Reba swung back around. “Like hell!” she spat. “I’d rot in hell before I’d have you pull me out.”

That was enough for Joanna. “Suit yourself,” she said. “Come on, Butch. Let’s go on around them and leave them be.”

Butch came back, dusting off his pant legs as well. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.

By then Joanna was already back at the Subaru and opening the door. “I don’t see that we have any choice,” she told him. “From the sound of things, they’re not much interested in our help.”

“Who’s that woman?” Jenny asked when Joanna was back in her seat. “She looks mad.”

“She’s Clayton Rhodes’ daughter,” Joanna said. “And she is mad.”

“How come she’s mad?” Jenny asked. “Because her father’s dead? I wasn’t mad when Daddy died. I was sad.”

“Most people are,” Joanna said.

Butch climbed in behind the wheel. Without a word, he started the engine. He maintained his tight-lipped silence until he had used the agile Subaru’s all-wheel drive to detour around the stricken limo. Only when he was back on the road to Joanna’s house did he finally speak. “That woman’s something else,” he declared.

Joanna nodded. She was remembering the message Lisa Howard had passed along to her from the sergeant in Los Gatos. Now, having met Reba Joy Singleton, Joanna had a far better idea of what Sergeant Carlin had meant when he said, “Good luck.” He had meant that Reba Singleton was going to be a problem. Just how bad that problem would turn out to be was anybody’s guess.

CHAPTER 5

As usual, Sadie and Tigger came racing down the road to greet the car and follow it into the yard. While Jenny took the two gamboling dogs and darted inside to change into jeans and riding boots, Joanna and Butch busied themselves with unloading the car. “What’s her name again?” Butch said, nodding in the direction of the stalled Lincoln.

“Reba Singleton,” Joanna replied.

“And she really is Clayton Rhodes’ only daughter?”

“That’s my understanding.”

Butch shook his head. “It’s hard to accept someone like her being related to him. Clayton always struck me as being the salt of the earth. Reba, on the other hand, acts like a first-class bitch. What do you suppose she meant with that comment about you and George Winfield having a conflict of interest?”

Away from Reba’s bristling anger, Joanna was attempting to practice letting go. She shrugged in response to Butch’s question. “Who cares what Reba Singleton says?” she returned. “After a sudden and unexpected death, survivors sometimes go nuts for a while and make all kinds of crazy accusations. They try to blame anybody and everybody for whatever it is that’s happened in order to keep from having to blame themselves.

“I don’t think Reba and her father were especially close. In fact, I seem to remember some big family hassle about the time Molly Rhodes died. Molly was Reba’s mother. I don’t recall any of the quarrel’s gory details right offhand, but whatever it was was serious enough that I don’t think she and Clayton ever patched things up. Which means that right this minute Reba Singleton is walking around in a world of hurt. She’s packing a full load of guilt and regret, and she’s looking for someplace to dump it.”

“Preferably on you.”

Joanna smiled. “That’s all right,” she said. “I’m tough enough to take it.”

Jenny came out of the house wearing her jeans, boots, and hat, and carrying the cordless phone. “It’s for you,” she said, handing the receiver to her mother.

“Who is it?” Joanna asked.

“Who else?” Jenny returned sourly. “Work.”

While Jenny collected her new bridle and then went into the barn to retrieve Kiddo, Joanna turned her full attention to the phone. “Sheriff Brady here,” she said.

“Hi, Joanna,” Chief Deputy Frank Montoya said. “Sorry to bother you on your day off, but it’s a probable homicide. And we have a standing order that you’re to be contacted-”

“Did you say ”probable‘?“ Joanna said, interrupting him.

“Yes. The victim was shot and is currently being airlifted to Tucson. According to Lance Pakin, the first officer on the scene, she’s in real bad shape and isn’t likely to make it.”

“Who is it?”

“We have no idea at the moment. The man who found her was walking by and happened to see her lying in a ditch. He doesn’t look or sound like a suspect. In fact, if it wasn’t for him, she probably would be dead by now.”

Jenny emerged from the barn leading her sorrel gelding. She led Kiddo over to where Butch stood holding the new saddle blanket at the ready. Joanna turned away from them and walked several steps toward the house as she spoke into the phone.

“Where and when did this happen?”

“Near the entrance to Cochise Stronghold,” Frank Montoya replied. “Not inside the monument itself, but between there and Pearce.”

Cochise Stronghold, in the Dragoon Mountains, was an easily defended cliff-bound hideaway where the Apache chieftain Cochise had often retreated with his wandering band of followers. It was now a national monument. In the winter these days Cochise Stronghold was stocked with a new population of wanderers-an ever-changing assortment of RV-driving retirees. In the summer the demographics changed as retirees were replaced by campers with school-aged children who pulled into the camping area and stayed as long as the law allowed.

“Since I was already in the neighborhood assisting a deputy on a runaway call,” Frank continued, “it only took a matter of minutes for Lance Pakin and me to get here as well. In fact, we got to the scene before the EMTs did. Lance and I applied as much first aid as we could, but I’m afraid the EMTs are right in saying that the victim isn’t going to make it.”

“What happened to her?”

“It looks as though she was shot in the lower back. She was hit once at least and maybe more. She appears to have lost a good deal of blood and was hanging by a thread as they loaded her into the Med-evac helicopter.”

Joanna sighed as she lost all hope of being able to stay home and spend a quiet evening with Butch and Jenny. “You mentioned something about a runaway? What’s that all about?” Joanna asked.

“A fifteen-year-old Elfrida high school girl named Lucinda Ridder disappeared from her grandmother’s house sometime overnight last night, along with her pet hawk. When the grandmother got up this morning, both the girl and the bird were gone. The grandmother, Catherine Yates, made such a fuss with the emergency operators that I finally went over to her place on Middlemarch Road myself. According to Grandma, Lucy’s mother is due home today or tomorrow. Mrs. Yates is frantic that we find Lucy and have her back home by the time her mother arrives. I was at the Yates’ place-the grandmother’s place-trying to explain why we have a twenty-four-hour waiting period on missing-persons reports when the second call came in. I decided to come straight here and check just in case the gunshot victim and Lucy turned out to be one and the same.”

“And was she?”

“No. As I said Lucy Ridder is fifteen years old. I’d guess the shooting victim is somewhere in her mid-to-late thirties.”

“Wait just a minute, Joanna,” Frank said. “There’s a call coming in on the radio.”

While her chief deputy was off the line, Joanna turned back to Butch, Jenny, and the horse. By then Butch had heaved the new saddle onto Kiddo’s back, and Jenny was busy cinching it up. Watching the two of them talking and laughing together, Joanna felt a pang of jealousy. They were having fun while she could feel herself being sucked back into the world of work. It wasn’t fair.

“Joanna?” Frank’s voice came back on the line.

“I’m here. What’s happening?”

“That was the pilot of the Med-evac helicopter. He says the EMTs lost her. She flat-lined on them and they couldn’t bring her back. The pilot wants to know what he should do, continue on into Tucson or head back to Bisbee.”