The Salt Maiden

by Colleen Thompson

  Had the storm interrupted the culprit? Or had something, maybe even someone, else? In either case, it only made sense that someone would be nearby, watching as he waited for the coast to clear.

  Or as she waited, perhaps, for it came to Jay that Angie Vanover had written of that money and that, since she wasn’t the so-called “Salt Maiden,” she might have come back to claim it.

  After taking a deep breath to steady himself, Jay told himself this might be his chance to return the missing woman to her family after all. Flinging the door open, he ordered, “Drop to the floor and spread ’em. Now—before I shoot.”

  Dana screamed and fought to jerk free, her instincts revolting against what felt like death’s embrace. For the flesh felt cool as glass against her warm skin, and the moan that issued from the lips at her ear sounded inhuman.

  “No,” it said. “Don’t fight me. Please, Da—”

  But Dana broke loose, whirling toward the voice and staring, seeing in another flash of lightning.

  And crying out as recognition was followed by a wave of anguish. “Angie, my God…”

  For this was her sister, or what was left of her. Drenched and shivering, with her long, sun-bleached hair hanging in thick cords about blade-thin shoulders browned like parchment. Nearly naked—the rain had plastered only a few rags to her body—Angie was emaciated, in by far the worst shape Dana had ever seen her. What in heaven’s name had happened to her these past months?

  “So cold,” rasped Angie as she hoisted a soaked and battered backpack onto her shoulder. “And so fucking glad to see you.”

  Dana gave her a quick hug before saying, “In the car.”

  She half led, half pulled her sister to the passenger-side door. Once she opened it she placed a hand on top of Angie’s pale head to protect her as she ducked inside.

  “I set it free.” As Angie threw her head back, her thin laughter skirted the edge of hysteria. “I took that bastard’s money, and I gave it to the desert so I could finally go on home. A sacrifice to salt, a tribute to the gods of…”

  From the corner of her eye Dana caught the flash of what looked like a truck’s headlights and was flooded by a wave of pure relief. Until her sister, staring in the same direction, cried out, “Hurry. If he catches us we’re as good as dead.”

  With the shooting on the hillside still fresh in her memory, Dana didn’t have to be told twice. After racing around the vehicle’s back bumper, she slid into the driver’s seat and shifted into gear. In the rearview mirror she saw the twin lights approaching, their movement too swift and purposeful to be explained by anything but malice.

  She hit the gas, and the passenger door clapped shut with the BMW’s forward motion. Dana glanced over, wondering why Angie had left it open. But Angie had slumped forward with her eyes closed, looking far more like an ancient crone than a thirty-four-year-old heiress from a privileged family in Houston.

  “Wake up,” Dana shouted as she shifted swiftly through the gears. “I have to know what’s happening.”

  Angie jerked and groaned, then flopped bonelessly as they bounced over the road’s rutted surface.

  “Dammit, Angie, open your eyes. Or buckle up, at least, before you break something.” Dana wished she had a free hand to help her—or to buckle herself in—but she needed both of hers to keep the car on the road.

  Angie roused enough to grumble something as she pulled her seat belt across her waist. She was shuddering so violently it took a number of attempts before the buckle finally clicked home.

  The truck closed in, now only a few car lengths behind them. It swung slightly to the left, as if the driver meant to pass them—or intended to bump her rear wheels and send the convertible flying off the road. Smashing her foot down on the gas, Dana was rewarded by a burst of power from the engine, and at last their smaller vehicle began to pull away.

  The road ahead looked like a dark river, with the water pouring off it. In spots the flow split into confusing tributaries, any one of which could trick her into driving off the graded track.

  “He must’ve followed you,” slurred Angie. “H-he must have watched and—”

  “Who? Who is it, Angie?”

  “It’s—Dana, look out for the road!”

  Dana manhandled the convertible around a curve, but managed to make the turn without sliding off onto the shoulder. Forced to slow, the bulkier vehicle behind them lost more ground. Gripping the wheel tightly, Dana mumbled desperate prayers, and the speedometer crept upward.

