Big Sky Summer Part 24

All well and good, but this wasn't some nameless stranger, some statistic-this was Clare. Her firstborn, her baby, and she felt 100 percent responsible.

It made sense to call Walker, though. She shooed Mitch and the others out of her dressing room and speed-dialed her husband's cell number.

Walker's voice was taut when he answered, an immediate giveaway that he already knew Clare was in trouble, and he probably knew why. Instead of h.e.l.lo, he said, "Take a breath, Casey. I'll handle this."

Casey thought the crown of her head might just shoot skyward, like a dinner plate spinning atop an erupting geyser. "You'll handle it? Walker, what happened? Why did I just receive a picture of my daughter in handcuffs from some-some onlooker?"

"I'm on my way to the police station right now," Walker replied calmly, though his voice was as rough and rocky as the bottom of a dry creek bed. "All I know is Clare's been charged with shoplifting. One of Treat McQuillan's officers arrested her, somewhere on the rodeo grounds."

Somewhere on the rodeo grounds?

He'd let Clare go wandering off, unattended? Didn't he realize how many things could have happened to her?

She didn't dare go there, not now, anyway.

"Shoplifting? Clare?" Casey stopped pacing and collapsed into the chair in front of her dressing-room mirror. Seeing herself in triplicate was hardly comforting, so she wheeled the seat around backward. "It must be a mistake."

Walker took a beat too long to answer. "We'll see," he said, measuring out his words in a sparing way that put an invisible wall between them. "Casey, I'll call you as soon as I know exactly where things stand-I promise. In the meantime, try to be calm."

So much for good intentions. "Calm? Calm? I leave home for a few days-less than a week, Walker-and something like this happens?" While she didn't actually accuse him outright of neglecting their daughter, the implication was there just the same. I trusted you.

"I'll call you, Casey," Walker reiterated flatly, drawing the words out, leaving wide s.p.a.ces between them.

Casey nodded, overcome, remembered Walker couldn't see her and said, "Do that, please."

The call ended there.

Since there was nothing Casey could do but wait, she practiced deep breathing until her shoulders lowered, no longer pressing against her ears, and the muscles in her neck, though still tight, began to relax a little. If she hadn't had reason to believe she was pregnant, she probably would have sent out for a drink-a double shot of whatever, on the rocks. Moonshine, maybe. Did they sell moonshine in L.A.?

It didn't matter.

Clare mattered and she, Casey, was two plane rides away.

THE SPIFFY NEW Parable Munic.i.p.al Police Station occupied the spot where the town's "historic" water tower had stood, until a few concerned citizens tore it down the day Dawson McCullough fell fifty feet and did permanent damage to his spine.

Walker parked his truck in one of three spots marked Visitor, shut off the engine and shoved open the door. "Wait here," he told Shane, who was sitting, pale and wide-eyed, in the pa.s.senger seat.

The station house was small, with a reception area in front, composed of a counterlike desk, a computer, a multiline phone and not much else. The chairs were plastic, and there were a few outdated magazines scattered around, in case somebody wanted to do a little light reading while they waited to see a prisoner, evidently.

There were a grand total of two cells in back, behind Treat McQuillan's cubicle-size office, giving the place a distinctly Mayberry feel. That was where the similarities ended, though, because McQuillan was nothing like the genial Sheriff Andy Taylor. No, he was a puffed-up, self-important little pit bull of a man, and he had to be enjoying this situation, big-time.

Walker didn't recognize the receptionist, a woman in her mid-forties who, going by the insignia on her starched blue uniform, doubled as a crossing guard or maybe a meter maid. Since the whole town of Parable only boasted a dozen parking meters and school was out for the summer, she must have worked the desk during the intervals between nothing-much and nothing-much.

"I'm here to see Clare Elder," he told the woman after giving his name.

The woman picked up a clipboard and made a production out of scanning several pages of official doc.u.ments. Serious business, this. She and the Parable Police Department had a dangerous criminal on their hands, and they couldn't be too careful.

