Trouble at the Red Pueblo by Liz Adair Read Free Book Online

the way Neva sat in a semi-fetal position in the circle of Laurie’s arms. Uncomfortable to be intruding on her misery, he walked around the tree and surveyed the back-yard neighbors’ garden plot. While he examined the corn, green beans and ripening cantaloupe, he listened to Neva’s lessening sobs and the encouraging tone of Laurie’s murmured words. Finally he judged it was safe to walk back around.
    Approaching Neva, he cleared his throat. “Could I ask what you meant when you said you were afraid of what Matt would do?”
    Laurie’s head whipped around and her eyes flashed. “Spider Latham, you leave this woman alone. She needs peace and quiet, not someone stirring the pot.”
    Neva held up her hand. “It’s okay, Laurie.” She wiped her nose with the still-folded handkerchief and turned red-rimmed eyes to Spider. “I don’t know what I meant. Truly I don’t. It just came out.”
    Laurie stood. “How about a little rest? Wouldn’t that be good?” Her voice was soft and soothing as she helped Neva up.
    The two women walked together to the house. Spider heard them talking to Martin as they stepped through the sliding glass door, and then Laurie reappeared.
    “I think I’ll stay here while Neva rests,” she said. “Why don’t you go back to the hotel? It’s just a few blocks. I’ll walk back when I’m done here.”
    “All right.” Spider waited a moment after Laurie disappeared inside, wondering if he should try to talk to Martin again. Deciding against that, he picked up his hat and walked around the house to where his pickup was parked.
    He took an alternate route to the hotel and noticed a crew setting up a portable stage by the Kanab Museum steps. A banner over the road advertised that the Western Legends Roundup was this coming weekend. Spider inwardly groaned, seeing visions of what his father used to call ‘drugstore cowboys’ thronging the streets. And cowboy poetry. There would be lots of cowboy poetry.
    It was with that depressing thought that he turned left into the hotel parking lot and braked at the sight of the car in the fourth parking space. “Turns up like a bad penny,” he muttered. Cars on both sides obscured the front of the square little orange car, but he’d lay money that it was a Yugo and had black flames flowing back on the front and sides.

“HEY, DEPUTY LATHAM !”
    Recognizing the voice, Spider rolled down the window. “Hello, Jade. I thought you might be around. Your car gave you away.”
    Jade crossed from the direction of the hotel lobby, fishing an envelope from his pocket as he walked. A young man trailed behind, carrying a yellow plastic shopping bag. “It’s not my car,” Jade said.
    “The company car, then.”
    Jade grinned. “Not anymore. Now it’s yours.”
    “Say again?” A minivan beeped the horn behind him, and Spider waved an apology. “Let me park,” he told Jade. “Then we can talk.”
    He swung into a vacant space and got out of the truck. “What are you doing here in Kanab?” He shook his friend’s hand and then took the proffered envelope.
    “Special delivery. Oh, this is Raul. He’s my brother-in law.”
    Spider greeted Raul and then opened the envelope. Pulling out several sheets of paper, he examined the first one and his eyebrows shot up. “Great suffering zot! Is this for real?”
    Jade hadn’t quit grinning since he had first greeted Spider. “Yeah. You’re now the proud owner of a 1991 Yugo. Allow me to personally thank you, along with all the other people at Tremain Enterprises. Keys are in it.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Nothing to understand. Dad has given you the Yugo.”
    “But why?”
    Jade drew them both into the shade of a covered walkway where heat wasn’t radiating off the black asphalt. “I told him you were driving that same pickup, and he felt you ought to have another car. He knows you can’t use your county cruiser when you’re doing work for him. He says driving the Yugo gives you an