  “We’re doing it. We’re going to outrun him.” If they really did, Dana swore she’d build a shrine to the genius of German engineering.

  With her sticklike arm braced against the dashboard, Angie turned to look behind them. But before Dana could ask a question, the road dipped downward and the hood splashed down into a torrent that pushed the front end sideways and spun them downstream with its flow.

  Shrieking, Dana fought to steer the car back onto the gravel. But no matter how she turned the wheel, it made no difference—they were floating. Water was pouring in beneath the door and spilling through the engine’s firewall.

  “Oh, shit.” Angie was looking frantically from side to side. “How deep is—”

  The tires bumped, then caught, leaving them perhaps ten feet from where they’d started. But the engine had drowned, and nothing Dana did could revive it.

  Peering over her shoulder she saw the truck’s relentless advance, knew in an instant that the higher-clearance, heavier vehicle would have no difficulty negotiating the water that had crippled them.

  Damn German engineering, anyhow.

  “Get out, get out,” she ordered. And, taking her own advice, she snatched up her phone and flung open the door. More water poured inside, raising the floorboard tide so that it lapped well past her ankles.

  Hoping the darkness would hide them, she fumbled to shut off the headlights before climbing out into knee-deep water.

  Angie called after her, “Door won’t open—stuck against something. Dana, help me.”

  Instead of going around the car Dana leaned far inside, unhooked her sister’s belt, and grabbed her under the arms. Propelled by a burst of pure adrenaline Dana dragged her, ignoring the screaming muscles in her lower back.

  Angie got her legs under her and scrambled out the driver’s side, her movements loose and jerky. With Dana’s help she lurched to her feet, her elbow knocking into her sister’s hand and sending the satellite phone splashing beneath the water.

  “No,” Dana cried as she groped for it. But at that moment headlights flashed across them, and she knew their time was up.

  Abandoning the search, she hooked her arm through Angie’s and blindly towed her into the driving rain.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Today was my best day in months, years maybe.

  As dawn painted the eastern sky, I walked out into what most people would consider an ugly stretch of wasteland. But bathed in that sweet light, I called it beautiful. Life stirred in the morning coolness. Jackrabbits out to nibble. Red-tailed hawks out to hunt.

  Then something stirred in me, too. A need that came on so strong and sudden, it pushed aside all other cravings.

  I raced back to my loom and started working, weaving the living images in my head into the cloth. Consumed with the rhythm of my movements, I thought of nothing. Not food or tequila or the sparkling dust I snorted to set the world on fire. Not the way I’d screwed my life up, or the people left in my wake.

  A damned good day, all things considered. So I think I’ll stick around awhile more.

  —Undated entry (loose page)

  Angie’s sobriety journal

  Wednesday, July 4, 12:32 A.M.

  72 Degrees Fahrenheit

  Jay might have laughed at himself, embarrassed at his misinterpretation of the red battery-backup indicator light of the room’s newly installed smoke alarm. Laughter would have been a relief, if he could have managed. But as he stepped among the litter of loose floorboards, someth
ing thin and brittle crunched.

  With thunder stuttering outside, he lifted his bare foot and shone down his light, which reflected off white shards that looked like bone.

  He picked up the largest portion and recognized the hollowed orbit of a missing eye. A chill unrelated to his wet clothes gripped him as he took in what had been a tiny skull, perhaps a pack rat’s. A more thorough search revealed a familiar scattering of petals and small pebbles. His flesh crawled as he thought of the displays near both the salt cavern and the Webb adobe. Those had been far better organized, but the essential ingredients remained the same.

  And none of it, he was certain, had been here earlier.

  “Angie?” he called, heart pounding, as he re-searched the small house room by room. But all he found were a few remaining mementos of the man who’d lived and died here.

