Bitch Factor (9 page)

“Goddamn!” He jerked his hand back. A narrow line of blood oozed across his middle finger. “Are you nuts?”

Dixie snapped the lock shut and pocketed the keys. She opened the thermos, poured a single cup of coffee.

“Hellfire, woman. You’re a real piece of work.”

The first sip burned her tongue, but the second felt good going down. She finished a third of the coffee before opening the panel and passing the cup to Dann. When he took it, she relocked the pass-through.

“Parker Dann, I don’t have to be civil to you,” she said. “I’m not a cop—”

“No, you’re a goddamn bounty hunter!”

“—and you’re no longer a man. You’re chattel. The bondsman owned your ass the minute you skipped bail.” She opened the glove box and removed a first-aid kit. The single-wrapped alcohol swabs and Band-Aids slipped easily through the mesh.

“I could have waited out this storm in a nice warm bed back in Grandin,” Dixie said, pulling on the heavy gloves. They were too big for her hands. “You’d have spent the night
in the trunk. Maybe you should be thanking your lucky stars that I’m reasonably humane.”

Outside, Dixie swallowed a surge of shame for being such a badass bitch. She hated doing it. But with a burly male prisoner, a 120-pound female couldn’t afford to relinquish control, even a little. She was already showing weakness in her ability to handle the storm. If she and Dann were stuck with each other overnight, he could become a threat, not only to her, but to others. Dann had to believe she’d shoot him rather than let him escape.

She kicked at the snowbank, wondering how far she’d have to dig to find gravel. The air felt colder than before. The driving snow felt wetter, clinging to her hair, clotting her lashes. Visibility had closed to a few feet. Using the lug wrench, she chipped through packed snow and ice until she hit a road sign that had been knocked down. Underneath it, she found a gravel shoulder. Hunching against the cold, she laboriously filled the makeshift scoop with dirt and rocks. Although the clumsy gloves impeded her, they kept her hands from stiffening up. Her ears felt cold enough to snap off.

She carried the scoop of gravel to the car and spread it out, barely covering the ice behind one tire. As she watched with sinking spirits, the wind picked up the smaller pieces and scattered them.

Another numbing gust knocked her sideways. Rocking on her heels, she braced her fall with one hand. She’d weathered a hurricane once, and the winds hadn’t felt much stronger than the one blowing now. Despair curled in a corner of her mind and nested. How the hell was she supposed to keep the car on the road once—
if—
she got it out of the ditch?

Sheilding her eyes, she scanned the highway in both directions, hoping for a search beacon, or at least a break in the clouds. As she watched the lashing snow, it occurred to her that no vehicle had passed during the half hour they’d been stranded.

She turned back to the patch of gravel at the roadside and refilled her scoop.

“Why can’t we go to the same camp?” Ellie persisted, sorting forks and spoons into separate plastic bins.

Courtney noticed her sister’s yellow sundress had puckered in front where she’d spilled lemonade. Ellie was still a baby, too young to pay attention to spills and such.

Smoothing out wrinkles as she worked, Courtney folded a green napkin into a neat triangle, then folded it in thirds. On Sundays, they worked with Mama at the restaurant. The smell of tomatoes and spices drifted from the kitchen, where Mama was cooking spaghetti sauce. The restaurant’s air conditioner hummed, pumping cool air on the back of Courtney’s neck.

“We can’t go together because I’m nine and you’re barely six,” Courtney explained for the zillionth time—even though she didn’t totally understand it herself. She’d volunteered to go to the younger camp. Going alone her first year, Ellie would be frightened.

Actually, Courtney wasn’t too keen on trying out a new camp alone, either. She’d never been away from home without Betsy. But Mama had just shrugged when Daddy Travis INSISTED.

“It’s time you two girls spent some time apart. Ellie acts more like your shadow than your sister.”

That had been on Friday, Courtney’s day to work with Daddy Travis at the hardware store. She had watched him choose a blue pencil, from a collection in the breast pocket of his orange overalls, and note something on an order form, his short fingers pressing hard to write through all the carbons.

“Ellie and I
like
doing things together,” Courtney explained in her most persuasive voice, the one that usually got them fifteen extra minutes before bedtime.

