The Salt Maiden by Colleen Thompson Page B

really creepy out here after dark.”
    “I’ve been told it’s not exactly a garden spot by daylight either.” He smiled at her and was relieved to see some of the tension melt out of her posture.
    “You okay to follow me back?” he asked. “To my place, that is. If you’re not feeling up to driving I can bring you back here in the morning.”
    “I’ll follow,” she said. “I’ve already caused you enough trouble.”
    “Not you, but someone sure as hell has. And starting atfirst light I mean to find out exactly who’s behind this.” Jay could already imagine Wallace’s grumbling about city women and their overactive imaginations, but that was too damned bad. They were going to scour the area where she had seen the armed man—and then he meant to rattle some cages by questioning whatever possible suspects came to mind.
    Fifteen minutes later the two had pulled into the long driveway and were climbing out of their vehicles beside the old RV next to his uncle’s house.
    “I’d invite you inside the house, but it’s still a mess with the construction. So why don’t you come on in the Beast here.”
    He gestured toward the hulk at his right.
    “What happened to your hand?” she asked.
    He glanced down at the bandage, embarrassed to think of his earlier fit of temper. “Oh, uh, I cut it earlier, working on the cabinets.”
    Something in his voice must have clued her in that he was lying, because she looked at him oddly. But instead of saying anything she mounted the concrete-block steps and pulled at the RV’s door.
    “It’s locked,” she said when it didn’t open.
    “Pull harder,” he suggested, and the nearly frozen hinges squealed a protest as they opened.
    The space inside was dated, but thanks to military habits he kept it spotless, with his possessions all stowed neatly. He’d picked up the nearly thirty-year-old relic outside of San Antonio for a song. After loading his few things, he had babied it through a journey fraught with two breakdowns and a flat. Jay was pretty sure the Beast had made its last road trip, but it served his purposes for the time being—and more important, his jury-rigged AC system worked well.
    “There’s something I wanted to show you.” Dana slipped a hand inside her purse and pulled out some folded papers. “I found this tucked down inside a slot in the adobe, back behindthe loom. It’s some kind of diary my sister was keeping.”
    “You’ve read it?”
    “I was about to when Max here went ballistic.” When she said his name, the black-and-gold dog looked up at her and wagged his tail until she murmured, “That’s a good boy, Max. Good dog.”
    Soon they were seated on either side of the RV’s kitchen table with the papers spread between them while the coffeemaker made indelicate sounds atop the nearby counter. Max had slunk off to bed down in his favorite spot, the driver’s seat, where he curled in a ball and closed his eyes.
    “Can’t read it upside down,” Jay said as the rich aroma percolated through the small space. “Scoot over, will you?”
    She complied, and he moved around to sit next to her. Their thighs touched in the tight booth. The contact dragged his attention downward, where the hem of her shorts had ridden up to bare her leg.
    Don’t look , he ordered himself, and concentrated on the first of Angie’s entries. Dana winced at the reference to a certain “clueless little sister.”
    “Guess she’ll be glad to hear how my so-called ‘perfect life’ has turned out,” Dana grumbled before flipping to the next page, but Jay glimpsed the raw pain in her expression.
    The entries that followed appeared sporadic, though it was difficult to tell for sure, since so many were undated. The handwriting, never neat, became so shaky in some places that neither Jay nor Dana could make sense of what was written. But often the problem lay not in the writing but the writer, as Angie vacillated between anger and despondence, vulgarity and