  A man who must have been lured off course by the siren call of Miriam Piper-Gold and her illicit cash, as Angie’s journal claimed. Nothing else explained the money buried just outside his bedroom window. Still, the idea of R.C. Eversole accepting bribes went against everything Jay had always taken for a fact about him, everything that had inspired Jay to pursue his own career in law enforcement despite the trouble he had caused the old man and the way he’d been unceremoniously sent out on his own. Jay could have simply apologized for the outbursts and the fighting, could have come right out and told his uncle that he loved him and appreciated all he’d done. But by then the two of them had forgotten how to speak of such things—or anything of consequence. Easier to simply prove how he felt, just as R.C. had proven his love by giving a lost boy the security and structure he most needed.

  And by setting an example that told Jay what he must now do. Whatever his feelings about his uncle’s unexpected failings, they didn’t absolve Jay of his responsibility. Miriam Piper-Gold’s murder was an FBI case, so he’d have to let the special agents know what he had found here. Even though it meant blackening the family name.

  As Jay checked the window latches and secured the house, questions clamored for attention. Why would Piper-Gold see fit to bribe a county sheriff? And why would R.C. hide the cash where he had? Unless he hadn’t. Maybe Angie had buried it there after stealing it from the hiding place beneath the bedroom floor. He’d been in on enough drug busts to know that large amounts of money could be bulky. Perhaps she’d only had the time or energy to conceal it somewhere close by.

  But if she had, why would she come back now, two months after the man’s death—and her own disappearance—to leave her macabre display in the bedroom and expose the money? Had she meant to take it before the fierceness of the storm scared her off? Could that mean, as Steve Petit clearly thought, that Angie was somehow involved in Piper-Gold’s death? And what of his own uncle’s?

  This time, when he left, Jay locked both the doors. Though thunder snarled at his progress, he reached the RV with no more than a fresh dousing. He stripped out of his wet clothing and dried off, then wrapped a towel around his waist and went to find the telephone.

  But he needn’t have bothered. His cell phone screen told him all circuits busy, and his portable phone was dead, since its base had no power. The radio was no help, either, for it, too, ran on electricity.

  He decided to try the one inside the Suburban. If he couldn’t raise Wallace, Jay would drive back into town and use the office phones to make his call. He didn’t like the idea of leaving, since Angie—or whoever the digger was—could still be somewhere on the property. But it would be the height of stupidity to go looking in perfect darkness, all alone.

  Just as it would be criminal to leave the remaining money lying in that hole unguarded. Which meant, Jay thought, he’d have to gather what he could before going anywhere—and pray that no one was waiting in the darkness for the chance to shoot him in the back.

  He dressed in a fresh uniform and strapped on his weapon before making an impromptu rain poncho from a black garbage bag out of the kitchen.

  Edging out from beneath the table, Max eyed him suspiciously as Jay poked his head through the newly made hole.

  “What are you looking at?” Jay asked the shepherd as he grabbed a second bag for the money. “It might not stop any bullets, but at least it’ll keep me from getting soaked again.”

  Maybe, he thought as he grabbed his flashlight and headed out the door.

  “Not—not that way.” Angie resisted, gasping to catch her breath. “O-over here.”

  Dana couldn’t see a thing, except in those fractured glimpses lit by lightning. But that seemed to be enough for Angie, for she moved resolutely in the direction she had chosen, even though she staggered and fell twice.

  Dana wrapped an arm around her sister’s waist, and together the two of them scrambled up a slope.

  Behind them the truck’s door slammed as someone got out, and the sound of shouting followed. The words were lost amid the storm sounds and their scraping, halting progress, but there was no mistaking the fury in that voice—or was Dana just imagining murderous intent?

  In her haste to get away she stumbled into some thorny horror that snagged her soaked shirt and flesh alike.

  “I’m caught,” she cried as Angie tried to tug her forward.

  The wind snatched away her words, betraying her, she realized, as light caught her attention, a beam searching too near the spot where they stood. Panicking, she jerked loose, barely feeling the tearing bite of needles.

