He could feel her studying him. After a moment she asked, “If you don’t like it, why are you here?”

“Long story.”

“Well-” she held up both hands, gesturing at the barren landscape and the road stretching ahead of them as far as they could see “-looks like we’ve both got time.” He could feel her eyes on him again-those exotic, black-almond eyes. “Unless,” she added with a hint of a sly smile, “it’s something you’re terribly ashamed of.”

“Oh, yeah,” he growled, “it’s definitely that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly, and looked away, as if it embarrassed her to have stumbled upon his closet full of skeletons. Like a curious-or nosy-little girl, belatedly remembering her manners.

What the hell, he thought. He wanted her to trust him, didn’t he? Maybe if he came clean with her it might inspire her to do the same.

So he blew out a breath and scrubbed at his beard stubble, and finally said, “I told you how I feel about predators.” She nodded. “Okay, well, because of me, there’s one out there somewhere who should have been locked up. Put in a cage where he couldn’t hurt another innocent child.”

Even through the growth of beard she could see the muscles bunch in his jaw, and knew he must be clenching his teeth-hard. After a moment she said in a low voice, “Okay, I don’t understand.”

“It’s not that complicated. The guy was the worst kind of predator, the kind that preys on children-in particular, little girls.” His voice was tight…harsh. Rachel could feel her heart tap-tapping in her loose, quivery belly, and pressed her fist against it while she waited for him to go on. “I had him for the kidnapping and murder of a six-year-old girl. Had him in custody. And I let my personal feelings override my professional judgment. As a result-” He let out an explosive breath. “As a result, he was released on a technicality. Promptly lit out for parts unknown. Now he’s gone. Vanished. In the wind.”

“What did you do?” Her voice was barely audible. “I can’t imagine-”

“Oh, I got…physical. Rough with him. You know-slammed him up against a wall, I think.” He glanced at her briefly, but long enough for her to see the anger, guilt and anguish in his eyes. “He taunted me with what he’d done to that little girl-details. And I lost it. But that’s no excuse. Maybe the miserable freak was hoping I’d kill him-put him down like a mad dog, you know? But I shouldn’t have lost control. No excuses. Because of what I did that animal is out there somewhere, and sooner or later he’s going to do what he does, because that’s what they always do, and some other little girl is going to suffer and die and her entire family’s lives are going to be destroyed. And that’s on me. Innocent people will suffer for what I did.”

“But,” Rachel said softly, “you are suffering, too. Aren’t you?”

He gave a huff of painful laughter as he looked at the expanse of darkening desert all around them. “Every day,” he growled. “Every day.”

“I don’t just mean because you’re out here in the desert, now, and you hate it-I’m assuming you being here has something to do with what happened?”

“Yeah, something.”

“But that’s not the worst part, is it?” He didn’t look at her, or reply. “I think you must think about it…live with it, every day. And at night you probably-”

“Jeez, what are you now, my shrink?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, because she could see by the stiffness in his neck and shoulders that she’d gone too far.

But I know you have nightmares, Jethro Fox. I know, because I have them, too. About Nicky, and what happened that night. I keep playing it over and over in my head, trying to make it come out differently. And I know you do, too.

Chapter 6

“It’s not much,” J.J. said, “but at least nobody bothers me out here. And like I said, the only ones who know where I live I’d trust with my life. You should be safe here. For tonight, anyway. We’ll have to figure out what we’re going to do after that, but right now, you can at least get some rest.”

She nodded but didn’t say anything. He figured she had to be pretty near worn out, given the day she’d had yesterday, and the fact that nobody ever really gets to rest in a hospital. She’d fallen asleep again, once the talking stopped, until they’d had to stop a ways back when the baby woke up and started fussing so she could nurse him. It was an odd experience for J.J.-definitely a first for him-sitting in the darkness with only the sounds of the desert wind and the occasional yip of a coyote outside the car, and inside, the soft, wet sounds a hungry baby made, nursing at his mother’s breast.

Now, though, she was sitting up straight and alert, staring ahead at the silhouette of his trailer, lonely against the slate-dark sky. A three-quarter moon hung high and bright, bright enough to cast shadows on the desert landscape.

“Moonshine,” she said.

He thought at first she was talking about the moonlight, but then he saw the dog sitting out in the road in front of the trailer, waiting for him. He gave a little laugh and said, “Yeah, and it’s actually her you can thank for saving your life.” He nodded at the baby, now sleeping again in the carrier in the backseat. “And your son’s. I probably wouldn’t have found you without her.”

She nodded but didn’t reply. He pulled up in the bare place in front of the trailer and stopped, but when he started to open the door and get out, she hitched in a breath and said in a nervous, hurried kind of way, “Is she yours? Or, you know…a police dog?”

“Canine Unit, you mean? Nah, she just wandered in here one day and parked herself, didn’t look like she was going to leave, so I let her stay. I call her Moonshine because she always looks like she’s a little bit drunk, which is pretty normal for a hound dog. Now and then she comes in handy, like she did today. Why?” he added, because there’d been that something in her voice. “You’re not afraid of dogs, are you?”

“Not…afraid, just careful.” Her voice was without expression. It had a hollow sound in the dark car. He heard her take another breath. “Carlos has dogs. Dobermans. They have the run of the estate at night, and other times-whenever he wants to make sure nobody comes or goes without his knowledge and consent.”

“Prison wardens,” J.J. said with a snort.

She nodded. “I’ve never had a dog as a…you know, a pet.”

“Not even growing up? What, your grandmother didn’t like dogs?”

