Eli was the first to recover the power of speech.

“Who are you?” he asked the visitor. That was Eli, direct to the point of bluntness. In his line of work, as the local sheriff, that was a plus, though it often hampered him when it came to ordinary communication.

“Tonight,” she said with a little shiver, which she tried to hide, “my name is Zelda.”

Cord was still thrown by the mere fact of this woman-child, but he recovered enough to ask, “What is it the rest of the time? Your name, I mean.”

She made a face and jutted out her chin, at once obstinate and defensive, her bare, skinny arms wrapped tightly around her middle, as though she thought she might splinter into pieces if she didn’t keep a firm grip.

“Whatever I decide it will be,” she replied crisply, but her bravado was clearly slipping now.

Cord took his denim jacket from the back of his chair and draped it around her shoulders without comment, while J.P. silently offered her a place to sit, drawing back a chair, indicating it with a gesture of one hand.

She sank gratefully onto the wooden seat and surveyed the scarred tabletop, strewn with poker chips and cards dropped and forgotten when she made her grand entrance.

“How old are you?” Eli demanded.

“Twenty-two,” the girl said, after the briefest hesitation.

“Bullshit,” J.P. muttered, watching her, studying her, as they all were.

By then, the dog had lost interest, no doubt concluding that the new arrival represented no threat to his master and could therefore be safely ignored. He was curled up alongside J.P.’s chair again, as he’d been all evening.

“Okay,” she admitted, with an exaggerated sigh of long-suffering tolerance, “I’m seventeen. Which is why I had to come in through the back door, since this joint is evidently a saloon or whatever.”

“All right—Zelda,” Eli persisted, “back to the point of this conversation. Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

She studied her overlong fingernails, which were painted a troubling shade of greenish purple, dusted with glitter and noticeably chipped. Then she raised her Reba-eyes, wide and brown-gold, swept a haughty glance from Eli to J.P. to Cord, and finally swung it back to Eli.

“That was two questions,” she pointed out mildly. “But I suppose, since you’re the county sheriff, you have to grill every stranger you see.”

So, she’d done her research. When in doubt, google.

“That wasn’t an answer,” Eli said.

“Zelda” raised her shoulders briefly, then lowered them again. Gave another little sigh, as though put upon. Lord, but teenagers could be a pain in the ass.

“You’ll have plenty of time to quiz me later,” she said, sitting up straight and tossing her head so that long tendrils of wet, tangled hair tumbled back over her left shoulder. “For now, I’m calling the shots.”