  “Hurry,” she had time to say—before the shooting started.

  Crack followed crack, sharper than the thunder. Dana wasn’t sure how many shots, wasn’t sure of anything but the terror prompting her to pull her sister forward, higher up the slope.

  Angie went down heavily, her breathing so loud and labored that Dana was sure their pursuer must hear.

  “Get up,” she whispered urgently.

  “Go away,” Angie sobbed. “Just run. While you still can. There’s…there’s an ATV. Outside the building. When it quits raining, you…you can ride for help.”

  “A building?” Shelter was exactly what they needed. Gritting her teeth, Dana took her sister’s backpack and then hauled her to her feet and started moving. Despite Angie’s gauntness, her weight felt like an anchor. But after a few steps she must have caught her breath, for she began to move on her own once again.

  The shooting had stopped, leaving Dana to wonder if their attacker had given up or simply paused to reload. Yet she didn’t dare slow down, despite her stinging cuts, her straining lungs and throbbing muscles. Terror pushed her past her limits, the fear that any second might bring the bullet that would put an end to everything.

  Not now that I’ve found her, Dana prayed as she tightened her hold around her sister. Not now, please, God.

  As if in answer to her prayer, only thunder punctuated their progress for the next few minutes, and it seemed to be farther away with every rumble. The rain, too, was slackening, or spending its fury on points beyond their struggle.

  They must have crested the incline, for Dana felt the pull of gravity hastening her steps downhill. She dared to think that it was helping them to safety, moving them beyond their pursuer’s line of fire. Maybe even past the worst that this night had to offer. But as momentum sped her progress, Dana lost her balance and plunged forward with a shriek.

  She came down hard on hands and knees, while beside her Angie fell with an explosion of air forced from her lungs.

  “Sorry. I’m so sorry,” Dana told her. “But we can’t stay here. Let me help you up.”

  Groaning, Angie snapped, “Don’t touch me.”

  The sharpness of her voice prompted a backlash of fury. With tears burning in her eyes, Dana wanted to snarl back, to lash out at the sister who had not only disrupted her life, but now endangered it. But fighting each other wouldn’t save them. At this point only escape to shelter would accomplish that.

  “Where’s this building? Where’d you call me from?” she asked. “If you tell me the way I’ll get us both there. I can do i
t, Angie. We can do it, both of us together.”

  As lightning lit the world in strobelike flashes, Dana saw her sister curled into a ball on her side.

  “I can’t. I can’t get up again,” Angie murmured.

  “Then I’ll lift you, damn it.” Dana felt for her sister’s shoulder—and drew back at Angie’s scream of pain.

  “No. I said, don’t touch me.”

  “What?” asked Dana, even as the warmth of the spot she’d touched registered. “Are you…are you bleeding?”

  “Just leave it alone.”

  “Is it your shoulder, Angie?” Dana’s heart pounded wildly.

  “It…hurts so much.”

  “He shot you, didn’t he? Back there. When you fell.”

  “I…I don’t know. I guess…” Angie’s confusion downshifted into anguish. “Damn him. After all this time—the bastard caught me with a wild shot.”

  Dana prayed that she was wrong, that somehow they were both mistaken or that the wound was minor. But without light there was no telling. “We have to stop the bleeding, but there’s nothing here—not even a scrap of dry cloth for a bandage.”

  “Just let…let me rest awhile.” Exhaustion hollowed out the words. “Then we’ll go ’n find the…”

  “Angie? Angie?” When her sister didn’t answer or respond to her shaking, Dana felt the shoulder until she found the round opening, near the topmost portion of the upper arm. No exit wound that she could find. Dana applied direct pressure to the wound, hoping to stanch the bleeding until someone—

  Don’t kid yourself. Help isn’t coming. And if we stay out in the elements, exposure’s going to kill her—maybe kill us both.

  With no better option, Dana grabbed her sister and struggled to pull her to her feet. But it was like trying to hoist a sack of rocks over her head.