce wind outside, Dixie fought down a shock of trembling that was only partially due to the cold. She couldn’t help wondering if she was courting disaster to try to drive in the coming storm. Stalling out anywhere along the highway would likely mean freezing to death.

She considered taking the room the waitress had said was available here at the diner. But in the backseat of the Mustang, Dann hadn’t a prayer of escaping; in a motel room, with space to maneuver and Dixie asleep, he might get free. People could get hurt—the men in their plaid shirts, the helpful waitress with her dangling button. Dann was big enough to do some serious damage if he took a mind to hurt someone.

She could always call the Houston judge trying Dann’s case and let him know Dann had violated the terms of his bail agreement. But if the judge managed to get him back to Houston, Dann stood a good chance of being convicted—precisely the situation Belle had hired Dixie to avoid. Sure, she’d be able to look at that Christmas photo of the Keyes girls, knowing she’d done her part in avenging Betsy, and Ryan would still think of his Aunt Dixie as a hero, tracking down bad guys, but she’d forever hear Belle’s yammering scold:
Innocent until
proven
guilty, Flannigan
.

Dixie could argue that she hadn’t bargained for hauling the bail jumper across four state lines in a raging snowstorm. It was dangerous. Crazy as bungee jumping.

So when the job gets tough, Flannigan, you quit? What kind of hero is that?
Dann wasn’t a murderer, after all. He was a useless, thoughtless drunk driver, possibly guilty of vehicular manslaughter, but not murder. She could handle him. And she had no choice but to brazen the storm.

As she eyed the lowering clouds, Dixie started the Mustang. Once she put the weather behind her, she could park at
a roadside camp and grab a few winks. She didn’t feel a bit sleepy at the moment, with a roaring fire of caffeine in her belly, but she wasn’t fooled. Out on the highway, swirling snow and droning tires would work on her like a snake charmer’s flute.

The Mustang’s tires felt solid enough on the snow-covered gravel stretching back to the highway, but the icy blacktop was less forgiving. When Dixie stepped on the gas, the big engine surged and the car’s rear end fishtailed all over the road, swerving inches from an oncoming pickup truck.

She fought for control, panic snapping at her. Suddenly the tires grabbed the pavement and the car settled into the lane, steady and straight.

Dixie filled her lungs, waited a beat, then let the air seep out between her teeth, countering the surge of adrenaline that tensed her muscles.

“Let me guess,” Dann said. “Got your driver’s license by mail order.”

It’d happened so fast, everything fine one minute, out of control the next. Usually, she was a good driver, facing tricky situations with a cool head, but she was tired, wired, and sleepy—the worst driving conditions she could imagine. Loosening her grasp on the steering wheel, she flexed her fingers, mentally counting to ten.

Losing control was a special fear of hers, a deep-rooted fear. As a youngster, she’d played football with the tough kids
on the block, but roller skating left her hugging the rail. Where was the logic?

Just now, though, she’d done all right. Both truck and Mustang sped unmarred toward their destinations. By midnight or bust, she’d make Omaha, even without chains or snow tires.

Easing up on the gas, she relaxed into a comfortable cruising speed a hair over forty-five. Driving would be a damn sight easier if she could give her eyes a rest from the blinding whiteness. Squinting made her head ache, yet her sunglasses were too dark. Their comforting shade would coddle her right to sleep.

A silent barrage of snowflakes flying straight at the windshield was sleep-inducing enough, every bit as mesmerizing as the glistening ribbons snaking along the highway in front of her. Dixie cast her gaze into the distance and tapped her foot to an imaginary rock band, refusing to be lulled.

“No ketchup for these fries,” Dann groused.

“Look in the other bag.”

Dixie heard a rustle of paper followed by the crinkle of plastic packets. She’d tossed everything to the back except the thermos of coffee.

“Damn good burgers. Don’t you want one?”

“Later, maybe. Not now.”

Her stomach felt as empty as a winter ballpark, but tanking up on food would only encourage sleep. With the lane stripes buried under the snow, she had to keep sharp to stay on the road. Luckily, the highway was straight and flat.

“Saw you thump your bumper back there at the cafe. Nasty fall. Surprised you didn’t break something.”

