by Sharon Sala
Chance parked his truck, locked the doors, and pocketed the keys. The motel key slid across his fingers as he pulled his hand away. It reminded him. He headed for the office.
“Well, now,” the desk clerk drawled, “if it ain’t Mister twelve B. How ya’ll been doin’ anyway? If I’ve seen your truck cruise Second Street once, I’ve seen it cruise by a hundred times today. Whatcha’ tryin’ to prove? Or better yet, who you lookin’ for? I don’t want no trouble here. If you find who you’re lookin’ for, don’t cause no trouble.”
Chance took a deep breath. He bit back the words that wanted out and smiled. Then he leaned over the counter, stared point-blank at the enlarged pupils behind the thick lenses, and drawled, “The only trouble that’s likely to happen around here is if that room next to mine starts jumping again like it did last night. I don’t give a tinker’s damn who bangs who around this town. But if it takes place on the other side of my wall again, I won’t be responsible for what happens. Do I make myself clear?”
The desk clerk blinked twice rapidly in succession. “Well, now.” The timbre of her voice had just gone up two octaves. “I had no idea that you were so…disturbed…last night. Maybe you need a little…relief of your own. If you want I can call—”
His hand slapped down on top of the counter, sending dust and papers flying. “Don’t even think it, lady. Just remember what I said. Peace and quiet. It’s not too much to ask, is it?”
“Fine,” she said. “I was only tryin’ to—”
Chance slammed the door behind him. “It’s what I get for staying in this godforsaken place,” he muttered. But it served his purpose. He wanted low-key, and this was just about as low as it got.
He entered his room, slipped the dead-bolt, and dropped facedown onto the bed. Every muscle in his body ached. He’d walked streets and dodged curious questions from locals all day. He’d even eaten his evening meal at a different location just so he wouldn’t have to face that waitress twice in one day. He felt like a rabbit hiding from a fox. The only problem was, he didn’t know who the fox was. And he damn sure didn’t appreciate feeling like the rabbit. Tomorrow was going to be different. He might not like the answers he would get, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to hide from the truth.
When sleep finally came, Chance dreamed. Of a small girl with dark curls and eyes so blue it made his heart hurt. Of gentle hands and a laughing face. Then suddenly she changed. She was no longer a girl, she was a woman, lying beneath him, crying for something he couldn’t give. Every time he leaned forward to taste her lips, something…or someone…kept pulling him back. She reached for him and his body ached, swelling at the thought of her soft, womanly curves. She pleaded, silently, tearfully. Hands pulled him away, yanking and tearing. He turned angrily and stared into the face of—
He woke! Instantly, achingly. Cursing softly into the darkness, he rolled from the bed and tore off his clothes in short, angry motions. He staggered into the bathroom, ducked under the shower head, and turned on the cold water full force.
What the hell kind of a dream tore out a man’s insides and left them hanging on the bedpost as a reminder? What the hell kind of world had he come from that had twisted him so much inside that he couldn’t give himself to a woman like Jenny Tyler? From the things he’d heard said, and the remarks Jenny had made, he’d damn sure given himself to other women. Why not her?
Water ran over his hot, throbbing body in weak rivulets. He pounded the shower stall with the flat of his hands, futilely urging the pressure to intensify. It didn’t happen. The only thing that intensified was his need for Jenny, and she was hundreds of miles away.
Chance watched the sunrise from the tailgate of his pickup truck. The room had been stifling, the memories of his dream too fresh. He’d found an all-night quick stop around daybreak and purchased gas, a Snickers candy bar, and a bottle of pop. Hell of a breakfast, but it would have to do. After last night, he wasn’t in the mood to meet the day with that nosy waitress in his face.
