Where, I wondered, had he put my car keys?

He disappeared into the bedroom where I’d slept on my previous visit.

Barbara studied me intently. “I saw you on the evening news,” she said. “The interview in your sister’s driveway.”

“Sorry about that,” I answered. I’d mentioned that the senator was my uncle, I remembered that much. Chances were, I wouldn’t be invited along on any vote-gathering junkets.

Joseph came back. Lifted me off the couch and carried me out of the room.

“She hates me,” I confided, in a whisper. I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since I’d arrived, but I felt rummy, as though I’d been drugged.

We reached the bedroom. The covers had been turned back, and Joseph laid me on the cool sheets.

“I’ll get you some water,” he said.

“I don’t want to ruin these sheets,” I told him, remembering my cut feet and swinging them over the side of the bed.

Joseph put me right back where I’d been before, and covered me up. “Forget the damn sheets,” he said. “You’ve got much bigger problems.”

“Are you going to call the police?”

“No,” Joseph said. “That’s for the senator to decide.”

“Do you think I could have some aspirin?”

“You probably shouldn’t take anything.” There was an “else” hanging on the end of that sentence, though Joseph didn’t actually say it.

I closed my eyes.

Opened them.

Barbara was sitting beside the bed.

Wheelchairs should make more noise. I was so startled that my heart shinnied into my throat, clawing like a kitten trying to get out of a sack.

“Good night, dear,” she said.

I managed a smile. “Good night,” I replied.

Barbara went out.

Joseph brought the water. Left again.

I heard the front door close in the distance.

I tried to sleep.

I couldn’t.

Where were my car keys? In Joseph’s pocket?

Or had he hung them on a hook inside the main house, possibly in the kitchen? If I went after them, I’d probably set off an alarm.

I couldn’t face that.

Desperate for something to do, I fiddled with the built-in remote on the bedside stand and switched on the plasma TV.

The news was on.

“A fugitive was laid to rest today in Cactus Bend,” a woman said, as the camera panned across the gathering at Lillian’s graveside. I saw Greer and Jolie and myself. The senator and Barbara, and a lot of strangers.

And there, leaning against the trunk of a cottonwood tree, almost out of camera range, was Geoff.

Chapter Eighteen

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN