Then he’d recovered his sanity and had just listened to her for a while. Sounded as if she’d gotten screwed, literally and figuratively.

The front light was on and there were two people standing on the porch waiting, no doubt in response to Jack’s call. That would be Colin and Jillian, the sister and her boyfriend. He got out of the truck, and Jillian was right there. Lief recognized her once he saw her. In fact, that’s when he realized he’d seen both the sisters at Jack’s last summer when he’d been checking on the progress of his house purchase.

“What happened?” she asked him.

“Well, I think this probably took your sister by complete surprise,” he said. “She mentioned she’d been to the doctor for something or other, and when her speech started to slur before she finished her second drink, I asked her if she’d been given some prescription medication and she said she had. So—I don’t think she realized…”

“Doctor?” Jillian asked. “Medication? She’s sick?”

“I don’t think so, no,” Lief said. “Listen, I don’t want to say too much right now. For all I know it was the drink talking, I could’ve gotten the details all wrong or something. Let her tell you why she’s up here unannounced, okay?”

“Colin?” Jillian said.

But Colin was already opening the passenger door, unbuckling Kelly and lifting her out. Lief felt a momentary pang; he’d like to be the one holding her.

“I’ll carry her up to the bedroom, Jilly,” Colin said. “You grab her purse and anything else that goes with her.”

“There’s just the purse,” Lief said, reaching into the truck for it. “Her car is locked up at the bar.”

“Should I call the doctor?” Jillian asked him.

Lief shrugged. “She’s breathing fine. She was talking all the way out here. Maybe you could look through her purse, see if there are pills or anything that, mixed with a couple of martinis, might knock her for a loop. You could call a pharmacy and ask about the effects if you find anything. I didn’t think to do that…”

“Martinis?” Jill asked. “Really? Martinis?”

“Oh, yeah, she was very specific. A good, quality, chilled vodka married to four big green olives.”

“Wow. She doesn’t do that often.”

“She said you weren’t expecting her and she had a lot to explain.”

“I’d really like to know.”

“I’m sure you will know—first thing in the morning.”

“Can I, ah, offer you a cup of coffee or anything?”

“Thanks, that’s nice of you. I need to get home. I’ll come by sometime tomorrow…just to see if she’s doing all right. And if you’re doing all right. Her car is full of her stuff.” He grinned. “Kind of looked like she’s planning to stay awhile.”

“That’s okay,” Jill said. “That’s good. But—”

“I imagine her keys are in her purse.”

“Thanks. Gee, I wish there was some way I could repay the favor…”

“No big deal. Jack would’ve brought her home, I’m sure. But the bar was full of customers, so I offered.” He looked around from where he stood beside his truck. He whistled. “Looks like an interesting place.”

She smiled at him. “It’s shaping into a real commercial organic farm. When we get things under control, I’ll have you out for a tour. You can grab the last of our crop—harvest is wrapping up. We’re concentrating on melons and berries now.”

“No kidding?” he asked with a smile. “How come I didn’t know about this place?”

“I’ve only been here since last spring. I’ve been farming a small plot through summer, just to see what I can grow. Now we’re getting more farming space prepared for spring. Maybe I’ll show you around when you come back tomorrow.” Pausing for a minute as if in thought, she said, “I hope Kelly is okay…”

“Go see for yourself. Call Doc Michaels if you’re worried. I’ll leave you guys to it.”

“Thanks again,” she said, and while he got back in the truck, she hightailed it up the porch stairs and into the house.

Lief glanced at the dashboard clock as he turned to watch the road as he backed out. Eight o’clock. It seemed much later. He hoped he’d given Courtney enough time to calm down and get her homework done.

He worried whether he’d made the right decision, bringing her here, a place that made a one-horse town look like a metropolis. A strange little Goth kid like Courtney didn’t look as out of place in a big city.

Rural Idaho had been the other option for them, where his parents still owned the family farm, though they were retired. He had two brothers and a sister there, all older than he was, married with families, all living not too far from the farm. But truthfully, he’d been afraid to do that. Courtney was so crazy sometimes, he didn’t want to expose his family, his nieces and nephews, to her antics. Okay, to be honest, he didn’t want them to see how dismally he was failing her.

His sister had said, “Lief, don’t put yourself through this! Pack her up, take her to her father, let him figure it out.”

He couldn’t do that. Poor Court. He’d seen the pain in her eyes each time she wandered from the home she’d had with her mother to the unwelcome space she had with her father. God, it ripped him up all over again each time.

When he pulled up the long drive to his house he saw that all the lights were on, a beat-up old Jeep sat in front of the house, and before he even turned off the truck engine he could hear the throbbing of acid rock.

Part of him hoped, almost against hope, he’d find Courtney sitting at the kitchen table with a rosy-cheeked, normal-looking teenage girl, the two of them doing homework together despite the fact that the music was deafening.