His long legs dangled as he rested the old high school yearbook in his lap, searching each page diligently for the girl in the photograph. She wasn’t there. That had to mean she wasn’t a local. There were pages full of loyal athletic fans watching on the sidelines as school heroes ran for touchdowns. Pages with tiny blond girls, practicing for the day when they’d be cheerleaders, but for now, satisfied to be their mascots. Homecoming queens, FFA sweethearts, band princesses, every kind of royalty that public school could produce graced those pages. But no Victoria Henry.
Who was she? The question was driving Chance mad. Had she been a girlfriend? A neighbor? The school yearbook had no answers about her, but maybe someone there could give him some answers about himself.
He’d seen another high school on the far side of town: Permian High School. The big MOJO logo on the building had made him smile. Schools all across the nation had their own claim to fame for their spirit…or magic…or whatever it was called that made competition, both scholastic and athletic, important.
Chance frowned. He needed some MOJO of his own. God knew he could use all the help he could get to find answers. If it took magic, he was all for it. Maybe Victoria Henry had been a student at Permian High, but how could he check without calling attention to himself?
Chance was still worried that he had something to hide. If that something was so awful that he’d hidden it for the last twelve years, from people he obviously loved…He couldn’t finish the thought.
He watched the desk clerk inside the office switch off the neon MOTEL sign and turn on the radio. The day had begun.
Chance was ready, too. He slid off the tailgate, slammed it shut, and tossed the yearbook inside the cab. Then he locked his room and headed for the truck. He had to see a man about a school.
School was out for the summer. Yesterday’s investigations had revealed empty classrooms and parking lots. But there was a man trimming shrubbery near the main entrance of Odessa High School.
“School’s closed,” the man said as Chance walked up to him.
“Yes, sir.”
The man never missed a snip as his clippers trimmed the small bush. “No job openings,” he said.
“Not looking,” Chance said.
The man paused, but he didn’t look up. “Then state your business. I haven’t got all day.”
Chance grinned. The women in this town were full of talk, and the few men he’d run across seemed friendly, but were as tight-lipped as persimmon pucker.
“You worked here long?” Chance asked. The man looked up. That got his attention.
“Retiring next year.”
Chance nodded. “So I guess you’ve seen a lot of kids come and go around here.”
“Too damn many,” he said as he snipped at a stray leaf.
“I’m looking for…some of my relatives. They may have lived in this area…say twelve or fifteen years ago. The name was McCall. Does it ring a bell? I’ve got a picture of the boy, maybe he looks familiar to you.”
The yearbook fell open to the page with Chance’s picture. The old man stared, and then shook his head. “They all look alike to me,” he said. “Damned hoodlums. Always tearing something up that I have to fix.”
Chance’s hope dropped. This day wasn’t starting out any better than yesterday had.
“You sure the name doesn’t ring a bell? You never knew anyone by the name of McCall?”
“I told you I can’t tell one kid from another. Don’t even try,” he muttered. He punctuated the end of the conversation by turning his backside toward Chance and resuming his duties.
Chance let the yearbook fall shut with a slap. “Well, thanks anyway,” he said. “If you oil that rivet, you won’t get a blister,” he added, pointing to the clipping shears dangling from the old man’s hands.
The man turned and stared, and then nodded his thanks. Chance started to walk away.
“Say!” the old man called. Chance turned. “I don’t remember no kid. But I remember a woman by the
name of McCall. She used to waitress down at a bar toward the end of town. It went bust when the oil business fell. Whole damn country’s going bust if you ask me.”
Chance’s heart skipped a beat. A woman? “What did you say her name was?”
“I think her name was Lily, or Lucy…something…Letty! That was it! Letty McCall.”
“Is she still here…in Odessa?”
The old man laughed. “She’s here, and ain’t goin’ nowhere,” he said. “She’s buried beneath six feet of Texas dirt, boy.”
Hell! She was dead! Chance’s stomach turned. Something dark pulled at him, swirling his thoughts around until he had to concentrate to ask his next question.
“Do you remember when she was buried? What year? If she has any kin living here?” The words came out in a torrent.
