It was barely light out when I awoke because of a sound near my head. I was sleeping in a strange house so I didn’t overreact, just suddenly came awake, senses alert, assessing my situation without moving. Was I clothed? No. Was I covered? Mostly. Good, because the noise wasn’t Rusty. I listened carefully and sensed there was another person in the room. It wasn’t Patrick. Patrick would have spoken before he approached our bed. Rusty’s family knew to stay out of the attic. In my mind I ran down the list. Chase. He knelt beside the mattress, waiting. He signaled with his eyes. Downstairs. Then he silently crept down the pull-down stairs, avoiding the creaky step, and went to the living room silent as fog. I got up, slipped into lounge pants and a t-shirt and went downstairs too, not nearly as quietly as Chase. I just didn’t want to wake anybody although they knew I was in the house and wouldn’t mind me being up.
“How did you get in here?” I whispered loudly.
“This house is easy to break into,” he stated simply.
“A cop’s house and you find it easy to break into?”
“I don’t break into it often. I usually come in through the front door. After someone opens it for me.”
“So why are you breaking in this morning?”
“I need some help.”
“What kind of help? Tracking help? Scouting help?”
He briefly looked me up and down. “I need a sixteen-year-old girl.”
“You’re right, you do need help. And you’re ten years too late.”
“Not that kind of help. I heard about Stan.”
I paused.
“I heard this happens to you a lot. You draw people out. I need a seventeen-year-old boy drawn out.”
“Chase, Rusty will kill me if I go along with you.”
“Nice private school. One kid dealing drugs. One lonely girl being abandoned to boarding school by her mean old dad. One lonely girl who just needs a fix to deal with the situation. You’d have him in two seconds. The school would be free of him. What do you say?”
“What happened to your last narc?”
“They have bigger fish to catch. This is a small school. Nearly everybody’s gone for the holidays. Ten kids there, tops. One in particular we’re after. There’s a quota he’s got to meet and he’ll take some extra risks right now. All you gotta do is buy something from him and your daddy will arrest his sorry butt and get him out of there.”
“Are you my daddy?” I asked sarcastically.
“No, I’m too old. But I got someone who wants to be your daddy.”
I stood up to him, looked him eye to eye and said simply, “I don’t trust you.”
“Good, you shouldn’t,” he answered.
ARGH, I was going to be really sorry for getting involved in Chase’s harebrained scheme. I knew it. This situation had trouble written all over it. TROUBLE with a bright neon pink marker. I was going to get lynched, and if not lynched then Rusty would kill me. If Rusty didn’t kill me, I’d be grounded for life.
“Here,” Chase said as he handed me a bundle of clothes, “you’ll need these.”
“You went through my things?” I accused.
“I knew what you’d need and what you’d pick. They didn’t match up, so I made some decisions for you.”
“And why am I going to need these?” I asked, holding up a pair of panties made out of lace and a few ribbons.
“I just liked the look of them. I don’t expect you to need them.”
“Will you talk to me about Patrick on the way?”
“I will.”
Sigh, I noticed my badge was in the bundle along with my bulletproof vest but my gun was missing. What kind of a deal was I making here?
“When will I be back?”
“Noon, tops, your dad is going to ask you to just spend a few hours talking to the kids about the school. You’re not going to like it but you don’t have any choice. He’ll leave you right where he needs you to be. He’ll appear to leave, but we’ll have guys stationed in the empty classrooms. All you gotta do is act angry, miserable and cute and you’ll have him eating out of your hand.”
“I can’t lie. I’m a terrible liar.”
“Then don’t. Tell him you want to go back to the ranch. You don’t want to live in San Diego. And slip in a line about how you knew where to get a fix in your nice little town. That you’ll die in the big city. Just think of something.”
“Give me fifteen minutes. I need to changes clothes and tell Rusty what I’m up to.”
He looked at me with raised eyebrows. “You really think you’ll make it out of this house if you tell Rusty what you’re up to?”
“Yeah.”
I took the bundle upstairs, showered and changed clothes quietly. Rusty was used to me getting up before him so it was no big deal. I put on some make-up because I thought sixteen-year-old girls would wear make-up. I curled my hair. Then I took my purse along, because I thought a sixteen-year-old wouldn’t be caught dead without her purse.
I sat beside Rusty and stroked his arm. He was awake in an instant. I hoped he wasn’t too awake.
“Chase is here. He wants to talk about Patrick. I’ll be back in a few hours. If I’m not back by noon, send out a search party.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What should I do with Patrick?”