"I have a Clare Parrish listed," she said.

Walker unclamped his back molars. "That would be my daughter," he replied.

She gave him a look, as though she might have expected him to get the prisoner's name right in the first place, if he was Clare's father.

"I'll have to check with Chief McQuillan," the woman said after pursing her lips for a while, turning to open a door behind the counter, whisking through and shutting it with a click that struck Walker as faintly authoritarian.

Almost immediately, the chief popped out of his office, looking very pleased with himself, and when he spoke, his tone was gratingly cordial.

"Well," he said, "you certainly got here quickly."

"I want to see my daughter," Walker said evenly.

McQuillan opened the door wide and gestured grandly for Walker to precede him. The meter maid ducked out, looking smug.

Inside, Clare sat miserably at a small round table, head lowered. She wasn't handcuffed, at least, and she wasn't wearing an orange jumpsuit with a number stenciled on it, but Walker took small consolation from those observations.

"I'm sorry," she said without looking up at Walker.

Walker sc.r.a.ped back a chair, sat down across from her. He glared at McQuillan in silence until the chief stepped out, leaving them alone.

"Clare," Walker began, as the girl began to cry without making a sound, "tell me what happened."

She spent a couple of moments gathering her composure, but she still wouldn't look at him. "I stole some earrings, from one of the vendors at the fairgrounds," she answered. A tear zigzagged down her right cheek, and she seemed to be folding in on herself, trying to disappear, shoulders stooped, head down, spine curved forward.

"Now, why would you do a thing like that?" Walker asked calmly. He would have expected to be angry as h.e.l.l. As it turned out, he was heartbroken instead. No need to ask where he'd gone wrong-he knew that already.

"I don't know," Clare said, very softly.

"I think you do," Walker replied, his tone mild.

She raised her eyes then, and he saw shame in them, along with naked, hopeless truth. "I was going to give the earrings back," she said, "or pay for them, honest. I just wanted to see if I could get away with it."

"Now you know," Walker said. "I've heard stupider ideas in my time, but not many of them. What were you thinking?"

Clare's shoulders rose and fell in a semblance of a shrug, and that was answer enough. She hadn't been thinking-and that was the problem.

"I tried to explain when the vendor caught me, but she was really pi-really mad-and she called the police right away. I guess it was technically the sheriff's jurisdiction, since the rodeo grounds are outside the city limits, but maybe some wires got crossed. Anyway, when the cop got there, he must have recognized me, because he sort of sneered and said celebrities' kids think they're above the law, and he hoped some judge would make an example out of me." She paused, and the look on her face made Walker ache inside. She was only fourteen and, as far as he knew, she'd never been in this kind of trouble before. Throwing her mom's fame in her face seemed unfair, but that was the way of the world.

"Can we go home now?" she finished meekly.

She was young-too young to be tossed into a jail cell-but that didn't mean the situation wasn't serious. Walker wondered if his head was going soft, right along with his heart, but his instincts told him Clare was telling the truth-thus far, anyway.

He didn't answer her question right away. "So what was the purpose of the backpack?" Walker asked, having spotted the one she'd been carrying earlier on a table behind her.

Clare's chin wobbled, and tears brimmed in her Casey-green eyes. "I was going to run away," she admitted. "But then I got to thinking about how it was a dumb plan, about kidnappers and perverts and all the stuff they warn you about, and I changed my mind." She studied him closely. "Really, Walker. That's how it was."

He figured if she'd been trying to snow him, she'd have called him "Dad," not 'Walker," but there was no way to know for sure. He was going to have to trust Clare, at least for now. He'd give her a chance to prove she wasn't a bad kid; he owed her that much. He simply watched her, arms folded, saying nothing.

Clare sniffled. "Does Mom know?"

"She knows you've been arrested. We'll fill her in on the details in a little while."