“I don’t remember the year. But I remember it was suicide. Ain’t real common around here.”
Chance turned cold all over, all at once. The old man was still talking when he turned and walked away. He didn’t need to hear any more to know that somehow, in some way, it had affected him and his life. There was no other explanation for his reaction. Every bone in his body felt like it was crumbling to dust.
He staggered to his truck, crawled inside, grabbed hold of the steering wheel and closed his eyes, willing himself not to black out. The pain inside his head was increasing in thundering increments. If he could have found his way to a doctor, he’d have gone, but by the time the pain subsided enough for him to see, all he could do was head for the motel. The need to crawl inside that pit was overwhelming, just as overwhelming as the need to see Jenny. To hear her voice, feel those blue eyes burn into his soul and cauterize this festering hell. He’d known this wasn’t going to be easy, but he hadn’t known that it might kill him.
When night came and darkness slipped into every corner of his room, dreams followed, turning into nightmares that pulled and clawed their way out of his soul and left him wide awake in a pool of his own sweat. He stared blindly at the ceiling above his bed, trying not to think about the word. Suicide.
The room next door was silent, just as quiet and empty as his heart. He almost wished the busy tart and her constant string of twenty-buck losers was nearby. Then at least he’d have something to think about besides the hell that kept growing in his mind.
A phone rang, persistently. Probably in the office. It rang…and rang…and rang. Chance blinked, trying to focus on the sound. And while he was concentrating, his eyes closed.
And, thankfully, blessed peace came.
9
Thanks to the school caretaker, Chance had a name. It was a place to start. Letty McCall must have left tracks somewhere in this town, and a suicide would not easily be forgotten. Twelve years ago it would have to have made the papers. Newspaper people were notorious for being curious, though he couldn’t forget that he might wind up on the wrong side of the law if he asked the wrong questions. He decided on another route.
Maybe the courthouse would have some answers. If Letty McCall had once owned property, there would be records. Finding that property would be a beginning. That was more than he’d had yesterday. Chance resolutely put the word suicide out of his thoughts and headed for the diner. Food first, answers later.
He escaped most of the nosy waitress’s questions by asking a lot of his own. It was interesting just what a man could learn by watching people’s expressions when certain names were mentioned. Admitting that he’d visited Charlie Rollins yesterday was easy, and it killed nearly fifteen minutes of his meal time. Dodging the issue of his own name was a different story. It took all of his tact not to tell her to mind her own damn business. It was when he mentioned the name, Letty McCall, that he knew he’d hit pay dirt.
The waitress got a look on her face that could only be described as guilty shock.
“Did you know her?” Chance asked, though he knew what her answer would be.
“Yeah,” she drawled, and tucked a stray lock of hair back underneath a barrette. “I knew her. I worked at the same bar she did a few years back. Sometimes we had the same shift.” She refused to meet Chance’s gaze. “It was a real shock when we heard what she’d gone and done. Killed herself and all. I couldn’t make it to the funeral. I had to work.”
“I suppose her family understood,” Chance said, hoping for a reaction. He got it.
The woman’s face twisted. “She didn’t have no family that I know of ’cept a kid. He run off after the funeral. Never did know what happened to him. If he was anything like her, he’s probably dead or in jail by now.”
Chance’s gut twisted. Some epitaph! And a funeral! This was something he hadn’t even considered. The cemetery was a place to look next if he didn’t get any answers at the courthouse.
“Look,” the waitress said, “I’ve got to get back to work. The boss don’t like it if we socialize too much with the customers.”
Chance looked around the almost empty diner. “Yeah, right. You’d better get back to work.”
She ducked her head and hurried away.
The more he discovered, the less he liked it. And from the little bit he’d learned so far, he didn’t think his family name would be on the social register. In fact, he’d be damned lucky if it wasn’t on a police record somewhere. It was time to go.
