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.”“If you’re so damned concerned,” Dana demanded of the TV, “why the hell aren’t you in Houston with my mother, you ungrateful, bottom-feeding troll?”Instead the woman had been appearing on every newscast that would have her—and generating enough media interest that Dana’s mother had hired security to keep reporters off her property.Dana, too, had started having problems after two reporters unearthed her cell phone number.Another somehow learned where she was staying and showed up at the door to her room.Though Dana had quickly gotten rid of them, she had the terrible feeling she had been too quick to dismiss Jay’s worry for her on that count.She pictured many more on their way—as endless and voracious as a column of army ants intent on stripping every scrap of flesh from her bones.Unwilling to barricade herself in this room, she had already decided to pile into her newly reclaimed convertible and retreat to Houston, where she could monitor the investigation as well as she could from here.The screen shifted to a montage of Rimrock County footage, starting with the courthouse and ending with the hillside where the body had been found.All the while Regina went on talking, exploiting her relationship with Dana’s family for all that she was worth.She spoke of Angie’s troubled history, from protest arrests to rehab, and—just to sweeten the pot—threw in a bit about Dana having recently been “abandoned at the altar.”The report concluded with an image of Nikki Harrison wearing a birthday hat and a look of pale exhaustion as her gloved and masked adoptive parents tried to interest her in cake.As the camera zoomed in on the child’s face, someone asked her what her wish was.“To sleep in my own bed.” Wistful and translucent, a smile lit her brown eyes.“With my kitty, Goldie, and no more needles.”“For this little girl”—on the voice-over, Regina Lawler’s words trembled with emotion—“this birthday wish, and all her wishes for the future, may hinge on one mystery: the identity of the body now known as the Salt Maiden.”“That does it.” Dana angrily switched off the television and gathered the few belongings she had purchased for her stay.She’d be damned if she would hide out while that woman—the same basket case her mother had steadfastly supported through the worst months of her life—continued to make her family’s life into some made-for-the-masses melodrama.Grabbing her purse and keys as well, Dana slammed out of the room and headed for her car.Though the additional distance would prevent her from making Houston by morning, as she’d planned, she was heading out to Devil’s Claw to have a few off-camera—and undoubtedly off-color—words with the reporter.As she rolled into the tiny town past midnight, Dana began to realize how badly unsettled the stress of the past few weeks had left her.What had she thought to accomplish, arriving here so late at night? Except for the dimly lit windows of a few houses and the lights of the two news vans parked near the courthouse, the place was black and silent as the deepest cavern.And the last thing she wanted to do was rouse the scavengers, then create a scene for them to film.With thunder murmuring its disapproval, she turned the car around and cursed the angry impulse that had brought her back here.After checking her fuel gauge and seeing she could make it back to Pecos, she braced herself for yet another long drive.But how could she leave Devil’s Claw, perhaps for the last time, without a word to Jay? She glanced at the dark courthouse, though she knew he must have gone home hours earlier.Probably he was sleeping.Had he moved into the house Angie had mentioned in her journal? Or was he still in the RV, lying in the same bed where they had made love only days before?It’s history—just a one-night wonder.But the more Dana told herself not to think about it, the more overwhelmed she grew with memories of the only real emotional connection she had had since leaving home.Since long before she’d left home, if she let herself admit it.Even before he’d checked out physically, Alex had long since left the building.She hadn’t allowed herself to see it, but her charming golden boy, a man who had almost effortlessly racked up achievement after achievement in his thirty-two years, had withdrawn from her the moment their planned “for better” lurched toward “worse.”“I was sure we’d have the perfect life…the perfect family,” he’d told her once her hysterectomy was over.Though they should have been celebrating, or at least relieved, to learn that the mass in her uterus had turned out not to be malignant, the very idea of her imperfection left him as perplexed and hurt as a child who had been slapped.As a glimmer on the horizon presaged a growl of thunder, Dana thought she shouldn’t have been all that surprised that he had left her.He was a man who’d traded in his new Mercedes after a parking-lot mishap had creased a fender.Though the dealership’s body shop had made it look like new, he had told her the idea of the accident had ruined the car for him.When a longtime friend came out of the closet, Alex had backed away, saying the whole thing made him feel “too weird.” If he had seen her family’s story on TV in New York, he was probably out congratulating himself for escaping an entanglement with such defectives.And Dana would bet the whole of her inheritance that his celebration would include a shiny new blonde on his arm.Spoiled ass, she thought—the polar opposite of Jay Eversole, a man tempered by both family tragedy and war.A man who understood firsthand that real life could get messy but hadn’t allowed that knowledge to turn him cruel or bitter.So go and see him while you still can.At the very least she could thank him for his help, make sure he had her contact information, and then get back on the road.And at best? She smiled to herself as she took the turnoff that would take her to Jay Eversole’s place.At best she might end up delaying her drive home until morning and pushing her troubles to the back burner for one more night.She didn’t allow herself to imagine anything more than a brief respite
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