Exit Row (13 page)

F
IONA REMEMBERED THAT
Jackson's name had been near the end of the alphabetical list. So when she saw Redhawk on a silver mailbox on the Taos Pueblo Road, she signaled Dominick to stop. The name had been neatly created by black vinyl letters, but the foundation of the small white house was covered with only a few scraggly shrubs that had succumbed to exhaustion.

She and Dominick climbed the worn brick stoop. When no one answered their knock, Fiona looked in the front window and was surprised to see that the living room was filled with cardboard cartons instead of furniture. “It looks like they're moving out.”

“Really?” Dominick, holding her shoulder for balance, looked in too. “Or moving in.”

“Do you usually put your name on the mailbox before you unpack?”

“You do if you want mail.”

“Oh. Maybe we could ask the neighbors if it's Jackson's house.”

They walked back to the Sentra. Across the road a very old man was sitting on a wooden chair in his yard. A worn panama hat was pulled down to his eyes and he sat upright, so still that Fiona feared he might be dead. A black dog, as bony as those on the reservation, lay at his feet. But when she and Dominick crossed the road, the dog's ears went up and he began to whine.

The ancient man lifted his head slowly.

“Excuse me,” Fiona said, then remembered that in many cultures it was rude to ask direct questions. “We're wondering where to find Jackson Redhawk, who works for Day Star Airlines.”
Please make it Jackson.

The man looked across the road. “His car is not there.”

“No . . . No one came to the door.”

“She walks to work at the muffin shop.”

“The muffin shop. Thank you.” She motioned Dominick back to the car. As they drove away, she said, “How many muffin shops can there be? I don't even know of one at home.”

“We have bagel shops.”

“True.” She glanced automatically in the side-view mirror. This time she saw a black sedan behind them. It looked the same as the one from Santa Fe. “Slow down! I want to get that car's license. I think it's the one that was following us before.”

Dominick made an amused sound, but slowed. The car kept its distance, too far away for her to decipher its plate.

She was so intent on the license that Fiona almost missed the small, shingled house with a pink sign, “Mandy's Muffins.” Dominick had to brake abruptly and make a U-turn. He waited in the car while Fiona went in.

But it seemed to be the wrong muffin shop. There were only two young women, both Anglo, working behind the counter, surrounded by a fragrant pastry cloud.

Fiona started to back out. They had no time to waste.

“Can't we help you?” The blonde straightened up from restocking the case. She was taller and thinner than her coworker but had on the same gingham pink-checked smock.

“I don't think so. But thanks.” The fry bread had settled into the pit of her stomach.

“Twenty-seven varieties,” the young woman teased, tossing her short clipped hair. “Mango pineapple to chocolate pecan chip. A muffin for every sign.”

Fiona grinned. “Actually, I was looking for a Mrs. Redhawk. But I think I'm in the wrong place.”

“Why?” The woman stepped around from behind the case. Beneath the smock she was wearing white capris.

“I don't see anyone who looks like her.”

“What does she look like?”

Damn.
“I'm not sure.”

“I guess you aren't. I'm Amanda Redhawk.”

“You look so . . . young.” But it was fatal. Why had she assumed that Jackson's wife had to be Native American? “I—actually, I was trying to locate your husband.”

“He's working.” She was already less friendly.

Fiona damned herself for her stupidity. “I know. I mean, I know he works for the airline. Is he on a flight?”

“Why?” Cool blue eyes appraised her.

“I need to talk to him.”
Close. You're so close. Don't blow it now.
“I need to find out about something.”

“Who
are
you?”

Fiona knew she was losing it. “I just have to ask him one question.”

Amanda stepped back behind the counter. “I don't have time to talk to noncustomers.”

“Okay, give me something. Pineapple mango. Listen, I didn't mean to offend you. I'm not from around here. Can't we talk or something?”

“No.”

“It's really important that I talk to Jackson.”

“But he doesn't want to talk to you.”

Fiona felt her temper rising. “How do you know? You don't even know who I am.”

Amanda Redhawk smiled at someone behind her. Although Fiona hadn't heard the door, she realized other people must have come into the shop.

“
Please.
Will he be home later?”

“Not to you.” Her eyes shifted. “You here for your blueberry fix?” she teased someone else.

Die of heartburn.
Fiona stormed out.

Dominick looked over and smiled as she climbed into the car. “You find out?”

