Sadie’s good. She could almost have me convinced, except I know I never touched her, not even when she was expecting me to, the night we met. My gaze leaves her face to find Calico, and my foxalope girl gives me a look that says she never saw this coming. Truth is, neither did I. I have no idea what game Sadie’s playing. Maybe Morago was right. Maybe this whole thing was cooked up by her and her father, though what they’re supposed to get out of it is anybody’s guess.
I want to tell Calico I understand why she brought Sadie here. That I know she meant well and I don’t blame her, even though it made things a lot worse. But that’ll have to wait until later. Right now I’ve got Reuben and Jerry to deal with.
“Steve—” Reuben says.
“Don’t,” I say without turning around.
“I have to ask, brother.”
I sigh. “No. I never touched her.”
I turn to look at him. He gives me a tight smile.
“That’s all I had to hear,” he says before adding, “Come on, Jerry, you know damn well we had nothing to do with this kid.”
“You’re not going to get away with it,” Jerry says, ignoring him and staring at me.
I expected as much from him. He didn’t believe me when I said I’d never kidnapped her, so why believe me now?
“Look at that poor kid,” he adds.
“Yeah, poor kid,” Calico says. “I think I’ll kill her now.” For a moment, the lower half of her face is a fox’s muzzle. She bares her teeth and snarls, and both Jerry and Sadie flinch and go pale. She starts for Sadie, only stopping because I hold up a hand and call out her name. Sadie still cringes, her gaze darting between Calico and me.
I stare at Sadie until I’m holding her full attention. “You might try to bullshit about me,” I say. “But if you drag anybody else into this little game of yours, all bets are off.”
Trying to keep an eye on both Reuben and Calico, Jerry sidles around us until he’s standing slightly in front of Sadie. “Nobody touches her,” he says. “You’ll have to go through me first.”
I nod. “I’m hoping it won’t come to that,” I tell him, “but like I said, she’s not getting away with this piece of crap story.”
“He’s the one who’s lying,” Sadie says, pointing at me.
I jab my finger in the air toward her. “Only one of us is a backstabbing liar.”
“His real name is Jackson Cole,” Sadie blurts out, raising her arm and pointing back at me.
Jerry turns and gives her a blank look.
She crosses both arms, looking both defiant and satisfied. “He used to be this hotshot rock star. You know—that old band the Diesel Rats? Wanna bet he gave it all up and ran away because he did something like this before? Celebrities all think they can get away with anything.”
Jerry holds me with a considering look, probably not that different from the one I’m giving Sadie.
How’d she figure that out? She wasn’t even born when the band fell apart.
But Jerry’s focus is on the last part of what she said. “I don’t care if he’s the Pope,” he says. “He’s not getting away with any of this.”
He eyes each of us in turn while keeping Sadie behind him. “Are you going to let us walk away?” he asks when he gets to Reuben.
“You see anybody stopping you?” Reuben asks.
“Walk away where?” Sadie asks.
“Back to the police station,” Jerry says. “We’ll be able to contact your dad and get you back with your family—that’s if somebody here’s going to help us return to our own world.”
“Not our problem,” Reuben says.
At the same time, Sadie’s face blanches and she says, “I’m not going anywhere near my father.”
Jerry turns to give her a puzzled look.
“Because…because…”
She didn’t think this through. I can almost see the wheels spinning in her head as she tries to come up with some reason to stop from being reunited with her old man. Maybe they weren’t playacting when she got tossed from her old man’s car on Zahra Road the other night.
“Because,” she finally says, “he’s the one who sold me to Mr. Bigshot Jackson Cole in the first place.”
“Your father did what?” Jerry says, unable to keep the disgust from his voice.
She looks at her feet, unable or unwilling to meet anybody’s gaze, but she nods.
Jerry gives me a look like he wants to punch me in the face.
“You know,” Calico says, “I’m beginning to understand why her father dumped her in the desert.”
I nod. “Yeah, this just gets better and better.”
“Just shut up, you sick freak,” Jerry says.
I hold up my hands. “Hey, she’s all yours.” I look from Reuben to Calico. “Anyone volunteering to take them back?”
“No!” Sadie cries. “I’m not going back to him.”
Jerry pats her shoulder. “Don’t worry. I won’t let your father or anybody else hurt you again. You’ll be under police protection until we get all this straightened out.”
“Yeah, good luck with that,” I say.
Calico steps up. “I’ll take them back.”
I nod. “And then we need to get going.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Jerry tells me, like repeating it is going to make it happen. “Don’t think you won’t pay for what you did.”
“Somebody’s going to pay,” I agree.
