Chapter Twenty-Four

Dix drove in widening circles until she’d searched the whole village of Los Lunas. Her eyes darted down alleyways, along the ditch beside the road and into dark spaces between houses. But other than the occasional passing vehicle and homeless person, she didn’t get a glimpse of a child alone and on foot.

If she doesn’t want to be found, you won’t find her.

Rather than discourage her, Lil’s words spurred her on. She drove out of the village limits to wind down country lanes and over bumpy ditch banks. Her fingers grew numb from the cold, but she refused to turn on the car’s heater. How could she make herself comfortable while that child wandered around in the frigid weather? According to the temperature readout on her dash, the air outside was only forty-five degrees, low enough to cause life-threatening hypothermia to the weak or unprotected.

Dix pulled her car into an all-night truck stop on Highway Forty-seven, its overhead halogen lights alchemically turning the night’s darkness into midday. She paid the young man behind the counter for gasoline, a granola bar, and the largest coffee available. After taking a couple of tentative sips of the scalding swamp-mud-tasting brew, she hurried back to the car where her mind roiled as she filled the tank.

Lil would be worried sick, envisioning all kinds of horrifying things. Dix had never dealt with her sister’s guilt trips very well and yet here she was, dishing up enough fodder to last the next twenty years.

Although she’d been putting it off, it was time to call her sister, if only to let her know she was okay.

Fighting back the sense that she was capitulating to some unreasonable demand, Dix pulled the car away from the pump and parked at the asphalt’s edge. Mentally crafting her I’m-okay-but-don’t-try-to-stop-me speech, she pulled her cell phone lanyard from inside her blouse.

Her stomach sank at the sight of the empty, useless bag, and she flashed on the image of her phone sitting on the kitchen counter.

She scanned the area around the truck stop for a roadside emergency phone. But sometime during the last couple of decades or so things had changed, and public pay phones were a thing of the past.

Outdated, just like she was. Old school. She’d never even learned how to text…

Yawn.

There used to be a pay phone every…

Yawn.

…few miles…

Dix’s eyes suddenly popped open. With blurred vision, she glanced at the clock in the dashboard. Five o’clock. She’d lost an hour.

She stared out the windshield and argued with herself. Should she use the gas station’s phone to call Lil? Probably. Then maybe she should call Davie.

But a phone call to Davie would eat up several minutes. Then several more minutes would be spent bringing him up to speed. Added to that was the possibility of some jurisdictional thing-a-ma-jigs to slow the process down even further. There’d probably be hours of paperwork.

Dix shook her head. While all of that was true, she had to admit the real reason she didn’t call Davie was out of fear—fear of his anger, fear she’d lose his respect, fear he’d see her as old and useless.

She imagined Davie and Lil commiserating with each other, doing a nod-nod-wink-wink thing and whispering that maybe it was time to put old Dix out to pasture. She envisioned the knowing looks on their faces, the sad shaking of heads, and the aura of pity that would poison the air.

Nope, it’d be best for her to do this on her own. After she’d found Jillie, she’d face the music. And time was ticking.

Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid, the first things that child would need were food and shelter. But this was an eleven-year-old on a mission. The judgment part of the human brain didn’t fully develop until somewhere around the early to mid-twenties. So, the child would be more prone to risk-taking…her decision-making mechanism would be immature…and…

A series of insistent taps on the car window against which her head rested jerked Dix out of a deep sleep. A young man peered through the glass at her, a worried look on his face.

She closed her mouth and worked her air-dried tongue until it was moist enough for speech. Then she powered down her window. “Yes?”

“Are you okay, miss?”

Dix shaped her lips into what she hoped was a convincing smile. “Everything’s fine. Just needed to rest my eyes a few minutes, but I’m good to go now.”

“Just so you’re all right, you’ve been sitting here a while.” A relieved look on his face, the young man nodded toward the coffee cup. “That’ll be cold by now; you want a refresher?”

“Kind of you, but no thanks. I’ll be on my way.”

The young man headed back to the building. From just inside the door, he stopped and turned back, evidently waiting for her to leave.

Angrily, Dix rolled up her window. She slapped her face, bounced her legs up and down on the balls of her feet, sang, raised and lowered her shoulders, and pinched her forearm hard enough to bring tears. She chugged the cold coffee dregs and considered her next move.

If she were an eleven-year-old searching for her beloved sister’s ashes, where would she go? The hospital seemed logical. Jillie had appeared to accept her warning about what might happen if she showed up there, but she was, after all, a child.

Pushing aside the persistent thought that her sleep deprived fuzz-ball brain might not be completely on top of things, Dix sat up straight and squared her shoulders.

She fired up her engine, pulled onto highway Forty-seven and headed back the way she’d come. Twenty minutes of white-knuckle, still-pitch-black-night driving would get her to Interstate Twenty-five. Twenty more minutes would get her to the hospital.

The Universe had called upon her to help Jillie, and she’d not ignore that call.