“What?” she said again.
“Somebody’s been here,” he said. “There are tracks. Three people, a vehicle driving in from the west.”
“Tracks?” she said. “Where?”
He pointed. “Tire marks. Some kind of a truck. Stopped here. Three people, crawled up to the edge on their knees.”
He put himself where the tracks ended at the rim of the gulch. Lay down on the hot grit and hauled himself forward on his elbows. Raised his head.
“Somebody was watching the house,” he said.
How do you know?”
“Nothing else to see from here.”
She knelt alongside him, the chromium pistol in her hand.
“It’s too far away,” she said.
Must have used field glasses. Telescopes, even.” “Are you sure?”
“You ever see reflections? The sun on glass? In the mornings, when the sun was in the east?” She shuddered. “No,” she said. “Never.”
“Tracks are fresh,” he said. “Not more than a day or two old.”
She shuddered again.
“Sloop,” she said. “He thinks I’m going to take Ellie. Now I know he’s getting out. He’s having me watched.”
Reacher stood up and walked back to the center of the bowl.
“Look at the tire tracks,” he said. “They were here four or five times.”
He pointed down. There were several overlapping sets of tracks in a complex network. At least four, maybe five. The tire treads were clearly pressed into the powdered sand. There was a lot of detail. The outside shoulder of the front right tire was nearly bald.
“But they’re not here today,” Carmen said. “Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Reacher said.
Carmen looked away. Held out the gun to him.
“Please show me how to use this,” she said.
He moved his gaze from the tracks in the sand and looked at the gun. It was a Lorcin L-22 automatic, two-and-a-half-inch barrel, chrome frame, with plastic molded grips made to look like pink mother-of-pearl. Made in Mira Loma, California, not too long ago, and probably never used since it left the factory.
“Is it a good one?” she asked.
“How much did you pay for it?”
“Over eighty dollars.”
“Where?”
“In a gun store up in Pecos.”
“Is it legal?”
She nodded. “I did all the proper paperwork. Is it any good?”
“I guess,” he said. “As good as you’ll get for eighty bucks, anyway.”
“The man in the store said it was ideal.”
“For what?”
“For a lady. I didn’t tell him why I needed it.”
He hefted it in his hand. It was tiny, but reasonably solid. Not light, not heavy. Not heavy enough to be loaded, anyway.
“Where are the bullets?” he asked.
She stepped back toward the horses. Took a small box out of her bag. Came back and handed it to him. It was neatly packed with tiny .22 shells. Maybe fifty of them.
“Show me how to load it,” she said.
He shook his head.
“You should leave it out here,” he said. “Just dump it and forget about it.”
“But why?”
“Because this whole thing is crazy. Guns are dangerous, Carmen. You shouldn’t keep one around Ellie. There might be an accident.”
“I’ll be very careful. And the house is full of guns anyway.”
“Rifles are different. She’s too small to reach the trigger and have it pointing at herself simultaneously.”
“I keep it hidden. She hasn’t found it yet.”
“Only a matter of time.”
She shook her head.
“My decision,” she said. “She’s my daughter.”
He said nothing.
“She won’t find it,” she said. “I keep it by the bed, and she doesn’t come in there.”
“What happens to her if you decide to use it?”
She nodded. “I know. I think about that all the time. I just hope she’s too young to really understand. And when she’s old enough, maybe she’ll see it was the lesser of two evils.”
“No, what happens to her? There and then? When you’re in jail?”
“They don’t send you to jail for self-defense.”
“Who says it’s self-defense?”
“You know it would be self-defense.”
“Doesn’t matter what I know. I’m not the sheriff, I’m not the DA, I’m not the judge and jury.”
She went quiet.
“Think about it, Carmen,” he said. “They’ll arrest you, you’ll be charged with first-degree homicide. You’ve got no bail money. You’ve got no money for a lawyer either, so you’ll get a public defender. You’ll be arraigned, and you’ll go to trial. Could be six or nine months down the road. Could be a year. Then let’s say everything goes exactly your way from that point on. The public defender makes out it’s self-defense, the jury buys it, the judge apologizes that a wronged woman has been put through all of that, and you’re back on the street. But that’s a year from now. At least. What’s Ellie been doing all that time?”
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185