He entered the kitchen from the garage. There was a bottle on the breakfast bar that separated the great room from the kitchen—Corona, half full. He looked into the great room and saw a tall teenage boy in ratty jeans loading DVDs from Lief’s entertainment center into his backpack. No Courtney. The kid was stuffing the disks into the backpack so frantically it almost looked like a smash-and-grab, but instinctively Lief knew better.

He walked into the large room, picked up the remote from a sofa table and killed the music. The kid jumped up, his lanky hair swinging back from his face. Right at that exact moment, Courtney appeared in the entrance from the hall leading to the bedrooms and bathrooms, holding her own Corona.

“Lief!” she said.

The boy bolted, headed for the front door.

“B.A.! Bruce!” she yelled after him.

Lief merely stood there, observing the panic, the flight, the beer, the backpack that was abandoned. The front door opening and slamming closed was the only sound. When it was completely quiet, Courtney was the first to speak.

“Well, I suppose I’m grounded again.”

“What’s the point, Court? I don’t think you’ve been off restriction for a day in the past year.” He walked to the backpack and crouched, opening it. “You can give this back to your friend tomorrow at school. If he even attends school.” He reached inside and began to pull out the movie DVDs, stacking them on the floor. “Without the movies, of course.”

“I didn’t know he was doing that,” she said. “I just went to the bathroom.”

“How well do you know him?” Lief asked. Christ, the kid had managed to get about thirty discs in his backpack.

“I just know him from school, that’s all. We were just going to listen to music.”

“And drink beer.” He left the backpack and stood to face her.

“I bet you drank beer when you were a kid,” she said with a lift of her chin.

“At fourteen? Not hardly.” He’d had farm chores; he’d played football, even though he’d been small for his age then and had gotten the stuffing beaten out of him. “Jesus, Courtney. How far are you going to push me?”

“I said I didn’t know he was doing that!”

“Maybe you should think about getting some more trustworthy friends,” he suggested.

“Don’t you get it?” she said, stepping toward him. “Nobody likes me!”

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he took another couple of steps toward her. He reached out and took the beer. “Will they like you better if you let them steal from us?”

“I didn’t,” she said, and there was a slight hiccup in her voice. “I just went to the bathroom.”

“How much has your friend had to drink?” Lief asked.

“Why?”

“Because he’s driving. Because he took off out of here like a bat out of hell and while I’d really like to tan his hide, I don’t want him to get hurt.”

She shrugged. “He just got here a little while ago. He brought two beers, that’s all.”

“Okay,” he said. He went to the kitchen and poured out both beers. He went back to the great room. “I’m going to my room to read for a while before bed. I’m going to set the house alarm. I’m really not up to chasing you down in the middle of the night, Courtney. I’ll see you in the morning. Luckily, you shouldn’t have a hangover.”

To his back she said, “I’m not going to sneak out.”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “Good,” he said. Then he went to his room.

Sometimes Lief didn’t know if he was more pissed or hurt by Courtney. He gave her everything he had. Why couldn’t she throw him a bone now and then? Just some small gesture like please or thank-you or even homework. It didn’t have to be good homework, even though he knew she was extremely intelligent. Just finished.

How long could she nurture the pain on the inside that made her so vile on the outside?

The house fell quiet again. Lief reclined on his lonely king-size bed, book in his lap. The vision of Courtney, all of fourteen but looking more like twelve, sneering at him over her beer kept obscuring the pages. He was going to have to get with that counselor, see if there was help for them. He was not optimistic—if he couldn’t find good therapy in Los Angeles, what were the chances he’d find it here?

In the morning, the first thing he did was head down the hall toward Courtney’s bedroom to be sure she was there. Fortunately, he didn’t have to go all the way to her room; he heard the shower in her bathroom. As he passed through the great room, he noticed the DVDs were put away. Put away or maybe stuffed back into the backpack for the little felon in question. He turned off the house alarm, made the coffee, headed for his own shower. She should be ready for school on time today; it didn’t take her long to mess up her multicolored hair.

When he got back to the kitchen, her homework and a note were on the table.

I made a copy of my homework for you to look at, but I’m taking the bus today so I left. Will you pick me up after school? Please.

Bone.

The very first rays of sunlight streaming into the window stirred Kelly from sleep. She sat up in bed and took stock of her surroundings—Jillian’s guest room. And there beside her in the bed, sleeping facedown, Jillian.

“Hey,” Kelly said, giving her a jostle.

Jill turned her head and peered at her through tangled hair. “Ugh. You’re up.”

“Last thing I remember, I was chatting it up with some cute guy at the bar. Over a killer martini.”

Jill pushed her hair out of her eyes. “It didn’t kill you. But it tried to kill me.”

“Huh?”

Struggling to a sitting position, Jill faced Kelly. “Do you realize what you did?”

Kelly let her eyes briefly close. “Gave myself a very large headache?”