It didn’t occur to him that the waitress would mention his interest to her boss, or that he in turn would make a phone call, passing along a message that a stranger was in town asking questions about a woman who’d long since turned to dust. But if it had, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Chance was on a mission.
“Oooh Della, would you look at that long-legged hunk coming in the door. What I wouldn’t give to get him in the back seat of a car.”
“For Pete’s sake, Tamma. If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were a tramp. What makes you talk like that? Your husband Jimmy Lee would kill you if he knew you even had thoughts about other men, and you know it.”
Tamma grinned and shuffled papers on her desk. “Want me to wait on him?”
“I’ll do it,” Della said. “Just keep your silly self in that chair and your mouth shut. You hear me?”
Tamma grinned and waggled a finger at the older woman as Chance walked up to the counter.
“What can I do for you?” Della asked. She agreed with Tamma’s opinion of the man on the opposite side of the desk. Only, in her day, they’d called them “real dolls.” And the longer she looked, the more certain she became that she knew this one…from somewhere.
“I need to verify ownership of some property,” he said. “A woman lived here back in the late seventies, early eighties. If she owned property, would you have a record of it, and if so, could you help me find it?”
“If you have a name, I’ll have a record. If she owned property, that is.”
Chance nodded. “I have a name. I just need some help locating the records. That is, if you’re not too busy.”
“I’m not too busy,” Tamma offered. Della turned around and glared at her.
“What’s the name, please?” Della asked. Her pencil was poised above a sheet of notepaper on the counter.
“Letty McCall.”
Her pencil point dug one small hole in the paper and then snapped off at the wood. It was an indication that Chance had, once again, struck nerves. That, plus the fact that her mouth dropped several inches toward her gizzard.
Della looked up, gave Chance a hard, fixed stare, and clamped her mouth shut. She picked up another pencil, wrote the name down, opened a small, swinging gate, and indicated that Chance should follow.
He complied, grinning at the saucy expression on the younger woman’s face as they passed her desk. Chance didn’t have to look back to know that she was ogling him.
“In here,” Della said. “And I need to know exactly what interest you might have in the McCall property?” As if I don’t already know, she thought.
“Does that mean there is some?”
“Was she a relative?
” Della persisted.
“Does she have to be? Isn’t the information public knowledge?”
Della bit the inside of her lip and fumed. He hadn’t answered one single question she’d asked. In fact, he’d thrown them back at her with some of his own.
She didn’t like being bested. She also never forgot a face, and this man’s face would have been hard to forget. She walked down a long corridor of books, deftly lifted one from the stacks, and dropped it onto a table in front of Chance.
“Should be in here,” she said shortly. “If you have any problems, just yell. We’ll be happy to help you out.” She stomped away.
“Yes, ma’am,” Chance answered, glad to see the last of her. She was too persistent, and she’d given him one of those funny looks. He was beginning to recognize a pattern.
It didn’t take long to find the name, but it only gave the date on which the property had been purchased. He noted that it was around the same time that he’d been born. He jotted it down. He would need a city map. He headed back to Della.
“Excuse me,” he said. Both women looked up. “But how do I find the address? This only gives a date.”
“You’ll need to go to the Administration Building…to the office where taxes are paid. They’ll have an address there.”
Chance nodded. “Well then,” he said, trying to get past her belligerence with a smile, “if you could just furnish me with a map of the city, so that I can locate the Administration Building, I’ll be on my way.”
Tamma jumped to her feet and pushed past Della.
She reached beneath the counter. “Here you go, mister,” she said sweetly. “I have a copy of the city map you can have free of charge. Let me just jot down my…I mean our phone number here in the office…just in case you get lost…or something.” Her eyes danced.
Chance resisted the urge to laugh as she shoved the map across the counter. The phone number glowed in red ink. She wasn’t just obvious, she was blatant. And she didn’t care who knew it. Those kind were trouble with a capital T and exactly what he didn’t need.
