Chapter Twenty-Six

Lil paced the floor, watched television, climbed into and out of bed, then paced some more. Roiling anger had long since given way to anxiety, which changed back to anger before finally settling into fear and dread.

Hearing-aids in, she listened for the garage door to open while mentally composing the tongue-lashing she’d give her twin. Her agitation grew as the hour hand on her bedside clock slowly ticked by.

Throughout their lives, the two sisters had often experienced a twin thing. By the time they learned to talk, they were finishing each other’s sentences. And on more than one occasion, they’d raised the purple-haired, church ladies’ eyebrows by bursting into giggles during a prayer or pause in the sermon at something one or the other had thought but didn’t need to say.

Then along with the standard hormonal tsunami accompanying their teen years, they simultaneously decided to become non-twins. When Dix chose to wear pink, Lil opted for blue. When Lil decided to get a B.S. in accounting, Dix got a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology. In an almost frenzied need to touch and be touched, the gregarious Dix had burned through countless relationships and three disastrous marriages while the introverted and supremely a-sexual Lil had been content to remain single.

But though they chose different paths and lifestyles, their near clone-like connection never completely evaporated. And now Lil’s gut was twisting and squirming just like it did in junior high school when the creep who lived up the street tried to abduct Dix.

Lil had known her sister was in trouble, even though she’d been roller skating a couple of blocks away. By the time Lil arrived on the scene, the guy had Dix’s arms pinned and was trying to haul her into a mud-splattered brown van.

The prick’s eyes had grown wide when Lil charged at him. Screaming like something crazed, she’d hurled herself like a bowling ball straight for his kneecaps. He yelped and staggered backward, loosening his hold on Dix to aim a fist at Lil’s head.

Then, as the twins later told police, they went medieval on the jerk’s ass. Two pissed-as-hell twelve-year-old kids kicking, gouging, pulling hair, biting. The guy had seemed almost relieved when a couple of minutes later a squad car pulled up in response to a neighbor’s call.

Lil shut down the memory, removed her hearing aids, and again headed for bed.

But when Dix hadn’t returned by five the next morning, Lil walked downstairs to the land line in the kitchen and punched in her sister’s cell phone number. If Dix thought Lil was going to put up with such behavior, she had another—

Out of the darkness, Dix’s 60’s rock and roll ring tone erupted from atop the kitchen counter. The phone’s tiny green light flashing its location, Lil picked the thing up and jabbed the red disconnect square.

Dix had been out all night. Alone. No way to call home, even if she’d wanted to.

We should get an in-car emergency phone service, one with satellite connectedness, in case we have car trouble and need to call for help. Dix’s words conjured up a truckload of guilt.

“We have cell phones,” Lil had said. “We don’t need the added expenditure.”

“Then we should at least get phone jacks for the car.”

But Lil had remained adamant. “Just re-charge the thing every night before you go to bed. Simple. You want that kind of stuff, you pay for it. We don’t need it.”

Dix had harrumphed and said, “Like the emergency three-day supply of water and food we never managed to set up, we won’t need that either.” She’d jabbed her index finger in Lil’s face in her standard mode of retort. “Until we do. Think Corpus Christi in the sixties, Houston, and east Texas—”

“We live in the desert, in case you haven’t noticed. We’re high enough not to flood.” She’d pitched such a fit about the cost, Dix finally let the matter drop.

And now her directionally challenged sister could be anywhere, stranded, lying in a ditch.

Lil swiped tears away from her cheeks. While she’d been born with an internal combustion that made her uncomfortably warm in temperatures above seventy degrees, Dix was the opposite. Anything below seventy sent her scurrying for a goose down comforter.

And the weather was growing cold.

A grim set to her mouth, Lil prepared a breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee then forced herself to eat every bite. Though not the least bit hungry, she had a sinking feeling she was going to need the energy.

She pulled an insulated thermos bottle from the cabinet, filled it with coffee, hurried upstairs to her room, and got dressed. Then she jammed her hearing aids into her ears and put a spare package of tiny round batteries into the breast pocket of her red flannel shirt.

Unsure of what prompted her to do so, she retrieved a can of pepper spray and a fully charged Taser, the scabbard of which she attached to her leather belt. Then she made a beeline downstairs to the kitchen pantry.

Without a wasted movement, she filled a tote bag with the thermos, three oranges, an unopened package of string cheese, and several granola bars. She glanced around the kitchen, her mind furiously ticking off the things she might need if worse came to worst. Then she headed for the garage and retrieved the half-full, red plastic, five-gallon gas container used for the lawn mower.

The sight of Dix’s empty parking space sent a wave of renewed fear through Lil’s midsection. Trying to convince herself she was probably worried for no reason, that her absent-minded twin was probably enjoying an early breakfast at a Denny’s or IHOP, she popped open her trunk, stashed the gas container, and slammed the lid.

She pulled Dix’s cell phone from her holster, climbed into the driver’s seat, and turned on the dome light. After losing an internal argument over the best way to proceed, she squelched an uncomfortable fluttering of guilt and punched in Davie’s number.

“Aunt Dix? What’s up? Everything okay?” Her nephew’s sleep-fogged voice was tinged with worry.

“It’s not Dix, it’s Lil. I’m using her phone, long story. Sorry to call you so early, but…”

Broken only by her nephew’s occasional question, Lil recounted everything she could remember of what the kid had told her and Dix about Beth, Digger’s death, her life with the Elliotts, and her subsequent wanderings.

“You mean the little girl was in the house when—”

“You know Dix has a weakness for strays, always has. The problem is she left last night after dinner to look for the kid and hasn’t come home yet.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m home.” For the time being.

“Unless you suspect foul play, Aunt Dix hasn’t been gone long enough to do a missing person’s report. Do you have any reason to think she’s in danger?”

“No, not really. But she can be forgetful when she gets this focused, and she has night-blindness. After several near-misses, I made her stop driving after dark.”

“I’ll take the day off to look for her.” Punctuated with rustling and what sounded like a closet door opening and closing, Davie’s words sounded more than a little angry. “Do you have any idea where she was headed?”

“Not for certain, but all that kid could talk about was getting her sister’s ashes from the hospital.”

“Okay, I’ll take it from here.”

“I can’t just sit—”

“Aunt Lil, I won’t be at my best if I have to worry about you as well. You understand? I’ll call when I find her.” Davie broke the connection.

For the next couple of minutes, Lil sat in the car, her mind a fury of activity. She reached into the console at her elbow, pulled out one of a dozen pair of reading glasses she had stashed in various places, slipped them on, and studied the road map.

She’d often heard that the best lies included a bit of truth. And although some of the kid’s story had turned out to be true, Dix had fallen for the whole shebang. Unable to have children of her own, she’d be in raging Valkyrie-Mama mode.

If the kid was to be believed, there were four places she’d be likely to show up: the hospital, the Elliott house, her godmother’s house, or her own home.

Since Davie would secure the hospital, that left three other possibilities.

Lil started the engine and backed out into the pre-dawn darkness. She could be in Belen in less than thirty minutes. If Dix were there, she’d bring her home—even if she had to drag her kicking and screaming. And the police could deal with the kid.