“I know you do.” He tapped the pencil’s eraser on her nose. “And you might be lonely at first. But then you’ll meet new friends, and before long you’ll be having a great time. A
great
time, you’ll see.”

She waited until he looked back at the order form before rubbing the tickle off her nose.

“What if something happens to Ellie and no one’s there to take care of her?” Taking care of Ellie was Courtney’s job, now that Betsy was gone.

“There’ll be a whole camp full of people to make sure nothing happens to Ellie.” His pale blue eyes twinkled in the morning sunlight. “A whole camp full. Now, stop being such a worrywart, and ask Mr. Collins if he wants a basket for those tools he’s carrying.”

Nobody EVER won an argument with Daddy Travis. A few weeks earlier, the whole family had gone to the courthouse to see the man who ran over Betsy. Mama hadn’t wanted her and Ellie to go, but Daddy Travis said it would be good for them.

“They need to see for themselves that the bastard who killed their sister won’t get away with it. Won’t be out driving drunk to run down some other kid.”

Courtney was glad the bastard had been caught—if he were still driving around, she’d worry even more about Ellie—but she was surprised to see that it was Mr. Parker Dann. Mr. Dann seemed like a nice person when he came into the hardware store and cafe, always smiling and usually with a new joke to tell the other customers. He always told Mama how good her cooking was. On Sundays, when Betsy served
him coffee at the counter, Mr. Dann sometimes gave her a dollar.

Courtney tried to imagine Mr. Dann running his car over Betsy. She pictured his big smiling face over the windshield like Betsy would have seen it. Couldn’t he TELL he was about to hit her?

“No skid marks” Daddy Travis had said. “The bastard didn’t even slow down.”

Maybe Betsy had run in front of the car, like when Mama hit the dog. Maybe it was an accident.

Courtney remembered seeing the brown and black dog dart across the street, then feeling a
thud
when it hit the wheel. Mama had stopped the car and jumped out to see if the dog was all right.

Mr. Dann hadn’t stopped to see if Betsy was all right.

That Friday, at the hardware store, Courtney had seen him walking along the sidewalk.

“They let the bastard out on bail,” Daddy Travis explained.

Now, Courtney dropped the hopelessly messed-up napkin and hugged herself. Goose bumps pimpled her arms. She would try one more time to convince Mama that she and Ellie should go to the same camp, but Mama would probably only shrug again and listen to Daddy Travis.

“Take it slow” Dixie muttered to herself, shifting into reverse. “Slow and steady.”

“And go light on the gas,” Dann warned, over her shoulder. “You don’t want to set the wheels spinning again.”

But Dixie didn’t need his advice to tackle this part. She’d coaxed the Mustang out of plenty of mud banks; a snowbank couldn’t be a hell of a lot different. All it took was a firm hand on the car’s power and a bushel of patience to tease the wheels forward and back, until they rocked free of the trench.

She couldn’t see diddly through the sheet of ice on the windshield, but right now she didn’t need to see, only to feel. Bit by bit, the Mustang gained ground. Each time it rocked, the wheels traveled another inch, until, finally, the tires bit into the packed snow and the car lurched backward to the highway.

“Whoa!” Dixie said, relieved. “We’re back in the race.”

Another hard gust whammed the moving car sideways. She thought for sure it would spin into another snowdrift. Despite the cold, sweat beaded her forehead. The car straddled the center lane, but at least it was back on the road, headed in the right direction. She turned on the wipers, hoping their friction
would clear the windshield. The rubber blades scudded over ice without budging it.

“Got a scraper?” Dann asked.

“An ice scraper?” Dixie heaved an exasperated sigh. “Ask me if I have a high-intensity spotlight in case I need to change a tire at night on a dark highway. Ask me if I have road flares to alert passing motorists. Spare cans of high-performance oil. Extra coolant for the heavy-duty cooling system. I have
all
that! But why the hell would I carry an ice scraper in South Texas?”

“Woman, you’re a long way from Texas.”

A
damn long way
. At this rate she wouldn’t see Houston again before the New Year. She couldn’t even get moving again until she found some way to clear the cussed ice off the windshield.

