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  A moment later she was asleep.

  Twenty-five miles away, in Bonsall, Lex Sanders was pulling off his boots. He debated half a minute about whether or not to shower. He decided to go for it even though he was exhausted. He padded naked to the bathroom, taking a second to press the message unit on his private answering machine. He smiled at a garbled message from one of his nieces and then one from his sister that was just as bad. When he heard Ariel Hart’s voice he stopped and listened. His eyebrows shot upward in surprise. He pressed the Save button and rewound the tape. He didn’t know why.

  Lex danced beneath the cold, needle-sharp spray. When he was sure he was about to turn blue he switched to Hot, then did another jig before leaping from the shower. He pulled on a pair of pajama bottoms and settled down in bed. Ten minutes earlier he’d been tired to the bone. Now he was wide awake, elated and yet confused; how could a sweet-sounding voice confuse and elate him at the same time?

  A soft knock sounded on the door. “Señor Sanders, I have the sandwich and milk for you. An enchilada just the way you like it. Corona beer in case you don’t wish the milk. Good night, Señor.”

  “Good night, Tiki.”

  He was wide awake with no one to call and nothing to do but watch television. And no TV Guide. He flipped the channels the way he did every night. Reruns, late-night talk shows, infomercials. Surely there was a movie somewhere. More commercials. And then he saw her. A young Ariel Hart—but not that young. Maybe late thirties. All golden and warm with a sunny smile to match. She had the bluest eyes he’d ever seen. Cornflower blue. Now, where did that come from? Because the male actor had just said her eyes reminded him of a field of cornflowers? What the hell were cornflowers, anyway? How corny can you get? He snorted his displeasure before he swigged from the beer bottle.

  Lex settled deeper into the pillows. Here was his chance to get to know Ariel Hart, super sleuth. A female private dick. He snorted again. She looked believable, even appeared believable. She packed a gun, a sizeable looking gun. She was pointing it, threatening to shoot. He leaned forward for a better look when he noticed the angle of the gun. The man’s lower extremities. Lex groaned. Pure Hollywood. At its worst.

  “You won’t shoot,” the man said.

  “You don’t know that for a fact. If you don’t give me Annabelle’s passport you’ll find out if I will or won’t. Hand it over. Now!”

  “You probably don’t even know how to shoot that toy,” the man snarled.

  “Really?” Ariel drawled. Lex watched, fascinated, as her clasped hands moved ever so slightly. A second later a chandelier hanging from a slim brass chain crashed to the floor. In the time it took his heart to beat once, the gun was pointed in its former position. “The passport.”

  “Jesus,” Lex sputtered before he bit into his enchilada.

  The passport was tossed on the table. Still wearing his sneer, the man back-stepped toward the front door.

  “Michael, listen to me and listen good. If you ever so much as look at Annabelle Lee again, I won’t be so accommodating the next time.”

  “The next time I’ll be packing my own piece, bitch!”

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Lex roared with laughter as the man danced backward to avoid the bullets splintering the hardwood floor in front of his feet.

  “Way to go, lady,” Lex chortled.

  The camera panned in for a closeup. He heard Ariel say, “You’re my only friend,” as she stroked the gun.

  Lex fell back into his nest of pillows. Once, an eternity ago, Aggie Bixby had stared into his eyes and said, “You’re my only friend.” She’d followed that up with, “You’re my lover and my husband.”

  Lex continued to watch the movie until it ended at midnight. When he switched the set off, he made a mental note to stop by the video store to see if Ariel Hart’s other movies could be rented. He wanted to see them all.

  There was a smile on his face when he drifted into a sleep filled with mannequins, all dressed in cornflower blue. They were chasing him up the mountain, their dresses billowing behind them in the gentle breeze.

