License to Thrill by Lori Wilde Page B

had to know where to look for it. To Charlee the desert was home. What made her feel lonely and desolate was not water-starved land but the emptiness gnawing at her when she was in a roomful of people.
    She imagined Mason’s busy life was jam-packed with people. His parents, his brother, his grandfather, his, friends. His business partners, his colleagues, and high-society debs. He hailed from a foreign place where she did not belong and could never fit.
    Shaking her head, she forced herself to think about something else and speculated on the men in the Malibu. Who were they and why had they been following them? She tried to tie everything together—their grandparents, the half mil Mason’s grandfather embezzled, her father, the men in the Malibu, Maybelline’s ransacked trailer, the bullet through the trailer, Elwood’s 1 apartment fire, but no matter how hard she tried, Charlee couldn’t paste together the link. Too many pieces of the puzzle were missing.
    What concerned her right now was their destination. Were they on a wild-goose chase? Since Mason had turned the keys over to her, she’d driven a steady eighty-five miles an hour hoping against hope to spot the red and white camper.
    Maybe Elwood and their grandparents weren’t on this road, she fretted. What then? They might not even be in Arizona.
    Charlee nibbled her bottom lip. Up ahead she spied a small crossroads with a gas station and a convenience store. Noticing the gas gauge had slipped to almost a quarter of a tank, she pulled over.
    Mason didn’t wake up when she stopped. Poor guy must be exhausted. She filled up the tank, and then sauntered into the convenience store. She grabbed a couple of packages of Twinkies and snagged a six-pack of iced Pepsis from a barrel next to the checkout counter.
    “Hey,” Charlee asked the pimply-faced clerk as he rang up her purchases. It was a long shot, but what the hell? “By any chance has a red and white camper stopped by here in the last few hours?”
    “Some guy in an Elvis suit at the wheel?”
    “Yeah.” Charlee arched her eyebrows in surprise. “You saw him?”
    “Who could miss him?” The clerk shrugged. “He paid for his gas with quarter rolls.”
    “About how long?”
    The clerk scratched his goateed chin. “Maybe three, four hours ago.”
    “Hey, thanks. Keep the change.” Charlee gathered up her drinks and Twinkies and started for the door.
    “He didn’t get back on the road to Tucson though,” the clerk said, stopping her in mid-exit.
    “No?”
    He shook his head. “Nope. Took the back road up to the old movie studio lot.”
    “What movie studio lot?” Charlee frowned.
    “They used to make westerns there in the forties and fifties. My grandmother claims John Wayne was once a regular around these parts. He even autographed the back of a movie ticket for her.
Rio Lobo
I think it was.”
    “No kidding?”
    “Studio lot is closed down now. Abandoned. Boarded up. Except local kids go up there sometimes to drink, smoke weed, and get laid. Don’t know why the Elvis guy went up that way. Road dead-ends in the studio lot. Nothing else up there but rattlesnakes and tumble-weeds.”
    When Charlee got back to the car, Mason was awake. She climbed in and tossed him a Twinkie.
    “What’s this?” He held the cellophane wrapper gingerly between his index finger and thumb as if it would jump up and bite him.
    “Thought you might be hungry.” She ripped into her own Twinkie and sank her teeth into the sponge cake. “Yummm.”
    “These things are filled with preservatives and bleached white flour.”
    “So?”
    “They are not part of a healthy diet.”
    “Oh, my, call the food police.”
    “Go ahead, make fun.”
    “Jeeze, Gentry, lighten up. One Twinkie isn’t going to kill you.”
    “I think I’ll pass.” He sat the snack cake on the console between them.
    “Okay fine. I’ll eat it.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “How in the hell do you stay so slender eating junk?”
    Charlee