Dixie ignored him. Conversing with skips made as much sense as laundering bullshit. Skips bitched about how the cops handled their investigation, bitched about their own attorneys, and bitched about the system in general. They could spin heartrending stories asserting their innocence, but anyone guppy enough to listen would be broadsided later by the truth.

If she made a list of people to scrape off the face of the
earth, drunk drivers would crowd right up near the top. Dumb, self-centered, and lethal. She could understand anyone getting snockered—hell, she’d been snockered a few times herself, had even curled up in the backseat to sleep it off. But a drunk behind a steering wheel turned a car into a weapon. Parker Dann might as well have held a gun to Betsy Keyes’ head and pulled the trigger.

“Probably stepped on a patch of black ice back there,” Dann mumbled around his hamburger.

Sure was a talkative bastard
.

A shock of wind slapped the side of the car, sending it scudding across the road. Startled, Dixie clenched the wheel and took her foot off the gas until the car righted itself. It had swerved only a few inches into the other lane, but the incident left her shaken. Crosswinds could be devastating. She had battled them on Texas flatlands, usually during spring or fall, not dead of winter; never on icy pavement. She slowed to forty.

“Black ice,” Dann was saying, “dangerous stuff. Slick as oiled glass…”

At forty miles an hour
, Dixie calculated,
we’ll make Watertown in three hours, Sioux Falls in five
.

“… builds up in thin sheets. So clear you see the pavement through it and don’t notice you’re on ice until it’s spinning you nine ways to Sunday.”

The entire sky now roiled with clouds, forward horizon as murky as the one behind. Folks at the diner hadn’t been joking when they called it a devil of a storm. Dixie nudged her speed back up to forty-five. She wanted to be clear of this mess before dark.

The buzz-saw sound of Dann’s snoring drifted from the backseat. Much better than listening to his prattle. The next twenty hours would be nerve-racking enough without his voice to grind on her. A dismal damn way to spend Christmas Eve.

At home, she could be finishing her Christmas shopping, buying batteries for Ryan’s new remote control model airplane.
Recalling her nephew’s beaming face the day they’d come upon the Cessna in the hobby store, Dixie smiled.

“If I had this, Aunt Dix, we could go flying together!”

One day while exploring the attic, he’d seen Dixie’s identical model, a gift from Barney her first Christmas after the adoption. With visions of dueling Cessnas, and showing off her model-flying skills, Dixie had waited until Ryan’s interest was captured by a rack of CDs, then skulked back to have the Cessna wrapped and shipped to Amy’s. What were kids for, after all, if not a chance to relive the best parts of our own lives?

Dixie glanced at the sun visor, where she had clipped the Christmas snapshot of the Keyes girls. Dixie had been just a year older than Betsy the day her blood mother, Carla Jean, dropped her on the doorstep of Founders Home and disappeared—the best thing that could have happened. Within a month, Barney and Kathleen rescued Dixie, and a few months later, their lawyer tracked down Carla Jean to sign the adoption papers. Withdrawn at first, Dixie had soon warmed to the love that permeated her new home. Amy was fifteen, and the two girls became inseparable.

Dixie’s gaze flicked once more to the big grins in the Keyes snapshot. Living with the Flannigans had erased the horrors of her first twelve years. But Betsy’s young life had been snuffed before it had a chance.

The buzz saw in the backseat grew quiet, made a few rustling, clanking noises, and resumed snoring.

According to the dash clock, Dixie’d been driving half an hour, but had travled barely twenty miles. Maybe Omaha-by-midnight was a trifle ambitious.

A crust of ice covered the windshield outside the fan-shaped area scraped clear by the wipers. That same icy crust would be building up on the pavement. Her arms ached from fighting the crosswind. Her eyes felt grainy and raw from the tiresome whiteness.

She closed them briefly for relief….

Snapped them open again.

Damn, she needed sleep!

Jabbing the radio’s ON button, she set the scanner to search for a local station. It swept the band, found nothing but static. Dixie turned up the volume, rotated the tuning dial, and picked up a few words. They faded. Her next sweep got only dead air.

Turning it off, she listened instead to the hum of the heater fan… the scrape, scrape, scrape of the wipers…

A grunt from the backseat signaled her prisoner’s awakening. Snow fell so furiously now that Dixie could scarcely see past the hood. The Mustang’s speed had dropped to thirty, and they’d traveled fewer than fifty miles since leaving the diner.