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would do to start one. Maybe even
burning a screenplay.
She knelt and turned the key to start the gas. She grabbed a fireplace
match from the container on the hearth, struck it on the bricks, and
opened the screen. The gas was flowing, the noise a soothing sound. She
extended the flaming match toward the gas.
Almost unconsciously, she turned the key and extinguished the gas,
blew out the match, and closed the screen, leaving the script, possibly
along with her career, face up on the ash heap.
CHAPTER 10
    Chad Palmer knelt
beside an aging horse lying on its side on a
bed of hay in a barn on the outskirts of the Texas Hill Country town of
Bandera. Behind him in the airy barn, dimly-lit by a single bulb hanging
from a wire, stood Tom and Mary Tucker, Teri’s parents. Dressed in
bedclothes and robes, they watched and waited for Chad’s report.
    Still fit,
in his mid-forties, Chad’s sun-weathered face
showed
concern, his eyebrows knitted, his mouth pressed in a thin line. He turned
to address the Tuckers. “I don’t think we can wait any longer.”
    “You’re sure?” Mary asked, tears already streaking her face. Beside
her, Tom stood stoically, emotionless.
“She’s suffering, Mrs. Tucker. It’s the humane thing to do.”
“Do it,” Tom said in a cold monotone. Purely a business decision for
him.
Chad looked at Mary. “Does she know?”
Mary was frozen in place, unable to move, unable to respond.
“Mrs. Tucker, does she know?”
The words shook Mary from her trance. She slowly shook her head as
she pulled a cell phone from her pocket and punched a number on speed
dial.
    To call Teri’s slumber “fitful” would be a gross understatement. She
thrashed about, entangled in sheets, and had been doing so for the past
two hours. Moonlight streamed in through open shades, almost like a
spotlight singling out a star on stage. But Teri felt as if her star had burned
out, along with Leland Crowell’s. She didn’t know how Leland had died,
how he had taken his own life, but still she dreamed about it. Snippets of
dreams, actually, covering every possible form of suicide: The Leland
from the picture Annemarie Crowell had shown her putting a gun in his
mouth; Leland jumping off a bridge; Leland swallowing an overdose of
pills; Leland in a running car in a closed garage. Each time, she saw his
ravaged face. Each time, the clown woman Annemarie Crowell stood in
the shadows, watching, a screenplay gripped tightly in her hands.
    The Magnum theme roused Teri just as Leland was about to drive a
car at full speed into a concrete pillar, while Annemarie stood curbside
and watched, screenplay in hand. Teri kicked the sheets from around her
legs and looked at the bedside clock: 12:46 a.m.
    She grabbed the phone and looked at the read-out, then answered.
“Mama, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Bingo, Baby. Chad’s got to put her down.”
Teri sat bolt upright in bed. A quiver gripped her voice. “No, Mama.
You can’t do that.”
“It’s for the best. Chad says—”
Mary’s voice was cut off, replaced by Tom’s. “It’s done.”
“You can’t do that, Daddy. Bingo’s not your horse. You don’t get to
decide when to put him down.”
“And Adam wasn’t your son, but you damn sure decided without my
input.”
It was as if the words had punched her in the stomach. She bent over
and gasped for breath, unable to formulate a response.
“You gave up your right to complain a long time ago,” Tom said.
“But Daddy—”
The hang-up tone rang in her ears and jostled her brain.
She got out of bed and stood, stretching as tall as she could, fighting
for air. Hot tears tingled on her cheeks. She paced the length of the room,
struggling to understand. Her life that had, at one time, seemed to be the
stuff of dreams, had crumbled into a nightmare. And a nightmare from
years ago had resurfaced to join the new nightmare. How could everything
have gone so wrong so fast?
She threw on a robe over her flannel shorts and t-shirt, stuck