Murder on the Horizon (26 page)

36

“T
HANK
you so much for everything,” Sharon said, pulling Gracie into another lavender-scented hug.

“You're welcome again,” Gracie said.

Sharon pulled away. Walking around Baxter, she brushed his shoulder with a hand, then climbed the steps up onto the sagging porch and disappeared inside the house.

Baxter stood unmoving at the bottom of the stairs, hands in pocket, head bowed. For the first time since Gracie had met him, he looked like a normal eleven-year-old boy wearing a goldenrod T-shirt and a navy blue hoodie, the ends of new sneakers peeking out from beneath too-long blue jeans. The straw-colored hair was trimmed, washed, and combed. He wore new wire-rimmed glasses. He looked like a little man rather than a boy.

“You okay, Bax?” Gracie asked, easing herself down on the bottom step so that her face was even with his.

A nod.

“You have those books I brought?”

He gestured back toward the house.

Gracie looked at the bent head, the sprinkle of freckles across the nose. “You saved my life, you know.”

“You saved my life, too,” he said, still without looking up.

“Well, then. I guess that makes us best friends for life, doesn't it?”

“Why do you have to leave?”

“I lost my cabin, Bax.”

“But why do you have to go away? You could stay with us.”

Gracie smiled. “Gran Sharon might have something to say about that.”

She looked out over the dirt yard, past the Ranger parked along the street, the houses beyond, the pines towering behind. “I need to go away for a while,” she said. “A little break. You have my cell number. You can call me. Anytime. About anything. I mean it. And I'll write you letters. Will you write me back?”

“Where will I send them?”

“When I get to where I'm going to be for a little while, I'll let you know the address.”

“Okay.”

“Can I have a hug?”

She had barely finished the words before Baxter wrapped his arms around her, his head on her shoulder.

Gracie hugged him back, pressing her cheek to the still-wet hair until finally she managed, “I love you, Bax.”

“I love you, too, Gracie,” he mumbled into her shirt. Then, dry-eyed, he let go, walked up the steps, across the porch, and into the house, quietly closing the door.

The boy's tears would come later, in private, Gracie knew.

As, she was certain, they would for her.

*   *   *

GRACIE STOOD BEFORE
the metal desk in the empty Watch Commander's office, staring down at the piece of paper in her hand.

Moments before, sitting in the Ranger in the parking lot
of the SO, she had handwritten a note to Sergeant Gardner on a sheet of lined paper torn from a pad in her day pack.

Effective immediately, I hereby resign from Timber Creek Search and Rescue.

She had printed her full name, Grace Louise Kinkaid, in block letters below, then scribbled her signature along the bottom.

Gracie laid the sheet of paper facedown on the desk, printed
Sgt. Gardner
on the back, and swiveled the paper around so that it would be facing the sergeant when he sat down.

Next to it, she laid her Search and Rescue ID, her key to the Sheriff's Office building, and her own copy of
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Recruiting and Managing Volunteers
.

She reached out to align the edges of the paper with the book.

Then she spun around and walked out of the office.

Seconds passed.

Muffled voices from a room somewhere in the building.

Footsteps in the outer hallway.

Gracie burst back into the office, grabbed up her ID, the building key, and the sheet of paper, crumpling it up into a little ball.

She picked up the
Idiot's Guide
and tore out the first page with its incriminating address label in the top-right corner, placed the book back in the middle of the desk, turned, and walked out of the room.

*   *   *

THE RANGER SAT
at a stop sign at the intersection of two highways down in the desert.

Minnie lay on her bed behind the driver's seat, warm breath tickling the back of Gracie's neck.

Gracie looked right, then left, then right again.

Eleven years before, she had sat at an intersection in
Michigan, faced with a similar choice. Turn right, turn left, or drive straight ahead.

She had turned right and ended up in California.

Now the highway to the left led to Desertview and points west.

The highway to the right led to Palm Springs.

Straight ahead led to the desert town of Barstow, crossroads of the Mojave and the junction of I-15 and I-40. There the possibilities were endless. The highway west led to Los Angeles, San Diego, and Mexico. North to northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. East to Las Vegas, Utah, Colorado, the Great Plains, and eventually all the way to the Atlantic.

The world, figuratively, literally, was at Gracie's fingertips.

I need time
, she thought. To do absolutely nothing. To think. And heal. Physically and mentally.

And forgive
, she added begrudgingly.

She checked the outside mirrors. No cars fuming behind her.

“Well, Minnie,” she said. “Which way should we turn?” No opinion was forthcoming from behind her right shoulder.

She thought about driving to Tucson to Ralph and what waited for her there, to Los Angeles to Rob and what waited for her there, or all the way to Detroit and who and what waited for her there.

She considered somewhere different altogether where no one and nothing waited except a new adventure.

Gracie thought.

Considered.

Weighed.

Then she looked right.

Looked left.

Looked right again.

And pressed down on the
accelerator.

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