Tucker helped Bert to his feet—he was still awkward from the stabbing and there were bruises on his face—and the feds wafted in from the living room. The inside door leading to Tucker’s garage stood open.

“I left you Bad-Ass Bert’s in my will,” Bert told me. He pushed up one sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Look. No tattoos.”

Sure enough, the road map was gone. The skin looked inflamed, as though the body-art had been scrubbed away with a wire brush, but nothing remained of Route 66.

It made me feel sad.

“What am I going to do with a biker bar?” I asked. Okay, it was a stupid question, and a little insensitive, but the circumstances weren’t exactly normal.

Bert grinned. “You can sell it,” he said. “You can burn it to the ground. You can run it and make a decent living. It doesn’t matter to me, because I’m going to be in—” His gaze flicked to the agents, and back to my face again. “Another place,” he finished.

“Why me? You must have someone—”

“You’ll do fine,” he said, and touched the tip of my nose with an index finger.

I blinked hard and kissed his cheek. Squinted at the even little rows of hair sprouting on his previously shaved head. Another of the wonders of the federal witness protection program, I guessed. Shaved head today, flowing tresses tomorrow.

“Goodbye, Bert,” I said. I couldn’t even look at Russell, because some goodbyes are just too hard to say.

Bert nodded.

One of the agents hooked a leash onto Russell’s collar. Handed it to Bert.

“I guess we’re leaving now,” Bert said.

I watched as Bert, Russell and the two feds went out through the garage door. Russell didn’t even look back, which both stung and made me feel like whooping for joy.

I turned into Tucker’s arms.

He held me.

“It’ll be okay, Moje,” he said.

I would have loved to believe him.

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

IT SEEMED IRONIC to bury Lillian in the cemetery at Cactus Bend. After all, she’d fled the place, nearly a quarter of a century before, and steered clear of it ever since. Now, a week after her death, by the terms of her own will, she was back to stay.

Jolie, Greer and I stood together, in our tasteful black dresses, surrounded by people who remembered Lillian as the woman who snatched little Mary Josephine Mayhugh, and subsequently eluded the police, the FBI and watchful citizens all over the United States, for more than twenty years.

Senator Larimer attended the simple graveside memorial, as did his wife, Barbara, once again enthroned on her wheelchair, with Joseph standing protectively behind her, clasping the handles in a white-knuckled grip.

A warm breeze whispered in the cottonwood trees.