The night air was starting to sink its cold teeth into me as I retreated to the shadow around the corner of the motel. I zipped up my jacket and wrapped my arms around myself.
My left fingers found a small hole just below the elbow of my right sleeve, where the leather was loose. There was a matching one a couple of inches further on. It looked like Joshua Blakely's bullets had come even closer than I thought.
I retreated from the motel, keeping to the shadows so that the deputies wouldn't catch sight of me and make the connection to the description of a blonde with a gun that the other motel occupants had no doubt given them.
Calder's Corner had never decided to turn into much of a town, apparently; instead of a building next door, there was a horse pasture. Beyond that was a small hardware-and-miscellaneous store we had passed coming to the motel. I decided to make for it across the pasture, if for no other reason than to find a back doorway to curl up in while I tried to figure out my next move.
I tried to slip between the strands of barbed wire that made the pasture's fence. A barb caught my collar, and with that last straw I finally unloaded with a stream of profanity to make the angels weep. Quietly, of course; I didn't want the deputies coming to find out who was making the air blue.
At least, I thought, nobody here had my name. The motel rooms had been on Sammy's card, and the pizza had been paid with cash. The sheriff's office was definitely not going to be looking for Rennie Avalon tonight.
But I was here in a one-motel town with nowhere to sleep and no vehicle.
Halfway across the horse pasture, my cell phone rang. I answered, feeling almost surreal to be standing in the middle of a field in the moonlight with my phone to my ear.
"Hey," said Sammy Moapa. "I hope you're gonna be helpful, 'cause you're my one phone call."
"I'll see what I can do," I said. "What's your situation?"
"They hauled me and Weston in on suspicion of raising holy hell," he said. "Oh, and also maybe for killing some farmer out on the road by Weston's place, the one who owned the pickup Joshua was driving. But they know it wasn't Weston who was driving, because of the witnesses at the motel, so they don't know what the hell's going on, and we're not telling them. We said we're holding out for a lawyer."
"That's what this phone call is supposed to be for, you know."
"Since you're paying for all of this, I thought you'd like to pick your own favorite."
"Thanks," I said. "Has Weston had his phone call yet?"
"Nope, he's right behind me."
"All right. He probably wants to call Christine, but give him my number and have him call me back."
"Right. You got a plan?"
"Yes," I lied.
He hung up, and I kept walking across the pasture. I was almost the to barbed wire on the other side when it rang again.
"Hi, it's me, Weston," he said.
I leaned on the fence post.
"Weston, believe it or not, things aren't that bad. You're in a pretty safe place right now; I doubt even your brother could waltz into a sheriff's station and do anything."
"Yeah," he said, not sounding sure.
"So what I need you to do now is tell me where Christine is staying, and what the number is?"
"You're bringing her into this?"
"She's already into this," I said. "Sooner or later, who you are and why you're here is going to come out. And she's the only person I can maybe call for help around here."
"Okay," he said, sounding more resigned than convinced. He told me she was at her friend Becka's, and after a minute he managed to come up with the number.
"You know," he said, "I was trying to decide whether I should call her myself with this phone call. I didn't have any idea who I should call, you know? So if you're going to talk to her, tell her... I don't know. I don't know what you should tell her."
"I'll tell her the truth, Weston."
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's a good place to start."
"Get yourself some sleep. With any luck, you'll see me or someone I send in the morning."
He hung up, and I shimmied between the barbed wire strands without incident.
The back of the hardware store wasn't nearly as inviting as I had wanted to believe it might be before I started my walk, but at least I found a dark corner in a doorway to snuggle into.
I called the number Weston had given me and asked for Christine.
After a moment, she came to the phone. "This is Christine," she said.
"Christine, my name's Rennie Avalon, and I'm a friend of We-- of Joseph's."
"Uh huh."
"Now, I don't know if you know anything about what's been going on around here --"
"I know someone shot up our trailer," she said. "The police were here this evening, looking for me. It took me an hour to make them believe I didn't know anything about it." She sounded angry and defiant. It wasn't hard to believe that underneath that reaction, she was more scared and worried than she had been for a long time.
"Joseph's safe," I said.
"Joe," she said. "He's Joe. You say you're his friend, so howcome you call him 'Joseph' instead of 'Joe' like everyone else?"
"Actually... Listen, it's complicated. Call him whatever you want to. Right now, he's with the police, and he's safe for a little bit, but he won't be safe forever. Someone's trying to kill him, and I'm trying to stop that from happening."
"Who?" she asked, the fear and worry now eclipsing everything else in her voice. "Who would want to kill Joe? Why?"
"Christine," I said, "this will end up being a very long and complicated conversation, and I really want to have it with you. But I need your help. I'm stuck in the middle of Calder's Corner with no transportation and nowhere to go, and the sheriff's men would probably like to bring me in and throw me in a cell while they figure out what's going on. If you'll come pick me up, I swear I'll explain all of this to you as far as I makes sense to me."
I held my breath; I could almost hear her decision-making process over the phone.
"Where are you?" she asked.
"Near the motel."
"All right. South of the motel a little ways is the J&S Truck Stop. It's the only thing in Calder's that's open all night. Wait there for me. I guess I'll be about half an hour."
"Thank you, Christine."
"Uh huh." She hung up.
South would take me back past the motel, but I didn't feel like strolling through horse pastures and such for much longer. Joshua had disappeared into the woods behind the motel, I didn't know how far; I didn't want to meet him again just now.
I walked around the hardware store to the front and pulled a hair elastic from my pocket. I put all my hair up off my neck, unzipped my jacket, and started power-walking straight back in front of the motel like a local who was out for her nightly exercise and had every right to be there.