  “You aren’t real, this is a bad dream,” he shouted, his bare feet slipping and sliding in the soft, brown loam. He looked behind him, and all but one of the mannequins had given up. He risked a second glance and was horrified to see a shiny black revolver pointed at the middle of his back. He blinked in fear and tried to call out—to the padre, to anyone who could hear him, but it was no use. The mannequin was gaining on him, her artificial wig askew, the blue dress swishing angrily about her knees. She looked maniacal and for the first time he felt fear wash through his body. “What do you want?” he pleaded. “Who are you? Why are you following me to this special place? Go away, I don’t want you here. This place belongs to me and Aggie. Not you, never you. ”

  He ran faster, his toes digging into the brown earth. He heard birds crying shrilly as he invaded their world. He mumbled and muttered words he made up as he went along. He thought he was praying, he wanted to pray, but he couldn’t remember the words the padre had taught him. He stopped to catch his breath. “Wait for me, Felix. I hurt my ankle. Let me lean on your arm.”

  “Aggie! Aggie, is it really you? Where’s your blue dress? The one that looks like cornflowers. What did you do with the gun?”

  “I killed them all, Felix. All those plastic people who were chasing you. Their hair fell off. They weren’t real like us. I want our marriage certificate, Felix. The girl is supposed to keep it. I didn’t know that before. I should keep it. Please, Felix, can I keep it? I promise to treasure it the way you have.”

  “Do you still want it even if your name is spelled wrong? That’s why I kept it. You left me and I didn’t know how to find you. I tried and tried. I didn’t get the certificate changed because I was afraid someone would find out. You said we had to keep our marriage a secret.”

  “Why did the padre spell my name wrong, Felix?”

  “Because he was old and couldn’t see well. He didn’t mean to make a mistake. I think his pen slipped. When I noticed the mistake and went back up the mountain he was dead. His family buried him on the little hill where he married us. The bishop blessed the ground. I was afraid to tell anyone. Please, don’t be mad at me, Aggie.”

  “I’m not mad at you, Felix. How did the padre spell my name?”

  “He spelled it Bivby. It was an honest mistake. We’re still married. You signed your name and I signed mine. Do you remember signing the padre’s book after the ceremony?”

  “Of course. I signed it Agnes Marie Bixby Sanchez. I was so proud. It was the first time I signed my new name. I will always be Agnes Marie Bixby Sanchez. Forever and ever.”

  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you spelled my name zurong on my passport. It was okay for the padre to make a mistake, but I’m your wife. You shouldn’t have spelled my name wrong. Say hello to the padre and tell him I forgive him.”

  “No! No! Wait!”

  Lex tumbled from the bed, his body drenched in sweat. “Jesus!”

  Trembling from the nightmare and his memories, he marched down the hall to the kitchen where he loaded four bottles of beer onto a tray. If he wanted to sleep he knew he’d have to drink all four. He’d been down this road before, too many times. He wasn’t about to give up another night’s sleep.

  And this is your life, Lex Sanders.

  For now anyway.

  Tomorrow is another day.

  Maybe it’ll be better.

  Don’t count on it.

  I never have.

  He thought about Ariel Hart and how pretty she was in the movie. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day.

  Five

  It was a glorious place, a, fairyland, and it smelled better than fifty Christmases combined. A special place, so special only she and Felix knew about it. Special because it was their honeymoon suite. She curled herself into a little ball next
to her new husband. “Isn’t it wonderful, Felix? You were my only true friend in the whole world and now you’re my husband and my friend. I wish we could tell everyone. I wish we never had to leave. I wish . . .”

  “You can’t wish your life away Aggie. Wishes are nice. I made a list once and called it my wish list. I pretended I had a fairy godmother and she told me to write down everything I wanted. She said I should call it my wish list and when one of my wishes came true I should put a gold star next to it. I didn’t have any money to buy gold stars so I colored one in with my little sister’s crayons. My first wish was that you would like me. My wish turned out better than the one I wrote down. You love me. Maybe I’ll put two stars next to the wish. I’m going to keep it forever and ever.”

  “I’ll do the same, ” she whispered. “Will we look. at each other’s lists?”

  “They should be secret. You can see mine if you want. Maybe we should make a pact not to show each other until we’re old in rocking chairs.”

