FORTY-FOUR

There was the hospital, the indignity of the bright lights and various assessments and the necessity for photos of her various injuries, surprisingly minor though they turned out to be.

Then the endless questions from police, Charlie hovering just outside the door, too much the cop to press for inclusion, too much the husband to go get some lunch, as suggested. Eventually, though, there was lunch, Lola ignoring the admonition to eat slowly, the result being that most of her Navajo taco came right back up just seconds after she reached the shelter of the bathroom.

“Another,” she said when she made her shaky way back to the table. “And a milkshake. And a really big glass of water. In fact, you can just leave that pitcher right here.”

And finally, a fistful of sleeping pills from the hospital. “You’re exhausted, both physically and mentally,” the doctor said. “These should get you through the first week. You think you’ll sleep, but you won’t. You’re still wound up, and that’s normal. The minute you close your eyes, it’s all going to come back. Believe me, I’ve seen this before. Too many times.” The doctor took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. The skin beneath them was dark as a bruise. She was white, younger than Lola but looked older. Probably doing a residency at a reservation hospital, Lola thought, to satisfy the requirements of whatever government loan program had gotten her through medical school, counting the days until she could get herself to a big-city emergency room where, despite the nightly mayhem, at least there’d be the nearby consolation of bright lights and martini bars when she finished her thirty-six-hour shift. “Your body needs rest, and your brain needs it even more. Oh, and find a counselor.”

The doctor had been right about the images. After a shower of unforgiveable length, given their desert locale, Lola dutifully swallowed one of the pills and let Charlie and Margaret tuck her into bed. Bub curled next to her, asleep before they’d even said their good nights, even though it was only midafternoon. “Want us to stay?” Charlie asked.

“I’ll be fine.” But she wasn’t, finding herself back on the ladder, swaying blind and terrified as the gun rapped against her ankle, as soon as the door closed behind them. She rose up on her elbows, thinking to call out to Charlie, but her voice came out in a croak, fallout from all of the shouting atop the cliff. She waited for the pill to work. It didn’t. She climbed out of bed and retrieved one of the painkillers from the container in her Dopp kit. She spent an entire millisecond worrying about the combination of sleeping pill and painkiller, then gulped it down, letting it pull her into a blackness even more enveloping than the fear.

“Lola. Lola.”

The voice floated above her. A hand on her shoulder. “Lola.” A shake. “It’s been almost a day.”

A familiar scent.

“Is that coffee?” The words emerged in a croak.

A chuckle. “Thought that might get your attention.”

Her eyelids eased up by degrees. Then slammed back down. The desert sunlight streamed into the room. Homesickness wrapped Lola. Montana’s mornings started gray and cool, easing a person mercifully into the day, nothing like this face-slap of glare and heat. She tried again, sitting up, slitting her eyes, and reaching for the cup. Charlie let her have it, but he kept his hands wrapped around hers lest she spill it. She sipped and sipped, and then, as it cooled, inhaled the rest in long gulps. “What time is it?”

“Nearly nine. The meeting with the mine honchos is at noon. I thought you might want to go.”

“Where’s Margaret?”

“She and Juliana are out with that pony.”

Coffee splashed across the bedspread. Lola was on her feet, heading for the door. “Are you crazy?”

Charlie pulled her back. “Wait. I’m not crazy. They’re not riding him anywhere. They’re braiding his mane and tail or some such, trying to turn a desert plug into some sort of East Coast show pony. Naomi’s with them.”

Lola tried to free herself. “I was with them, and look what happened.”

Charlie led her to a chair and eased her into it. “He’s tied up to one of the shade house supports. Anybody wanted to snatch them, he’d have to come right up to the house.” He let go of her, picked up the mug and set it on the nightstand, then stripped the coffee-soaked spread from the bed. “We’ll need to wash this.”

“Right. Sorry.” Lola took a breath and tried to talk sense into herself. “Besides, they’ve still got Thomas, right? Where did they hold him? Is there a reservation jail or does he have to go to a federal prison while they prepare the charges?”

The spread slipped from Charlie’s hands, pooling around his feet. He kicked it aside, knelt before her, and took her hands. “About that. Lola, what made you so sure it was Thomas who kidnapped you?”

Lola pulled away. “Why?”

“Seriously. I want to know.”

“Talk to your cop friends. I told them yesterday. Again and again.” She went over it anyway, the wheezing breath, the noisy car, the general size and shape of the man who’d clobbered her. She told him, at long last, about Canyon Man, trying not to see the effort it cost him to bite back a lecture. And the circumstantial stuff—the bookbag, the key chain, the way Thomas always seemed to be around whenever bad things happened. The way he came and went at night. “No doubt in my mind. None whatever.”

“But you never saw the man who kidnapped you. Never saw his face. What about his voice? Did you recognize that?”

Lola pressed her back hard against the chair, away from her husband-turned-interrogator. In the brief time she’d known him, Thomas had barely said two words in her presence. She might not recognize his voice. But that didn’t matter. Nor that she’d never seen her abductor’s face. “I never needed to. I know it was him.”

“Lola.”

“Stop saying that.” He almost never called her by name. It was unsettling. She tried to decipher his expression. The man could have played poker with the best. But something flickered at the corners of his eyes, pulled his mouth askew. Pity?

“Here’s the thing. There’s an alibi. I didn’t want to tell you yesterday—you were upset enough as it is.”

“What alibi?” Lola shoved herself out of the chair, forcing Charlie back on his heels.

He regained his balance and stood beside her. “He was here when you got kidnapped.”

Lola paced away from him. “No, he wasn’t. He was dragging me through the desert, forcing me up some stupid ladder. Hitting me. Holding a gun on me. Goddammit, Charlie. How can you even believe him when he says that? He wasn’t here. He was with me.”

Charlie’s head wagged back and forth, regular as a metronome. “He was here. He got here not long after you went out with the girls.”

Lola clenched her teeth, balled her hands into fists. “So he wasn’t here when it actually happened. He had time to knock me out and grab me before he showed up at the house. That’s why he let me sit in the car awhile, so that all of you could see him there. Some alibi. I can’t believe the cops let him walk.”

The look she’d seen before passed over his face again, lingering this time. “There’s a witness. Someone was with him when you were taken up to the ruins. No matter how you look at it, the time frame doesn’t work.”

“What witness? Naomi? Edgar? They’d stick up for him no matter what. He’s like family to them.” And I’m not. She bit her lip to keep the bitter words from escaping.

“No. I’m the witness. It was me.”