A Flower in the Desert by Walter Satterthwait

your level of invention was up to par. When are you talking to Elizabeth Drewer?” Trust Rita to get back to business.
    â€œTomorrow morning.”
    â€œGood. Who else are you seeing?”
    â€œGuy named Hatfield. He’s the chairman for the group Melissa was involved with. Sanctuary. And Melissa’s parents, if I can get in touch with them. They haven’t returned my calls.”
    â€œYou’re still planning to fly back tomorrow night?”
    â€œUnless something turns up.”
    â€œBut right now your feeling is that Melissa disappeared somewhere along the Underground Railroad.”
    â€œYeah. That’s the impression I get, talking to Carpenter and Arthur. She didn’t want Alonzo anywhere near her daughter, and that may’ve looked like the only way out.”
    â€œThere is another possibility.”
    With Rita, there usually was. “And what’s that?”
    â€œWe’re assuming that she’s running from Roy Alonzo. But she was down in El Salvador just before she disappeared. It’s still a politically volatile country. Perhaps something happened to her down there. And perhaps that’s what she’s running from. You said that Arthur was surprised when she disappeared without contacting him. If you’re right, and Melissa had already discussed the Railroad with him, why wouldn’t she talk to him before she used it?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œAnd why did she return early from El Salvador?”
    â€œBeats me.”
    â€œDidn’t you say that Carpenter had received a card from some Salvadoran town?”
    â€œSanta Isabel.”
    â€œSanta Isabel. I’ll look into it.”
    â€œOn the database?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWell,” I said. “Good luck.” I didn’t put much conviction into the words. I didn’t think Rita would learn anything important, no matter how well she maneuvered through her databases. Or perhaps I didn’t want her to.
    â€œThank you,” she said. She didn’t put much conviction in her words, either. “I’ll see you on Thursday. Give my regards to Ed.”
    I wanted to ask her why she hadn’t told me about her being an internationally famous computer wizard. I wanted to ask her if she was planning to leave the agency and set up a business of her own.
    I didn’t. I said, “I will,” and I said, “Goodbye,” and I hung up.

    I never got a chance to give Rita’s regards to Ed Norman. He never showed. I waited twenty minutes in the bar downstairs, trying not to listen to people at nearby tables as they talked expansively about packages and product and Julia and Warren. I sipped at my Jack Daniel’s and wondered how many of these deals were real and how many were sheer fantasy. In a town built upon fantasy, it was probably impossible to say. I doubted whether any of these tanned stalwarts in Armani jackets actually knew for certain themselves.
    Also, I spent some time pouting. Was Rita going to leave the agency? After all the time we’d spent together? After all that we’d meant to each other? Or after all, at any rate, that she’d meant to me?
    I knew, a part of me knew, that Rita’s leaving was unlikely. Probably unlikely. Not terribly likely. But the possibility did exist, and self-pity will burn whatever fuel is available. I was working myself into a pretty good brood when someone, a woman, said, “Mr. Croft?”
    I looked up, and then I stood up. For a moment I didn’t recognize her. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, stunning, she wore a short red dress as tight and shiny as the peel of an apple.
    â€œBonnie Nostromo,” she said, smiling. “We met today at Ed’s office.”
    â€œOf course. Good to see you. Have a seat.”
    Holding a small red purse in her left hand, she lowered herself into the chair opposite me with an efficient, liquid grace—no small feat, considering the dress she