“If he wants to go back to the mall, ask Sandy about it. He might need a bodyguard. If Cody will let you, teach him to ride the bicycle. I’ll try not to be too long. And I’m serious about the noon bit. I’ll see you soon.” I kissed him then beat a hasty retreat.
“You know, if I end up back in the hospital after this, Rusty is going to tan your hide,” I said as we slipped out of the house and got into his light blue Baja bug. For a dune buggy it ran surprisingly quiet and we slipped out of the neighborhood without a rumble.
“Not me,” he answered.
“Oh ya? Then who?”
“Slick Whitman. It’s his case.”
“This is sounding more and more like someone else’s job. Not mine. Slick Whitman? Sounds like a used car salesman.”
“He could sell glasses to eagles, a mop to Sponge Bob Squarepants, a vacuum cleaner to a cat.”
“Then why didn’t he come talk to me about this case?”
“Because you’d have said ‘no’.”
“Wait a minute…”
“You’d have seen through him. You’re smarter than Sponge Bob.”
“Well, gee, thanks, I think.”
“I came because Rusty and Slick don’t exactly get along. Slick’s the reason Rusty’s in Joshua Hills, not San Diego. Slick’s got more arrests than anybody in the city and he doesn’t mind stepping on a few toes or taking a few risks. That’s because he lives up to his name, he’s slick”
“Risking a few people he shouldn’t?”
“You can still say no. Is it true about Stan?”
“Yeah, it’s true. I didn’t do anything, just sat at a bar and waited for Rusty, then Stan walks up, blows his cover, and gets hauled off slick as a whistle.”
“Is it true about Alfonso?”
“Yeah, although that one wasn’t as easy.”
“Is it true about the purse snatcher at the mall?”
“Wait a minute, that was only a few days ago. How could you know about that?”
“News travels fast.”
“That wasn’t me so much as Patrick. Remember I told you he takes after me? Well, it’s showing up more and more.”
“You’re expecting too much out of him.”
“Me? I’m not expecting anything out of him! He’s the one who keeps doing these uncharacteristically advanced things. He still talks about them like a kid. He called the purse snatcher a bad guy. But just the fact that he sees these things at all is amazing. I worry about letting it go without any guidance.”
“What about you? You just grew up into a tracker with very little guidance.”
“It was just chance.”
“So what is it with Patrick?”
“I just wonder how far he could go if he had more help than I did, but I can’t move to the ranch to teach him. My dad would hire another hand if they could help Patrick learn to track. If someone would mentor him while he was out of school, my dad would hire them no questions asked. All I would have to do is talk to Jesse and my dad.”
“I’d give him a few years at least. He won’t be old enough to turn loose in the hills for a few years, so wait until that time to get serious about it. He still needs to learn at his own rate. By then we will know how serious he is about it.”
“That’s another thing. If he had me to keep him motivated then he’d stay interested. What if he loses interest?”
“You’d like to see him get serious about tracking?”
“I’d like to see him use his talent, whether he ends up in college studying science or working on the ranch training horses. Tracking isn’t exactly a high paying position. He has to have other interests as well.”
“I think you’re worrying about nothing. Just keep tabs on him. Give him a new goal. What can he do around the ranch that’s more advanced than tagging rabbits?”
“That’s just it. Jesse won’t let him out of the yard, so rabbits and birds are the only animals he has access to. He asked Santa Claus to send deer, but I doubt Santa has that kind of power. Santa works more on the level of rollerblades.”
“Have him keep track of all the different animals that come around the house. All the people, all the animals, even the birds. Stress that it doesn’t have to just involve tracks. Any sign can be used. That will get him to thinking about the fact that cracked seeds could mean birds… or mice or squirrels. If he starts noticing scat, he can learn to distinguish one kind from another. All these skills are useful in building other skills. The most important thing you can do is create an inquiring mind.”
“That’s a good idea, although I doubt if he writes them all down. I got him a field guide to animal tracks, maybe he’ll use it to check off animals like he does in his bird book.”
We arrived at the station and I followed Chase through to an office. He knocked quickly and walked in without waiting for a response. I didn’t follow. It seemed rude. Chase turned around and waved me in. I didn’t want to appear timid so I squared my shoulders and strode in confidently. Whitman stood when I walked in and looked me over.
“Well, well, well,” he said to Chase, “you were right.” No introductions, no pleasantries. I was being sized up for a job, no more, no less. I didn’t like it. I got the feeling I was disposable and somehow I thought being Rusty’s wife in this situation was a distinct disadvantage. I wondered if he knew who I was.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“It’s good to meet you too, Mr. Whitman,” I said, and Chase hid a grin.