The long day and night are catching up to me and I feel exhausted. All I want to do is get back to the trailer and shut the world away.
Possum was right. I should have turned away when I saw this girl dumped on the side of the road and never gotten myself involved. Except who am I kidding? I had to do what I could, no matter how it played out. I just hope to hell my good turn doesn’t mess it up for anybody else.
“Do yourself a favour,” I tell Jerry. “Don’t let her take you down with her.”
Reuben nods in agreement. “You’re going to regret playing the big hero, Jerry.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll find out,” I say. “My advice? Try not to be alone with her because that’s going to come back and bite you on the ass.”
Calico steps forward, offering a hand to each of them. Jerry reaches out to take her hand with a resigned look in his eyes, but Sadie backs away. I realize she’s going to take off and I give a mental shrug. I’m beyond caring about that kid anymore. Let her run. But then we hear a dog bark and Sadie freezes.
Aggie’s red dog appears, running out of the heat haze that makes the desert scrub to the west look all wavy. Behind Ruby we see Aggie approaching with a pair of white women that I don’t recognize, one blond, the other dark-haired.
The fair-haired woman is very pale, her palm on her belly, looking like she’s about to throw up, but as they get closer she seems to recover. I twig to what she was feeling. It’s a good thing it doesn’t last long.
Sadie shrinks away from Ruby when the dog pads over to her.
“Get away,” Jerry says to the dog. He’s still in protector mode.
The dog sits on her haunches and looks at him with a cocked head. She gives a bark and Calico laughs. “Yeah,” she says to the dog. “He is wound pretty tight.”
Aggie and her companions reach us.
“Who’s wound tight?” Aggie asks.
Ruby barks again.
“Oh, he’s been like that ever since he went off to the police academy,” Aggie says. “He’s just never been able to get himself grounded again.”
“Standing right here,” Jerry says.
Aggie smiles. “So you are. Ohla, Jerry Five Hawks. How’s your mother?”
“She’s fine.”
“And your sister? Is she still working at that gallery in Phoenix?”
“She’s fine too. Aunt Aggie, what are you doing here?”
Aggie looks at Sadie. “Well, somebody used my computer to send an image of one of my paintings to Leah here.” She nods to the dark-haired woman. “I wanted to find out if it was Sadie.”
“How would she be using your computer?”
“She was staying with me.”
“Hold on, now,” Jerry says.
While they’re talking, the blonde has been studying Sadie with interest, but the dark-haired woman doesn’t even look at the girl. Instead, she seems weirdly transfixed on me.
“What do you mean, she was staying with you?” Jerry asks.
“I was not,” Sadie says. “I don’t even know any of these women.”
“I’m Marisa,” the blonde says cheerfully, lifting a hand.
Nobody pays her any attention.
Aggie’s eyebrows go up. “Of course she does—well, she knows me at least, and my hospitality.” She gives Sadie a pointed look then returns her attention to Jerry. “What are you doing here, Jerry?”
“Sadie was kidnapped by Steve and Reuben, and I’m trying to get her back. She also says that Steve raped her.”
The dark-haired woman—I think Aggie called her Leah—draws her head back in a puzzled frown.
“That’s ridiculous,” Aggie says. “Steve found her out on Zahra Road after her father threw her out of his car. He brought her to me while we waited to see if Morago could find her a spot in the school.”
“It’s a serious accusation, so I still have to investigate,” Jerry says.
“Of course you do,” Aggie says.
She turns to Sadie, her face softening. “Child, I’m sorry it had to come to this. You must be so ungrounded, to repay the good turn that was done to you with these lies.”
“I’m not lying. You’re lying.”
Aggie nods. “Have you shown him the bruises from when your father hit you, and the scars of your self-inflicted cuts?”
Sadie points to Jerry. “He’s going to protect me—from all of you.”
“That’s good to hear. Perhaps he’ll also be able to protect you from yourself.”
“Can you take them back?” I ask Aggie.
“Of course.”
“Then we’ll be going,” I say.
Except before we can leave, Leah steps up to me, her eyes still filled with wonder. “You’re really you. Jackson Cole. I can’t believe it.”
I find a smile. “Now, I haven’t heard that in a while. I used to get it all the time, forty years or so ago, back when I was a lot younger and Jackson was still alive. ’Course, having the same surname as my famous cousin didn’t help. Personally, I never saw the resemblance like others did.”
She turns to her friend Marisa. “It’s really him.”
“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” I say, letting my drawl deepen. “Good luck, Jerry.”
Then I’m walking away with Calico on one side, Reuben on the other.
“Are you just going to let them walk away?” I hear Sadie ask.
“Don’t worry,” Jerry says. “This isn’t finished.”