Ernie sat on a nearby rock, wiping the sweat off his forehead. As soon as Detective Carbajal saw Joanna, he came hurrying up to her Eagle. “Sorry about this, Sheriff Brady,” Jaime apologized. “I thought I had enough momentum going into the wash to get us through. The sand just reached out and grabbed us.”

There was no sense in ripping into him about it. “Tell you what, Jaime,” Joanna said. “Load what you can of Ernie’s equipment into the back of this. The lady behind me, Frankie Stoddard, is a private detective working for David O’Brien. She says she has a winch, and she thinks maybe her Range Rover can haul you out of here. Meantime, I’ll take Doc Winfield and Ernie on up the line to see if we can make it to the accident scene.”

“Sure thing, Sheriff Brady,” Jaime said. “I’ll get right on it.”

Twenty minutes later, Joanna was ready to set out again with George Winfield in the front seat and with Ernie scrunched into the backseat along with as much of his equipment as would fit. Shifting into four-wheel drive, she negotiated the wash with no difficulty.

“Who was that lady?” Ernie asked again. “The one with the Range Rover?”

“Her name’s Frankie Stoddard,” Joanna answered. “She’s David O’Brien’s private eye.”

“Great,” Ernie muttered.

“That’s what I say,” Joanna said.

Angie Kellogg heard the sirens. Sitting in a thicket of mesquite, she watched the drama below. She saw an agitated Dennis Hacker bound off the hillside and into the little clearing where the Hummer was parked, saw him look around anxiously for her, heard him calling her name and talking on his cell phone, but Angie didn’t move. She was too hurt. Too angry.

It wasn^’t that she liked Dennis Hacker that much. She had seen him just the two times. What was important about him, though, was what he represented. Joanna Brady, Marianne Maculyea, Jeff Daniels, and Bobo Jenkins had all tried to convince Angie that she could leave her past behind and live a normal life. And it had seemed to her in the past few months that she was doing so, that she was succeeding. She had made some friends at work. At home, she was learning to deal with neighbors, some of whom she liked and some she didn’t.

The former included Effie Spangler, Angie’s spry, octogenarian neighbor, who despite her years and having a working clothes dryer in her laundry room, nevertheless preferred drying her wash on a clothesline. The latter included Richard, Effie’s obnoxious husband, who always seemed to find something to do in the backyard whenever Angie was sunbathing and who never failed to complain that her bird feeders were bound to attract rats.

For Angie, there was much to be proud of. There was a normalcy and a regularity to her existence now that would have astonished her family back home in Battle Creek. Some of that normalcy included things her parents themselves had never achieved. For instance, Angie’s snug little house in Galena was completely paid for. She had a job and a car and insurance premiums. She had her own driver’s license and her very own voter’s registration card. All of those achievements should have said she was real.

Yet, in spite of all that, once she told Dennis Hacker the truth, he’d had the nerve to laugh at her. That hurt like hell.

She heard him now, calling her name. “Angie, Angie. Where are you?”

I’m up here, she thought determinedly, and I’m not coming down.

From her vantage point high on the hillside, she could see north to a road-a paved highway of some kind. Every ten minutes or so a vehicle would pass slowly in one direction or the other. She knew this wasn’t the road she and Dennis had taken from Douglas early that morning because what Dennis had called Old Geronimo Trail had been dirt most of the way.

That’s what I’ll do, she told herself, watching a pickup wend its way along that same paved road. When he finally gives up and leaves, I’ll walk down there and hitchhike home.

But what would she do when she got there? Stay or go? Work her heart out to get along, knowing all the time that as soon as people knew the real story, they would reject her out of hand? What was the use of fighting it? Maybe she should leave for a while, go someplace else. She’d have to give Bobo notice, of course. Give him a chance to find someone to take her place, but that probably wouldn’t be all that hard.

Just then, with that thought barely formed in her head, she felt a whirring past her ear. A high squeak shrilled in her ear as a beautiful, multicolored Lucifer Hummingbird settled on a branch not five feet from where Angie was sitting. He was close enough that she could see the distinctive downcurved bill, the rich purple feathers on the underside of his throat, and the bronze-green hues from crown to rump. Although Angie was careful not to move, he stayed for only a few seconds, then he was off, buzzing down the mountainside.

It was like a fairy tale. It seemed almost as if the beautiful bird had given her permission to go. She stood up as he disappeared from view.

“Good-bye,” she whispered aloud. “I’m leaving, too.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Standing on the edge of the ridge, Joanna looked down on the shattered remains of the pickup far below. It lay on its top, parallel to the road, with a spray of silvery glass shards glittering around it. “Where’s the body?” she asked Dennis Hacker, who was standing beside her.

“Under the cab,” he replied. “I couldn’t see it, but I know it’s there.”

“how?” Joanna asked.

Hacker nodded skyward toward three vultures circling lazily high overhead. “A little bird told me,” he said. “When I got closer, I could figure it out for myself.”

Joanna turned to Ernie Carpenter and George Winfield, who had been walking back and forth along the cliff, trying to determine exactly where Brianna had run off the edge and why. Now they stood nearby, conferring in low voices.

“No sign of braking or skidding. No sign of her meeting another vehicle and being forced off the cliff.”

“What happened, then?” George asked.

Ernie shook his head. “The only thing I can figure is she came around the rock face too close to the edge and tipped off. But if she was in four-wheel drive, with two wheels still on the track, she should have been able to correct and get back up on the trail-unless she was drunk or sound asleep, that is.”

“Who’d go to sleep driving in a place like this?” George asked, looking around. “Maybe she did it on purpose.”

“Maybe,” Ernie agreed.

“What next?” Joanna asked, inserting herself into the discussion.

“Mr. Hacker says the body is caught under the cab. If that’s the case, we may have to tip the truck over to get at it,” Ernie said.

“But won’t that run the risk of rolling it further down the hill?” Joanna objected.

“It’s possible, so before we do anything rash, I’d suggest we climb down and take a closer look.”

Detective Carpenter and George Winfield set off, with Ernie leading the way and with George slipping and sliding in his wake. I warned him to bring along decent shoes, Joanna thought, hoping he wouldn’t break a leg or his neck in the process.

“But what about Angie?” Dennis Hacker was saying. “Is anyone looking for her?”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” Joanna said.

“We were up in the meadow, watching the hummingbirds and having a great time, when we started talking. I guess I hurt her feelings, but I didn’t mean to. She took off down the mountain. I haven’t seen her since.”

“Exactly how did you hurt her feelings?”

“You^’re a friend of hers,^” I locker said. ^“Does that mean you know about her background?”

Joanna met the man’s troubled gaze, staring back at him without flinching. “If you’re asking me whether or not I know Angie Kellogg is a former prostitute, the answer is yes. I know all about it. She told me.”