  “Okay. Are you going to kiss me? Are you going to touch me all over?” How breathless her voice was.

  “I want to touch you all over. Will you touch me?”

  “All over?”

  “I want you to.”

  “Then I will. I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

  “Will you always love me, Aggie?”

  “Forever and ever. Will you always love me, too?”

  “Until the day I die. I’m going to get a good job and give you everything. I’m going to love you so much. Every day I’ll tell you how much I love you. You’re so beautiful. I wish I had a picture of you. Will you give me one?”

  “My parents don’t take pictures anymore. They used to take a lot of them when I was little. Do you want one when I started school? I think I was six. Do you have any pictures of yourself?”

  “No. We don’t even have a camera. We should have a wedding picture. You might be sad when we get older and you don’t have a picture to show our children. I can go back to the padre and ask him for some paper and a pencil and we can draw ourselves. Would you like me to do that, Aggie?”

  “Yes,” she whispered.

  When Felix returned with the paper and pencil, they sat cross-legged in the fern bower like the children they were. They stared solemnly at one another as their fingers traced each other’s likeness. When they had every contour memorized, they took pencil in hand.

  “I want to keep this, but my mother goes through my things. You have to keep it, Felix. Do we get a marriage certificate? You should keep it, too.”

  “All right. Our marriage certificate is in Spanish. I have a safe place where I can keep it. No one will ever know until we want them to know.”

  “I want you to kiss me, Felix. Now, here in this wonderful place you’ve made for us. It smells better than Christmas and Easter all rolled into one. Mmmm.”

  “Rise and shine, Ariel, it’s a quarter to five!”

  Dolly’s voice was so cheerful Ariel groaned and then tossed her pillow in Dolly’s general direction. “I was having such a nice dream. Now I have to get up and drive an eighteen-wheeler around a parking lot. Then I have to shoot a gun for hours and after that I have to kick the hell out of someone and bow and say what fun it was. Does that instructor really expect me to be a pro in three weeks? Double clutch, oh yeah, and when does he think I’m going to get the hang of that satellite computer screen? Not today, that’s for sure. And that log book . . . how are you supposed to drive, type messages, receive messages, talk on the CB, and keep your eyes on the road? Trucking is not an easy job. I have to get certified on doubles, triples, and tankers. It’s going to take me a year to get my CDL. I can’t remember if that’s the federal license or what it is. How am I supposed to remember all of this?”

  “The same way you memorize a script,” Dolly retorted.

  “It’s the practical application I’m having trouble with. That double clutching is what’s getting to me. Push clutch in, transmission is disconnected, go to first gear, let clutch up, move slowly, push clutch in, move to neutral, take foot off clutch. It’s like neutral is a gear itself.”

  “What’s for breakfast? I’d like French toast with lots of butter and warm syrup,” Ariel called on her way to the bathroom.

  “I’d like that, too. Unfortunately, we’re eating donuts and drinking coffee on the way. Shake it, Ariel, we’re already running late. It’s pretty raw out, so dress warm.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Ariel climbed into the tractor. When she exited the cab three hours later she felt like she’d done double duty with a gila monster. Her stomach was in knots as she eyed the instructor warily. “I will do this. I’ve got it down, but if you keep talking to me about trucking, I’m going to make mistakes. If you have to talk to me, talk about something else. Okay?”

  “Well, sure, Miss Hart, if that’s what you want. What would you like to talk about?” Not waiting for her response, he rambled on. “Looks like you might have a fight on your hands with a few of those renegade truckers Asa kept on the payroll. My advice to you, and I know you’re new to this business, is get rid of them now before they really brew up a batch of stuff you won’t be able to deal with. This is just scuttlebutt, but sooner or later it all filters down here. That Chet, he’s all set to stir up the workers at the different ranches. He’s got a hate on for Lex Sanders that goes way back. He blames Sanders for his two brothers’ deaths. It wasn’t Sanders’ fault those guys were drinking behind the wheel and drove down into the ravine. All old Chet would say was it was Sanders’ fault and he had to pay. The insurance paid damages, but because they were drinking, there was a problem. Sanders is a decent guy and he treats his wetbacks better than anyone around.”

