2
Flagstaff, Arizona, was a unique place. A little too big, too spread out, to maintain the small-town feel—and too small and secluded to attract big-city folks. Simon drove along old Route 66 toward the town’s one indoor shopping mall, agreeing with FBI Special Agent Scott Olsen’s assertion that this city, with Northern Arizona University’s rambling campus in the middle and a train station not far from the center of town, was a perfect terrorist training depot.
Entering the mall, he located the directory and the store he sought. A potential terrorist could find anything he needed here—and once outside the city limits, on any side, he’d disappear in the miles and miles of undeveloped land, woods, mountains, desert, Indian reservation. Places to get lost—forever if need be.
“Hi, Bettina, show me the best mediocre snow gear you’ve got on sale.” Simon read her name tag and then met the salesgirl’s eyes.
“What do you need it for?” She asked. “Skiing? Snowboarding? Snowmobiling? Or just building a snowman?”
Building a snowman. The last Christmas Sam had been alive, Simon had dragged him away from the half-finished economics textbook his twin had written by hand and was in the process of entering on his computer, and while consuming a six-pack of beer, the two of them had built a snow monstrosity worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records.
“Skiing,” he said belatedly, realizing too much time had passed. He focused on the smiling young face in front of him, his vision clearing, until he was once again seeing a stranger named Bettina in the Flagstaff Mall.
She was nodding. “Too early for the good sales,” she said, walking him over to a group of shelves along the side wall. “Snowbowl’s season doesn’t start until the holidays.” She pointed up. “These are your best bet for now.”
Simon grabbed a set of thermal underwear, then plopped waterproof insulated pants and a matching jacket on top.
“Where you going? Utah? Montana?” Bettina hung around watching.
Hopefully nowhere. “Where would you suggest?” he asked, adding thick socks and toe-warmers, a fleece hat with earflaps and down-lined leather gloves to the stack in his arms. He had to be prepared. Snow-bowl might not have snow yet, but the resort just miles from Flagstaff was open year round and was currently drawing FBI suspicion.
Hands in her back pockets, she ran her gaze along his body. “How good are you?”
Champion quality when he’d left Philadelphia almost eight years before. “Good enough,” he told the slender young woman standing before him. Good enough for anything she might have in mind.
But “in mind” was as far as it went with him.
“Hey, Ma, how you doing?” Turning on lights as she let herself into the living room of her mother’s prefabricated home, Jan quickly took stock of the pulled blinds, the pillow and blanket on the couch.
“Good, sweetie, really good.” Grace McNeil stood, finger-combed her scattered hair and gave Jan a hug.
“You didn’t go to church this morning?”
“I forgot I was out of gas until it was too late.”
Grace’s clothes were wrinkled, the beige slacks and colorful blouse Jan had bought for her birthday resembling something from a secondhand shop rather than the designer outfit it was.
“How was bingo last night?”
Grace shrugged.
“You didn’t go?”
“How was your week, dear?” Dropping back onto the couch on which, Jan suspected, her mother had recently been sound asleep, Grace picked at her fingernails.
“Ma, Saturday night bingo was one of our deals. Remember? I’d help out, and you’d stay busy. You promised.” Her mother had been so adamant about moving to the Sedona resort.
Grace’s face was lined with pain. “I ate something that didn’t agree with me,” she offered Jan as an explanation.
Jan wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not. “What about Thursday’s mah-jongg game?”
“Didn’t do so good at first, but then I had Thirteen Orphans.” Grace’s face lit up. “That was the first time any of us saw it happen.”
Jan had never played mah-jongg—she found the tiles and flowers and dragons confusing—but her mother had a passion for the game. And after her most recent suicide scare a couple of years before, Grace’s passion for anything was a blessing.
“Did you play here?” she asked, glancing around the room, which was neat and spotlessly clean—except for the blanket and pillow.
“Yeah, it was my turn. Sara couldn’t make it, but Belle had a friend staying with her who wanted to come. And Jean was here.”
Jean lived in the modular next door—about twelve feet away from the aluminum side of her mother’s two-year-old home.
“Have you seen her since then?”
“We had lunch on Friday. And she stopped by last night, on her way to bingo. We were going to ride up to the clubhouse together.”
So…maybe her mother really had just had a stomachache. At sixty-two and with Crohn’s disease, she was certainly entitled. Settling back into the reclining chair adjacent to the couch, Jan kicked off her clogs and pulled her feet up, cross-legged, on jean-clad thighs.
“How are you feeling now?”
“My stomach’s fine,” Grace said with a chuckle. “My pride would’ve preferred that I slept in my bed last night rather than in my clothes on the couch. Or at least to have woken with enough time to shower and change before you got here.”
Jan released a long breath. Grinned. Everything was normal.
“What do you want to do for dinner?” she asked. Her mother hadn’t sunk back into the darkness of depression that had almost killed her ten years ago and again more recently.
But that had been before Sedona. Before her mother had daily activities and friends to keep her mind occupied.
Since the move, the anti-depressants had been more successful.
Jan really needed to learn to quit worrying so much. To relax.
“I thought I’d make a meat loaf, since it’s your favorite, and I bought fresh peaches to make cobbler…”
Jan was lucky her mother put up with her. She probably would’ve lost patience with such nagging years ago.
“I had one of my nightmares the other night,” Jan told her mother later that day, as she finished off the last bite of peach cobbler. They’d already talked about Johnny, who’d called, but hadn’t come by yet. And Hailey— Grace was anxious to meet the troubled eight-year-old Jan was trying to adopt, completely supporting Jan’s need to start her own family in this untraditional way.
Grace, who’d showered, put on makeup and was now wearing a soft green pantsuit, scraped her spoon across her plate, cleaning up every remaining morsel of dessert. “Tell me about the dream,” she said.
Jan did. In all the vivid detail she could remember. “I’m afraid I’m going crazy,” she said softly, as she glanced at her mother.
“Of course you aren’t,” Grace replied, rising to stack their plates. She carried them over to the small dishwasher on the other side of the half wall that separated the living and dining area from the kitchen. “How many professionals have to reassure you before you start believing, girl?”
A million and one, Jan supposed. Since she’d already seen what seemed like a million.