Richfield & Rivers Mystery Series 1 - Combust the Sun Read Online Free Page B

house to illuminate anyone who might still be prowling
around. Seeing no one, I located scissors in the hall table and cut the rats
down. One had its mouth taped shut with silver duct tape, the other had its
throat slit.
    "Silence
or Death. What is this, death threats for dummies?" I asked loudly to
steady my nerves. Unable to stomach the sight of the hapless animals, I loaded
them into a plastic garbage bag and deposited them in the trash can behind the
house. Elmo stayed two steps behind me, for which I was grateful. Locating the
bacterial soap in the kitchen sink, I scrubbed up to my elbows, certain Lady
Macbeth never washed her hands as thoroughly.
    So
Spider Eye must have followed me home from the Cedars parking garage. Yet I
remembered checking my rearview mirror, and there was no one following me. This
was his way of saying I could end up like Barrett if I talked to the police.
The fax and the dead rats were both designed just to scare me, because if he'd
wanted to kill me, there's a good chance he could have gotten away with it. The
hair stood up on the back of my neck.
    At
four in the morning, I called Cedars one more time to check on Barrett. The
nurse said she could only tell me that Ms. Silvers was "stabilized." But
"stabilized" in what form? Is she vegetable stabilized or
back-to-normal-soon stabilized? I said a prayer for her before packing the
car behind my locked gates, in case someone was watching for an easy target.
Target or not, I had to get to Tulsa for my parents' anniversary.
    My
attendance record at family gatherings was appalling, even by my own standards.
I drove back to Tulsa often. It was just that none of my trips seemed to
coincide with life's important moments. I'd managed to miss my brother's
wedding because I was in production, my kid sister's graduation because the
roads were impassible and the flights were all booked, and all of my parents'
anniversaries because the timing was wrong. Like interstitial programming, I
seemed to arrive between episodes. My sister would be out of town, unable to
attend this particular soiree, so this trip was my concerted effort to be there
when it counted, even if some guy tried to knock me off while I was loading the
car.

Chapter
Three
    Elmo
and I hit the road, maneuvering the 210 while it was still dark. We drove
across the Mohave and watched the sun come up over the desert with genuine joy
in our hearts, glad to be leaving our troubles behind.
    Several
hours later, we crossed the border into Arizona, winding our way up the
mountain to Flagstaff, then back down the other side, past the crater, where
fifty thousand years ago, a meteor left a hole the length of twenty football
fields just south of where I-40 leads to Winslow. Seeing vast stretches of
sand, devoid of humanity, where lizards and prairie dogs eked out an existence
in 120-degree heat amidst a formidable array of Spanish bayonets, scrub brush,
and cacti, made my human struggles seem less serious. I turned up the radio and
sang along to a love triangle about a heartbroken trucker who drove his eighteen-wheeler
through a local motel room to kill his cheating wife, apparently loving her to
death.
    I
noticed a dark blue Buick in the rearview mirror and slowed down to get a
better look. The car slowed too, deciding not to pass me. I thought I'd seen
the same car in Needles. I pulled off at the first Winslow exit into a gas
station where a family with several small children was gassing up their car.
Their mere presence made me feel safer. The blue sedan didn't exit. I felt
relieved and unloaded Elmo, hoisting his short-legged body out of the Jeep to
save his arthritic shoulders. The moment his paws touched the sand, he pulled
up short and let out a mournful sob. I knelt and quickly removed several
cockleburs from the pad of his foot and pulled him in for a hug. A little girl
with Shirley Temple hair and wearing pink shorts walked over to ask what kind
of dog he was and then trotted back to her car,