“No. She wouldn't talk to me.” She was too embarrassed to tell him what had happened. It was her own damn fault for making assumptions. Why did she have to pay for every last mistake? And yet—hadn't Mandy or whoever she was overreacted? As soon as she knew Fiona was looking for Jackson, she had practically ordered her out of the shop.
Not
all my fault.

“We have to go to Eve's. That neighbor knows more than she's telling.”

“Okay, but we've still got to find Jackson!”

It was a silent ride until they turned onto Valverde, and Dominick said, “I can't believe Eve's living like this. In a slum!”

“This isn't a slum. You've been doing pools in the Hamptons too long.”

Y
ET COMPARED TO
their home by the water in Patchogue, Dominick thought, this neighborhood was grim. Before he came out here, his image of Taos had been of a gracious artists' colony, the kind of place to which Eve would aspire. Didn't a lot of movie stars live around here? Another postcard Coral sent showed the interior of Kit Carson's homestead. That was the type of place he had pictured Eve living in, a picturesque log or adobe house with azaleas and grass.

There was still no car in the driveway, but he went up the wooden stairs again. He knocked, then poked at the chile
ristra
. It was not doing well.

Nobody came to the door and it was still locked, so he turned and moved across the yard to the house next door. It was a dull brick square, smaller than normal but without the charm of a playhouse.

The woman he had spoken to last night opened the door so quickly that she might have been waiting for him. Today she was wearing a cotton housedress with turquoise and gold cattle-branding symbols printed on brown. She had poor people's hair, straggly and already turning gray.

Dominick smiled at her. “I'm back with more questions.”

She grinned back and held open the metal screen door.

The inside of the house was as depressing as the yard, mostly overstuffed furniture under bedspreads. He identified the smell as collard greens and bacon. “You said Eve didn't leave you a phone number where you could reach her,” he began.

“No, but I may know where she's staying,” she hinted. “I'm the one who told her about the place.”

Why didn't you tell me this last night?

“I stayed there once, before I was married.” She winked at him. “When I was still a dish.”

A dish of what?
“You mean in Puerto Vallarta?”

She nodded her raggedy gray-brown head.

Last night he had been jet-lagged. Today he knew what to do. “I wanted to give you something for taking care of the cat.” He extracted his wallet from his jeans and removed two twenties. “Buy him a treat.”

The woman grinned confidingly. “I wasn't sure I should tell you, but since you're family and all . . . ” She palmed the money. “It's called Casa del Dega.”

“Casa del Dega. You wouldn't happen to have a phone number?”

“Sure! I still got the folder.”

She moved back into the dimness and reappeared holding a creased brochure, white lines where it had been unfolded and refolded many times. Dominick looked at the photos of a small and charming hacienda. The woman wouldn't let him keep the brochure, of course, but he knew he could get the number from Siri.

“You're sure she's coming back after next week?”

“Sure I'm sure. She's got to get back to her job.”

Her job
?
What was she talking about? “What kind of job?”

“Over at that Honda dealer. Secretary stuff, I think.”

He sat frozen on the faded couch.
Admit it. Eve isn't coming back.

When she had returned from her artists' residency in June, she arrived at Islip-MacArthur looking like a waif—skinny in black jeans and a black leather jacket, her long scraggly hair dyed a deep maroon, and those ridiculous emerald contact lenses. But Coral had scolded her for having three earring holes in each lobe. “That's so
yesterday
, Mom. Nobody does three holes anymore.”

“They do in Taos, honey chile.”

Eve had checked through two large paintings—“So that I can show you guys what I've been doing”—and brought a small carry-on filled with presents for Coral: a turquoise and silver bracelet, tooled cowboy boots, a pottery woman covered with children that Eve said was called a “storyteller.” She had brought Dominick a silver bolo tie clasp in the shape of a coyote's head, something he could not imagine putting around his neck.

It turned out the paintings had actually made the trip so she could leave them with her gallery in Sag Harbor.

After they had made vigorous love—at least that hadn't changed—he'd asked, “What about your stuff? Are you having it shipped?”

“My stuff?”

“Your clothes and art supplies. I know you have more than you brought!”

“Oh. My stuff.” She rolled away from him then and stared at the ceiling. “It's in Taos. In a house.”

