Part 23 (2/2)

Just then lights came on all around us-floodlights on the corners of the house, garden lights, lights over the garage doors, and lights along the drive. Water started spurting out of the fountain and all four garage doors went up.

”Look!” I said, pointing past Etta Mae's head. ”There's Adam's truck.” The truck with its camper sh.e.l.l sat lonely and abandoned in the last bay of the garage.

”You ladies stay here,” Ardis said as he went over to the pickup. Etta Mae and I followed, but not closely, and watched as he opened the cab door, looked around and shook his head. Then he walked to the back, opened the sh.e.l.l and searched the truck bed. ”Not here,” he said, jumping down.

By that time Carl, having finished reporting in, walked over to us. ”I told you,” he said, all in a huff. ”Waites is not here. He left hours ago.”

”Not without his truck, he didn't,” I said, stepping up in his face. ”That truck holds everything he owns and he wouldn't leave without it.”

”Well, I'm telling you he did,” the nail-studded man said right back at me. ”It wouldn't start, so he walked away. He left the windows down, so I rolled it into the garage when the rain started.”

”And you didn't offer him a ride? What kind of people are you?”

”The kind,” a strident voice out of the dark said, ”who don't like strangers invading private property.”

We all turned to see Agnes Whitman, fast-walking and furious, appearing in a pool of light. She was wearing a long, filmy peignoir that revealed she was also wearing ink up one arm and down the other.

”Where's Adam?” I demanded. ”His truck's here, so he must be, too. Where is he?”

Agnes propped her hands on her hips and said, ”I don't know and at this time of night I don't care. You are on dangerous ground to come in here and start throwing accusations around.”

I opened my mouth, but Ardis put a hand on my shoulder. He had a smile on his face, but it wasn't particularly pleasant. ”We have reason to believe that Waites has been injured,” he said. ”He made an emergency call asking for help, and said he was here, at your place. Now, we can handle it ourselves by looking for him or we can turn it over to the local sheriff, whichever way you want.”

Well, that was reasonable, I thought, and would probably be more effective than pulling the Tattooed Woman's stringy hair out. So I subsided and let Ardis handle her.

”Go to it then,” she said, flinging out her arm. ”Look for him all you want.” Then with a sly smile, she said, ”To save you a little time, though, I'd suggest you look in Cheyenne's bed first.”

Oh, Lord, I thought, the boy has been compromised. But would he be dying, too? It didn't make sense. I'd heard of old men kicking the bucket on their wedding nights, but Adam was awfully young to be having a heart attack, regardless of whose bed he was in.

”Good idea,” Ardis said, without turning a hair. ”We figured to start with her anyway. Where is she?”

Chapter 47.

”Show him, Carl,” Agnes snapped, as if she'd had her fill of us. She turned-that see-through robe billowing out around her-and headed back to the house. ”They can look around, then get them out of here.”

”Well, I never,” I mumbled, stunned by her rudeness. If people had shown up at my house on a mission of mercy, I would have at least invited them in for coffee. But to add insult to injury, she turned off all the outside lights, even the security lights on the far reaches of the property. Only the headlights of my car were still on, which made me worry about running down the battery.

Even Carl seemed startled to have been left in the dark. But he'd been given his orders, so he hooked a thumb at Ardis and said, ”Easier to take the Jeep. Cheyenne's in the women's quarters over beyond the church.”

The church? That was a surprise. I hadn't known that New Agers believed in churches, church services being relatively recent compared to the centuries of pagan wors.h.i.+p. I would've thought they'd have oak trees or corn circles or temples or maybe piles of stones to dance around.

I started to follow Ardis to the Jeep, but he said, ”Etta Mae, you and Miss Julia better stay here. If the boy's with Nellie, I'll bring him back. If he's not, I'll deal with her. Y'all get in the car and wait for me.”

I started to protest, but he raised a finger and shook his head. ”No tellin' what we'll find. Stay here.”

Ardis, I decided, had a highly developed sense of what was appropriate for delicate women to know. I understood what he expected to find, but Adam had not sounded like an exhausted lover on the telephone. And I didn't believe for a minute that he'd given in to the wiles of a girl with hyperactive hormones.

Etta Mae and I stood there in the mist, watching as Carl drove the Jeep off the courtyard onto a track that went behind the garage and led to the expanse of the estate beyond the house. Ardis was off on either a rescue mission or a fool's errand, and I was fairly sure I knew which it was.

”Let's sit in the car, Miss Julia,” Etta Mae said. ”We're getting soaked.”

So we got in, but I didn't like it. How could I sit in a dry car, doing nothing, while Adam might be dragging himself through a muddy ditch, trying to find a helping hand? We were wasting time waiting for Ardis to discover that Nellie was sleeping alone.

”Etta Mae?”

”Ma'am?”

”Can you drive Ardis's pickup?”

She gave me a sharp glance. ”I don't know, but I wouldn't touch that truck. It's his personal vehicle and he loves it to death.”

”What's so special about it? As far as I can tell, if you've seen one pickup, you've seen them all.”

”Not hardly,” she said. ”It's a heavy-duty Ram truck, Miss Julia, fully loaded with HEMI power, a four-door mega cab, off-road action, quad headlights, a Ram toolbox, a trailer hitch, center console, Sirius radio and a navigation aid. You'd need a training course to be able to drive it.”

I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. ”Off-road action sounds interesting, but I guess what I'm asking is, can you drive a truck in general?”

She squinted at me. ”I've driven one or two. Why?”

”Look there.” I pointed toward the open garage, lit up by my headlights. ”See that thing in the second bay? Looks like a buggy of some kind? I bet it'd be easy to drive.”

Etta Mae sat up and strained to see through the rain-streaked winds.h.i.+eld. ”That's a golf cart. You're not thinking... ?”

”I certainly am. Adam's not with Nellie, and I doubt he even has been. He's out in the weather somewhere, unable to get inside. The grounds are what need to be searched, not somebody's bedroom. And that little go-cart thing is just what we need to look for him. Come on.” I opened the car door and stepped out.

Etta Mae just sat there, a deep frown on her face. ”I don't know, Miss Julia. Ardis told us to wait.”

”Leave him a note. Come on, if you can drive a pickup, you can drive a golf cart. It even has a canvas top to keep us dry. We'll just drive around the front yard and along the back where the pool is and in and out of the trees along the edges-you won't believe how big this place is.”

I walked into the garage with Etta Mae reluctantly following. We stood for a minute gazing at the open-sided two-seated cart with its little fat tires and no winds.h.i.+eld.

”Try it, Etta Mae. See if it'll start.”

She crawled in, but she did it gingerly, then she studied the unadorned dashboard. ”There's a key in the ignition.”

”Well, see. It was meant to be.” I got in on the pa.s.senger side and held on to a roll bar. There were no doors or seatbelts. ”Crank it and let's see if it'll run.”

”You think we'll get in trouble?”

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