Sandra Termindale, mother of Holly and Lauren, daughter of Pamela, wanted to thank their rescuer and didn’t know how, found each attempt inadequate, which didn’t matter, because Jane wasn’t interested in thanks, only in cooperation.
The women and girls were in the breakfast nook. Sandra couldn’t stop touching her children, stroking their hair. She couldn’t stop crying, either, though this wasn’t a weeping that shook and disabled her; these were tears of relief, a long, liquid unwinding of tension.
“We don’t even know your name,” Sandra said.
“No,” Jane said. “You don’t.”
“What is your name?”
“Alice Liddell,” Jane lied.
Standing by the kitchen sink, she ejected the magazine from her pistol. Five rounds remained in it. She replaced it with a spare.
“Thank God you don’t need that anymore,” said Pamela.
Jane had left the bedrooms dark but for a dimmed lamp in each. Now she turned out all the lights in the front of the vehicle except for a small ceiling fixture over the nook. The late light at the windows provided only the hot-coal glow of the day sky burning out.
“We don’t want it dark,” Pamela said.
“Yes, we do,” Jane said. “Draw as little attention as we can.”
“The children are frightened. Turn on the lights.”
Jane addressed the girls. “You don’t look like Marshmallow Marjories. You look boy-tough. You’ve got it together. Am I right?”
“Maybe,” Holly said.
Lauren said, “We could, I guess.”
“Good. Great. Everything will be okay.” To Sandra, she said, “I’ve got to have a word with you, just the two of us.”
Sandra didn’t want to leave her girls, but she accompanied Jane through the shadowy living area to the front of the vehicle, where they sat in the cockpit chairs. Louder here, the engine idled in a three-note cycle, a mechanical lullaby.
The sun balanced on the horizon behind them, visible in the extended side mirrors of the RV, bloody red and immense. As the light failed westward, darkness climbed the eastern sky, stippled with suns so distant that they gave no heat.
“Listen,” Jane said, “the two who left in the Cherokee, they’re expecting their friends maybe half an hour behind them, with you and the girls. When that doesn’t happen, they’ll come back to see why.”
Shock staunched the woman’s tears. “We need the police.”
Jane remained patient. “Sandy, that’s the last thing I need. If a cop stops to see why you’ve pulled over, which could happen any minute, that’s as bad for me as if the pair in the Jeep come back.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t need to, Sandy. If you really want to thank me, then help me get those two out of here as soon as it’s dark.”
“What two?”
“The dead guys.”
“Out of here? To where?”
“Over the shoulder of the road, roll them down the embankment.”
“Oh, my God. No, no, no. I don’t want to touch them.”
“They’re too heavy. I need help.”
“They’re dead.”
“Very. So they can’t hurt you.”
“This is a crime scene or something. Isn’t it a crime scene?”
“Not if no one knows there’s been a crime.”
“We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. The police have to know.”
Jane put a gentling hand on the woman’s shoulder. “You realize what’ll happen to your kids if there’s an investigation?”
“Holly and Lauren? They didn’t do anything.”
“For one thing, the cops will want to test them for rape.”
“But they weren’t raped.”
“Everything you tell the cops will be second-guessed. It always is. These days, no one takes anyone’s word for what happened without looking at how else it might have happened.”
“But that’s not right.”
“It is what it is. It’ll be a big story. Everyone will be talking about what happened here, did it happen one way, did it happen another. Speculation whether Holly and Lauren were molested, always speculation. They’ll have to live with that. Boys in school will torment them about it. And not just boys.”
Sandra’s ashen cheeks pinked, whether with a reflection of the retreating sunlight or mortification. “Children can be cruel.”
“Are you a widow, Sandy?”
“Widow? No. Divorced.”
“Was there a custody fight?”
The woman’s expression answered the question.
“If it was an ugly custody battle, it’ll be worse the second time around. Sandy, you didn’t endanger the girls by taking them on this road trip, but he’ll argue that you did. And there are going to be people who agree with him, maybe not the judge, but there will be a lot of self-appointed judges who will tell you what they think.”
Chewing her lower lip, Sandra stared out at the darkening land, at the headlights of the westbound traffic on the farther side of the highway. “What if the police find them and think I killed them?”
“Nobody’s going to think Sandy Termindale killed anyone.”
“I don’t even own a gun.”
“This territory is wild. It’s a long way down the embankment. They won’t be found for weeks. Coyotes will be at them.”
Sandra shuddered.
“We want coyotes, Sandy. Unless the cops have DNA evidence on file from previous arrests, there will be so little left they’ll never be identified. And there’s no way they can be linked to you.”
Sandra’s life to date hadn’t prepared her for how to deal with violence or how to minimize the aftereffect. She seemed unable to look at Jane. “What about the blood?”
“Clean it up. You and your mom. Come on, Sandy. It’s almost dark enough to do the job.”
She grimaced. “What about the other two? What if they come looking for us after we’re on the road again?”
“When they come back here and don’t find you, they’ll know something went very wrong. They aren’t going to chase trouble.”
“But what if they do?”
“Where were you planning to stop tonight?”
“There’s an RV campground near Gallup. We have a reservation.”
“That’s almost two hundred miles. They won’t look that far. But I’ll tell you what—I’m going that way. I’ll follow you, make sure you’re safe in Gallup before I leave you.”
“I’m never going to feel safe again anywhere.”
“To an extent, that’s a good thing.”
Finally, the woman met Jane’s eyes. “Maybe your name is Alice Liddell. But who are you? What are you? What do I tell my girls?”
“Tell them I’m the Lone Ranger’s granddaughter. Tell them I’m a guardian angel. You’ll think of something.”
“A guardian angel with a gun?”
Jane smiled. “Michael the archangel always has a sword. Others, too. Maybe even angels have to change with the times.”
When Sandra looked away, Jane reached out, put a hand beneath the woman’s chin, and gently brought her eye to eye again.
“Your girls were victimized, Sandy. End that here. Don’t make them victims for the rest of their lives. Help them be brave.”
That entreaty might have brought tears to Sandra’s eyes a few minutes earlier. Not now. She had come to a terrible but essential acceptance, and she would never be the same. “Let’s do it.”