“My grandmother liked to garden-flowers, not vegetables. Dogs and flower gardens don’t exactly mix.”

“Ah. Well, Moonshine isn’t exactly a pet. She’s more like a roomy, I guess.” He shrugged and opened the car door. “Anyway, we seem to get along okay.”

He got out, went around and opened Rachel’s door. Moonshine came ambling over to give her a good sniff, then sat back and let him help her out of the car. Rachel managed that part okay, but he could see she was having trouble getting her legs under her and working right, and it hit him again, like a slap upside the head, what she’d been through in the last forty-eight hours or so. He didn’t even think twice about it, tiny as she was, just scooped her up in his arms.

She gave a little gasp and said faintly, “You don’t have to carry me.”

“I think maybe I do,” he said, and felt her body shake with silent laughter.

“Well, okay then, pardner,” she growled in a very bad Duke Wayne impression, which he was pretty certain he did not sound like, at least he hoped not.

He made an ambiguous growling sound back to her and carried her up the steps and into his trailer. He put her down on the couch and was heading back out to get the baby when he spotted a sticky note from Katie stuck on the inside of the door saying she’d made up his bed with clean sheets and stocked the fridge with a few groceries. God bless the woman, because those were two things he hadn’t even thought about himself.

When he opened the back door of his vehicle to unbuckle the baby carrier seat, Moonshine had to come over and go through the sniff-test thing again. Having evidently given the new arrival her approval, she trotted along at J.J.’s heels right up to the bottom of the steps. There, instead of flopping down in the dust for a snooze as was her usual habit, she parked herself on her haunches on full alert, as if she knew whatever was in that carrier was precious cargo and in need of her protection.

“Good girl,” J.J. muttered, and wondered for the hundredth time where the old dog had come from and what kind of stories she could tell if only she could talk.

Back inside the trailer he found Rachel sitting on the couch, hunched up with her arms wrapped around herself, like she was cold. Which reminded him it could definitely get chilly, spring nights in the desert, and she was wearing only a pair of green scrubs the hospital had given her to replace her bloodstained clothes. He set the baby carrier on the floor beside her feet and felt her gaze following him as he turned on the heat, then ducked into his bedroom to find something warm for her to put on.

It felt oddly uncomfortable, having her there, having her watch him. It wasn’t as if sharing his quarters with a woman was an uncommon thing, just…not these quarters. He hated to admit that he minded that he was living in a dinky, shabby old trailer. Or at least it didn’t exactly fit the image he wanted to have of himself, had been accustomed to having of himself.

Not that this woman was somebody whose opinion of him should matter, so why should he care what she thought?

“I’m going to need to buy some clothes,” Rachel said when he handed her one of his sweatshirts-he thought an old girlfriend must have given it to him, because he couldn’t imagine buying anything that had “Life’s a Beach” printed on it. He watched her pull it on over her head and tug the excess down around her hips, and while he waited for her to do it, felt an inexplicable urge to slip his fingers under her hair and pull it free of the neckline of the shirt for her.

“I’ll have Katie bring over some stuff tomorrow,” he said absently, his eyes following the movements of her hands as she rolled up the sweatshirt’s way-too-long sleeves.

She looked up at him, and he felt a weird swimming sensation, looking down into those deep dark eyes. “Katie? That’s the one I heard talking to you on the radio…”

“Right. She’s my…I guess they don’t call them secretaries now. My administrative assistant-that’s it. She runs the office, is what she does. Anyway, she’s got daughters. Ought to have something you can wear. Meanwhile, you can wear that, or I can find you a T-shirt, if that’d be more comfortable to sleep in. Probably come about to your knees.”

“No, no-that’s okay. This is fine.”

“Well, okay then. Is there anything I can get you? Are you hungry?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“Uh…you can sleep in the bedroom. Katie put clean sheets on the bed, so I know she meant for you to. So…whenever you feel like it, just…you know, make yourself comfortable.”

“Thank you.”

Her voice sounded breathy and rushed, as if she couldn’t wait for him to go away and leave her be. He couldn’t blame her for wanting some privacy, after the kind of invasions she’d had to put up with, and since he’d run out of things to say to her, or ask her, he gave her a “good-night” nod, got himself a cold beer out of the fridge and took himself outside. Feeling like an intruder in his own house, he sat in an old aluminum folding chair beside the steps, and Moonshine came and flopped down beside him with a gusty sigh, as if she was more than happy to turn over sentry duty to him.

He put his hand on her head, took a big swallow of beer, gave a sigh of his own and growled, “Yeah, it’s been one helluva coupla days, hasn’t it, old girl?”

The dog didn’t reply, so J.J. leaned his head back and looked up at the sky, which wasn’t showing too many stars on such a moon-bright night. He listened for a moment to the sound of the wind shushing through the desert shrubbery, and for some reason felt a little bit lonely.

He thought about Rachel and what he’d seen her do yesterday, and what he was going to try to talk her into doing for him in the near future, and the thoughts made him feel itchy and restless.

Not guilty. No, not that. Why should I feel guilty? She’s an eyewitness to the murder of two federal agents. It’s her damn duty to tell what she knows.

He muttered under his breath, a couple of phrases his mama wouldn’t have approved of, then reached down and unlatched the guitar case that lay on the ground beside the aluminum chair. He took out his guitar, tuned it up and then cradled it against him and began to diddle around. Just chords, at first, and then the chords sort of found their way into a Springsteen song, one from one of his old acoustic albums, kind of mournful, which suited his mood.