“In a
house?
”

She had given a kick with one leg, as if annoyed she had to spell it out. “I'm going back next week for a little while longer. I'm not finished out there yet. And I want Coral to come for a visit while I'm still living there.”

He never should have let Coral go.

Back in the Sentra he took out his phone and requested the number for Casa del Dega. A moment later it was ringing.

A voice answered in Spanish, a language he knew from the day laborers he hired for big jobs.

“
Hola
? I'm looking for a guest, a woman named Eve.” He hesitated. What last name would she use? “A woman with long reddish hair? From New Mexico?”

“Sí, sí
.
”

There was a long pause, and then finally a breathless Eve. “Hello?”

“Eve? It's me. Sorry to bother you on vacation.” He wasn't, of course. “But I have to know if Coral's okay.”

“How did you get this number?”

“Never mind that. You never should have taken Coral down there!”

“What are you talking about? She's not down here. I put her on the plane last Sunday.”

“Eve, she wasn't on the plane. Or the one after that.”
As you very well know.

“She never got home? Is this one of your tricks?”

“I didn't come all the way to New Mexico for a
trick.
Listen to me! Is there anyone else she might be staying with? If she'd gotten off the plane at the last minute?”
Give me the name of anyone, some boy she was enamored with, someone for whom she would miss the flight home
.

“Are you saying that Coral is missing?”

“Eve, she never got to New York.” The heat of the sun through the windshield was making the sweat slide down his face.

“But how could that be? And you're in New Mexico? Have you been to the house?”

“That's how I found out where you are.” For a moment he felt comforted that someone else cared as much about Coral as he did.

“Are you staying in my house?”

“Of course not. I'm at an inn in Santa Fe.”

“Where? How can I get in touch with you?”

“You have my cell phone.”
Even though you refused to give me your new number.

“Dom, I don't get it! What if she's been kidnapped? I'm coming back.”

“Back to Taos?”

“Of course back to Taos. There's no way I can stay here
now.
” She calmed down enough to say, “Call me as soon as you find her!”

I
N THE NEXT
block, Jackson watched the Sentra pull away from the curb.

He was reaching for the ignition to turn the Lexus on when his phone rang and he looked down at the screen instead.
Mandy.

“Jack? That girl you're following was in the shop looking for you.”

“For me? That's why she went in? I thought she was just . . . ”

“She knows your name. That you work for Day Star.”

He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes. “Oh, God. She was at the Pueblo too. I didn't go in, but—what if she was talking to Sylvia?”

“She could have been. Not that Sylvia knows anything to tell her.” The reproof in her voice made him flinch.

“You're still blaming me for something I had to do.”

“Had to?”

“You know she'd made me promise to let her know how it went. And the truth is so terrible it would kill her.”

“Come on, Jack. You lied because Day Star told you to lie. You think if you go along with this, they'll let you fly. It's never going to happen.”

“That's not true! They said as soon as all this dies down.”

“What happens when Christmas comes and Sylvia is expecting her grandson to come home?”

He had no answer.

“Or before then, if she contacts the college and they say he never showed up. Maybe they'll send letters wanting to know where he is.”

“But we won't be living here. Anyway, doesn't she have something wrong with her?”

“Emphysema. What—now you're hoping she'll die before she misses Clayton?”

“Of course I'm not. She's like my grandmother too! I'm the one who should have died. I never should have taken that money.”

“But that was a bonus! For bravery, they said.”

The money—the thirty thousand dollars—was the only thing Amanda understood. He knew she would not let him give it back.

“I have to go,” he said.

“It won't be forever.”

Wouldn't it? His bruised leg still ached, though he was fortunate not to have broken any bones, but he dreaded sleep because of the dreams. Heads without bodies placed in crevices in the mountains. One little girl's, which had been calling for soda, started screaming, “Blood! I want blood!”

Last night he had been on the plane again, but with everyone dancing in the aisles, laughing and happy, like they were at a party. He knew if they kept on moving that way, it would make the plane crash. He kept yelling at them to sit down in their seats, but it was as if they couldn't hear him.

Mandy kept telling him it was the nitrous oxide. “What you can't remember is trying to break through in your dreams.”

“But why am
I
being punished? I didn't put dirt in the fuel line. It was sabotage, it had to be! Someone who doesn't want us to get that wilderness charter.”

“It won't be forever,” she said again now.

She didn't know the worst. And he was not going to tell her.