Desert Wives (9781615952267) by Betty Webb Read Free Book Online Page B

couldn’t be two places at once, could I?”
    He’d had to wait for me near the compound every night, until I finally showed up with Rebecca. I’d thought I could trust Esther to do what she’d promised when I allowed her to tag along with us to Utah. Still, moping over my own culpability in Esther’s current situation accomplished nothing. The woman stood accused of murder, a murder I was pretty certain she hadn’t committed. If Esther had wanted to kill Solomon Royal, she’d have gone into the compound in daylight, gun blazing, shouting to God and all his angels that the Prophet was getting what was coming to him. There would have been none of this sneaking along dirt roads at night, leaving her beloved daughter to discover a very messy dead body.
    Which reminded me. “Jimmy, have you seen Rebecca yet today?”
    He smiled. “I stopped by on my way in. Curtis is teaching her ‘The Corn Song.’”
    I smiled back. Jimmy had taught me the old Pima harvest chant when we had first started working together. Those words from another time had never ceased to calm me. Maybe I needed that now: a good run, a few bars from “The Corn Song.” Esther’s and Rebecca’s woes had knocked me off my usual schedule, and now my nerves were paying the price. My workouts at the gym made a pretty poor substitute. Besides, my sore hand complained that it didn’t care much for karate.
    I looked up at the clock and discovered to my surprise that it was still early afternoon.
    Jimmy broke into my thoughts. “Lena, we’ve got to help Rebecca. That little girl…”
    â€œI know, Jimmy. I know.”
    With a grunt, he turned back to his computer and tapped away on the keys, escaping into one of his cases. I tried the same, but it didn’t work. All I could think about was Rebecca and what awaited her if she returned to Utah. With her mother in jail, getting her out of Purity again and keeping her out would be impossible. Because of religion.
    Yet after my last case I could no longer call myself a blatant atheist. Too many odd things had happened as I lay near death on the desert, not all of them attributable to hallucinations.
    I was still musing on the mysterious ways of God when the door opened and a tall, thin man in his mid-thirties entered. Hallelujah, another client. Then I noticed his faded, long-sleeved, high-necked shirt and his shiny-kneed slacks. Not a paying client.
    â€œMay I help you?” I asked.
    The man ignored me and addressed himself to Jimmy. “I’m here about my daughter.”
    I stiffened. He’d spoken to Jimmy, a tip-off that he didn’t take women seriously.
    The look on Jimmy’s face proved he knew who confronted us. I’d never seen him indulge in violence before, but I wondered if that was about to change.
    â€œBetter talk to her,” Jimmy muttered, turning back to his keyboard. His hands shook.
    Abel Corbett stood in the center of the office for a moment, obviously loathe to speak to a lowly woman. Then necessity conquered philosophy, and he looked down at me.
Really
down, as if at a bug.
    â€œYou must be Lena Jones.” Nature, having one of her little jokes, gave him a girlishly high voice. It sort of tickled me.
    â€œThat’s me, sure enough.”
    â€œWhere’s my daughter?” With his almost-white hair and light blue eyes, he bore a vague resemblance to Sheriff Benson, and I wondered briefly if the two were related. It wasn’t impossible. The gene pool ran pretty small on the Arizona Strip.
    â€œDanged if I know.” I smiled.
    For a moment he didn’t know how to respond to my denial, then male supremacy reasserted itself. “Don’t hand me that. I demand that you turn Rebecca over to me. Now.”
    â€œWhy? So you can pimp her out to some other prophet?”
    I thought he’d faint from shock. From the stories Esther had told me about Purity, women never