  Ariel’s right arm shot out, knocking the instructor against the door. “Don’t you ever refer to those workers in that manner again. If you do, none of my people will take these lessons and I’ll cancel the program. Refer to them as workers or laborers. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’m. It’s just a term. Everyone uses it. My wife is always on my case about it. Sometimes I forget. When you’re around men who talk like that all day, you tend to do the same thing.”

  “That’s just an excuse, Mr. Norbert. I said what I had to say and you said what you had to say. Now, why is Chet stirring up the workers? What does he hope to gain?”

  “He’s got a top dog mentality. Asa kept him on because he’s one of the best drivers around. He likes to drive hazardous materials because the pay is better. The other guys, they don’t like to drive chemicals. He has his own rig and he’s got a partner so he makes his run pretty much non-stop. I’ve heard, and this is just a rumor, that he keeps two log books. Him and his partner don’t pay no nevermind to the 70-hour driving schedule. He was money in the bank for Asa. Heard he got fined a few weeks back. He was carrying two skids of cigarette lighters and he took it through a tunnel in Pennsylvania. He got fined and had to pay out twelve hundred big ones. Out of his own pocket. It’s not the first time, either. Sometimes, rumor had it, Asa bailed him out. He might be worried you won’t do the same. You did okay today. If you keep up the good work you should be able to take your test in a few weeks.”

  In spite of herself, Ariel was pleased. “See you tomorrow, Mr. Norbert.”

  Ariel was back at Able Body Trucking in less than twenty minutes to pick up Dolly. On the way to the shooting range she swigged from a bottle of Diet Pepsi and wolfed down a Hot Pocket sandwich. “It’s illegal to carry a gun in the rig, but all the truckers do it. Most times the cops look the other way. I found that out today. I bought a gun ten days ago, picked it up two days ago. It’s a Glock 9 millimeter. Norbert said it’s light and made out of some kind of special porcelain. We’re getting you one, too.”

  Dolly groaned in dismay. “I. don’t think I could shoot anyone.”

  “You could if your life was in danger. Trust me on that one. Remember that picture I made a long time ago called The Lady and the Thief? I really got into that part and
when he was about to toss me over the roof, I pulled out my prop gun and shot him dead. I remember how real the feeling was. I guess you have to experience something like that to understand what I’m talking about. Let’s just hope neither one of us has to use it. How are the computer lessons going?”

  “Terrible. There’s this thing called a mouse. You move it around. I moved it all right, and erased a whole file. The teacher said not to worry because it was on the C Drive and I was working on the A Drive. The instruction book is absolute Greek to me. I don’t know, Ariel, maybe the only thing I’m good at is keeping house and cooking. I don’t want to let you down, but I’m not capable of driving a truck and my bones are too brittle for martial arts. Guns petrify me. I’m game to go along with you on all of this, but if I flub it I don’t want you to be angry.”

  “Would you rather stay at the office and forget all this other stuff?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll stick with the computer because the teacher said kids in the first grade know how to use computers. I’m viewing it as the ultimate challenge. Ariel do you know you have 900 tractors and 3000 vans? It’s time to buy more and sell off some of the ones we have. Seems Mr. Able bought 150 cabs, or tractors, as they’re called in the business, at one time. He got a good deal on them. Then when they get 200,000 miles on them, instead of assigning the cab to a team he gives it to one guy, gets another hundred thousand miles out of it, and turns around and sells it for almost as much as he paid for it. Now, even I know that’s sharp business. My point is, it’s time to buy 150 new cabs. This company will run itself once we get it all on a computer. I learned something else this morning. Those hookers that hang out on the fringe of the property are called ‘lot lizards’ and they charge twenty bucks. That guy Chet is their best customer. You need to run them off. Mr. Able wouldn’t allow them on the property. I guess it’s up to you now.”