Lena Jones 02 - Desert Wives by Betty Webb Read Free Book Online Page A

are just so much bullshit.”
    “Child Protective Services might not see it that way.”
    My laugh was ugly. “Oh, yeah, Child Protective Services. Sometime when we have a couple of hours or, even better, a couple of days, remind me to tell you about my own experiences with CPS.” The seedy foster homes I’d endured reared up in my memory. “I wouldn’t turn a snake over to CPS.”
    “While I’m certain there have been abuses…”
    “The answer is no, a flat-out no. Rebecca stays where she’s put until her mother either changes her mind or gets out of jail. If you do your job properly, that’ll be sooner rather than later.”
    Although unhappy, Winfield let it go. Uttering dire warnings about custodial interference and the Uniform Child Custody Agreement, he hung up.
    I replaced the receiver and stared at my hand. It was shaking.
    “I didn’t like the sound of that conversation,” Jimmy said from across the room. I’d forgotten he was there.
    “Neither did I. What do you think the chances are that Utah has a witness who saw Esther near Purity? It’s too bad one of us wasn’t able to stay with her at the motel.”
    “Yeah, it is. But I 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…”
    “I 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.
    “May 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.
    “Better talk to her,” Jimmy muttered, turning back to