“Got a credit card?” Dann asked.

A
credit card?

“Stiff plastic, not one of those paper-thin jobs. It’ll take a few minutes, but you can scrape a hole big enough to see through.”

It took more than a few minutes. Her American Express card snapped, she had to finish with Visa, but she managed to clear most of the windshield and a strip across the back window. She decided not to worry about the side glass. They weren’t likely to encounter any passing traffic.

Stiff with cold, yet reenergized by the prospect of moving out, Dixie slid back inside the car. She’d left the engine running, and the little heater had bullied the cold until the car felt downright hospitable. She shrugged out of Dann’s parka, removed the cumbersome gloves, and put the Mustang in gear.

The wind’s constant push assured her she was headed south. All she had to do was step on the gas and tool on down to Watertown.

Step on the gas, Flannigan
.

But as long as the car remained stationary, the wind could do its worst and they wouldn’t be flung off the road. The
moment she started moving again, the Mustang might skid out of control.

Besides, she felt a certain familiarity with her immediate environment, the cattle smothering one another on her right, the snowbank she had interacted with intimately on the left. Ahead lay the unknown, shrouded by a wailing white tempest.

“Turn on the radio” Dann said. “Maybe there’ll be a weather alert.”

Startled out of her quandary, Dixie shifted into neutral, punched the ON button, and heard “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” At least somebody out there was enjoying Christmas Eve. She turned the dial, sweeping half the band before hearing a faint voice. Tried to tune it in. Lost it. Swept past and started over, almost to the station with “Rudolph,” when—

”—Denver’s
DIA
reports all flights canceled until further notice…. Greyhound bus routes canceled throughout Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, eastern Colorado, northern Nebraska…. State highways closed throughout the Dakotas, check with your local weather bureau for specific routes…. Grand Forks airport reports winds at fifty-two miles an hour, temperature at minus two degrees Fahrenheit with windchill pushing that to forty-six below
….” Even the wind was going faster than she was.

“No wonder I’ve been freezing my buns off out there—”

“Lady, you better get your buns down the road if you plan on making it to a town. Once they close this highway, we’re stuck.”

“Surely they can’t refuse to let us pass.” She put the Mustang in gear, eased up on the gas—and felt the back wheels spin ineffectively.

You sat here too long with the engine running, you shit-for-brains Southerner. Didn’t Dann warn you what happens under the—

Abruptly the wheels gripped the ice. The Mustang shot forward, sliding as much as rolling until Dixie got the steering under control. With a death grip on the wheel, she barreled forward at fifteen miles an hour.

Parker Dann was silent for the first five minutes.

“How far you reckon we are from the nearest town?” he asked.

“Forty, maybe forty-five miles to Sisseton.” She didn’t want to talk. She needed to concentrate on keeping the car on the road, which was next to impossible with no markers. No lane stripes. No reflectors. Everything covered with snow.

But hey! Was that a road sign ahead?
She strained her eyes to read it… CHAINS REQUIRED.

“Terrific! Why don’t they tell me something useful?”

Her arms ached from gripping the wheel so hard. Her stomach burned with hunger. Her bladder felt full enough to float her eye teeth. Dann could grouse all he wanted about using a water bottle, but at least had an option that didn’t involve freezing his ass off.

“How long you reckon it’ll take us to get to Sisseton at fifteen miles an hour?” When she didn’t answer, Dann speculated. ‘Three hours, the way I figure it. Oughta be slap-dab dark in twenty minutes. Storm isn’t letting up any.”

“What’s your point, Dann?”

“My point is we aren’t going to make it with you driving.”

“You’re saying you could do better?”

“About twenty miles an hour better—which just might be enough to get us to town before they shut down this highway.”

She wished the radio would quit fading in and out. She could do without the Christmas music reminding her of what she was missing at home, but at least it was a connection to civilization. Without that connection, she felt utterly isolated. They could easily be the only souls in a thousand miles.

“What happens,” Dann said, “is the highway department swings a steel gate across the road. Couple officers wait around to let stragglers through, but they don’t wait forever. And I got to tell you, most folks up this way have enough common sense to stay off the roads in weather like this—”