“Nothing to be sorry about. You saved the little boy. Take it easy.” She unbuttoned his shirt and saw a neat hole, nothing huge, on the right side of his chest just below the nipple. Using the shirt, she pressed it against the hole to stop the bleeding.
“Is he going to die?” Billy’s mother asked from the porch.
What was wrong with the woman? How could she just stand there? This man had saved her son’s life!
“No,” Angela said quickly as she scooted closer to the man. She wished she knew what else to do. She shouted to Billy’s mother, “Did you call 9-1-1?”
The woman looked around as if afraid someone would overhear before answering, “Nine-one-one doesn’t work out here.”
“Then call the police or fire station or something! Don’t just stand there! This man just saved your little boy.”
The woman took Billy by the arm and tucked him beside her. “I’m sorry. I can’t get involved. This was all a big misunderstanding. Please...”
Angela wasn’t sure exactly what the “please” was supposed to imply. Luckily the door on the mobile home opened and Ted Dilliard, a man Angela had seen only twice, came running out, hunkered down next to her and said, “I called the sheriff’s office right when they started pulling the little boy into the car.”
Angela had researched the neighborhood before moving in. The cabin where the woman lived was owned by a man in his eighties. She’d been hoping for a retiree; instead she got the worst kind of neighbors.
They’d more than proved that today.
An internet search had revealed that the third dwelling in the cul-de-sac—a mobile home—had been rented for the past ten years by Ted Dilliard, a divorced computer programmer who, for the most part, kept to himself. She wanted to ask him where he’d been after he’d called the police, when she and Jake were battling for the boy, but he was here now, and that had to count for something.
“Hey, fella.” Ted was all business and seemed to know what he was doing. “You breathing all right? Your lungs hurt?”
Jake nodded.
“Already blood loss is slowing,” Ted said. “That means it missed the heart and any major pulmonary vessels.”
Angela could hear the wail of sirens in the distance. Good, she needed to go inside to check on Celia. That girl could sleep through a tornado!
Without meaning to, she moved her fingers to the lock of limp, dark hair that fell across his forehead and into his eyes. He was perspiring. Arizona was hot, and it wasn’t every day a man took a bullet while picking up trash.
“Billy,” Jake whispered.
“He’s all right,” Angela whispered back. “You saved him.”
His eyes locked on hers and again he tried to say something. All that came out was “Wanted save you.”
The ambulance skidded to a stop behind the garbage truck, and both Angela and Ted were urged to take a step back.
She saw Jake glance around, looking frantic, until he locked eyes with her. His eyes were deep brown, like melted chocolate. The next moment he seemed to relax.
“He’s having trouble breathing,” said one of the paramedics. It was more an order than a statement. Just before the paramedics moved and blocked her view, Angela saw Jake Farraday’s eyes slowly close.
He no longer looked in pain.
He looked dead.
But he wasn’t, a young police officer assured her some minutes later when taking her statement and her description of the passenger. He even went so far as to point out the garbage container now set aside for evidence. It apparently had something inside that had slowed the projectile. The police officer’s words, not Angela’s. All she could think was that the bullet hadn’t slowed enough.
Even as Angela answered the questions, she tried to figure out why a forest ranger would be doing garbage duty wearing a shirt not bearing his name.
“I’m brand-new here,” Angela told the cop. “We moved in one week ago. I don’t know anybody.”
The cop wanting descriptions and asking her questions already seemed to know the answers. Angela wished she could ask a few, but no way did she want to bring attention to herself. When she was finally allowed to go back into her cabin, she paced.
They needed to leave.
But this had nothing to do with her.
And she needed to find Marena.
Still, for the next few hours, Angela was poised for flight. Her purse was on the chair by the door, her .357 Magnum inside.
The only reason she and Celia weren’t already halfway to a new city, state, was Angela’s need to find her twin. But, except for the police officers who’d cordoned off the area and were doing what they did best—investigating—no reporters showed up, no pictures were taken and no curious locals drove by.
An unforeseen perk of living in rural Arizona? That thought didn’t stop Angela’s heart from racing. She’d chased down a Cadillac and helped save a little boy. She’d put herself and Celia in harm’s way. How could this not be news? How could the rest of the world not know that someone had been shot outside her house?
Sunday night she’d suspected meeting Jake Farraday was no accident. Now she wondered exactly who he was. What was he doing pretending to be a garbage collector?
She sat herself on the couch and watched the news on every channel available. But after the last news anchor signed off, she realized that either what had happened wasn’t important in the scheme of things or law enforcement was keeping it out of the media.
The online news media was no different. The headlines highlighted how more money was being ripped from education, how another driver had been going the wrong way on a major interstate and how Arizona would deal with its most recent female who might be heading for death row.
Nothing about Jake Farraday.
“Does this mean we can move? Back to a real city with a mall?” Celia said, coming out of her bedroom, her voice tight and more mature than an almost thirteen-year-old’s should be. She was irritated that she’d missed the commotion and excitement thanks to earbuds and iTunes. By the time Celia had come outside, the paramedics had been loading Jake into the ambulance.
Angela hadn’t told Celia that the victim was the forest ranger they’d met at the New Year’s celebration. Instead she’d merely said he was going to be fine and called him the garbage collector.
It was the truth, sort of.
Silverado sensed the unrest and came to weave around Angela’s ankles. The cat hadn’t even had time to explore the whole cabin.
“We just got here. Plus, the cops might need my testimony or something.” Angela almost choked on the words. She never, ever, wanted to deal with the justice system again.
“You okay?” Celia switched from know-it-all teen to little girl. “I mean, you’re not going to faint or anything? I wish I could have seen you this morning. You’re a hero.”
She’d been called a hero all those years ago, too. That and two dollars might get her a cup of coffee somewhere cheap, someplace that didn’t feel like home.
Celia went to the front window, pulled the blind to one side ever so minutely and peered out. Silverado headed over to her, expecting to get petted.
Angela followed, wishing she knew what to say, what to do. Since entering witness protection all she’d known was a slippery Alice-in-Wonderland kind of life, where every move felt like the wrong one.
No matter her adventures or surroundings, Alice had been on her journey alone.
Angela