Fifteen minutes later, acting as though he were turning Bonnie Parker loose on an unsuspecting society, McQuillan released Clare into Walker's custody, taking care to point out that, if the vendor followed through and pressed charges, a date would be set for her to appear in juvenile court.

Walker couldn't bring himself to thank the chief or shake his hand, either, but he made one concession. After signing the papers, he waited until he was outside to put his hat back on.

Clare, backpack slung by one strap over her right shoulder, opened the back door of the extended cab and climbed inside.

Shane, sitting in front, glanced back at her once, but a warning look from Walker stopped him from making any comments on his sister's budding criminal career.

Walker started the engine, got out his cell phone, keyed in Casey's number and handed the device back to Clare without a word.

The girl said, "Hi, Mom," and then broke into wrenching sobs. If this contrition was an act, Walker thought, it was a darn good one.

While he drove toward home, Clare sputtered out the story.

Walker stayed silent, and so did Shane.

They were almost at the turn-in at the ranch when Clare thrust the phone back at Walker, over his right shoulder. "Mom wants to talk to you," she said.

Walker drew the truck to a stop at the gate, and Shane jumped out to swing it open. "h.e.l.lo, Casey," Walker said stiffly, pressing the phone hard against his ear.

"Thanks," Casey said, and it sounded as though she wasn't in much better emotional shape than her daughter was. "Thanks for picking Clare up and taking her home, Walker."

What had she thought he'd do? Leave their fourteen-year-old in police custody? Suggest that Clare be remanded to some juvenile detention center to ponder the error of her ways?

Walker's voice was ice-cold when he replied. "You're welcome."

"I'll be home Sat.u.r.day night-tomorrow-right after our gig is over," Casey said. "We can decide what to do then."

"We will definitely be deciding some things," Walker answered. He was madder than a scalded cat all of a sudden, but he couldn't have said if that anger was directed at himself, at Casey or at Clare. All he really knew was that some changes had to be made, and the sooner the better.

Casey drew a breath, but whatever she'd been about to say, she held it in. "I'll see you tomorrow night."

"Good," Walker answered.

And they both hung up.

"Mom's disappointed in me," Clare said, very quietly, as they drove through the open gate. Shane shut and latched it behind them, but instead of getting back inside the truck, he rode on the running board, holding his hat in place with his free hand.

"She'll have to take a number," Walker replied.

Doolittle and the three chocolate Labs-Walker still couldn't keep their names straight, so he called them all "Dog"-were waiting at the kitchen door when he stepped over the threshold, and it cheered him up a little, their eager, uncomplicated welcome.

Clare lit out for her room right away, and Walker made no move to stop her.

While Shane fussed over the dogs and subsequently took them outside for a much-needed yard break, Walker washed his hands at the sink, as he'd done about a million times before, and opened the freezer side of the refrigerator, looking for supper possibilities.

Brylee, bless her practical and somewhat compulsive soul, cooked often, and he found a covered ca.s.serole dish, marked "Lasagna," wedged in behind a pork roast and a bag of green beans.

Lifting the lid, he noted that the food hadn't sprouted a coating of ice-fur or shrunk away from the sides of the dish, and thought, Good enough.

There were no instructions, but since Brylee's culinary concoctions always seemed to call for thirty minutes at 350 degrees, he turned the oven to that setting and waited for it to heat up.

Shane came back inside with the dogs, and hung his hat carefully beside Walker's on one of the pegs next to the door. After that, he rolled up his sleeves, washed his hands and face and the back of his neck at the sink, and used paper towels to dry off.

That last part, an improvisation, made Walker smile to himself.

"Clare's never been in trouble before," Shane announced very quietly.

Since the boy rarely if ever defended his sister, Walker was struck by that statement. He glanced over at Shane and said, "All right."

"You believe me?"

"Why wouldn't I?'

The boy flushed with conviction and maybe pleasure because Walker was taking him at his word. "I think Clare did what she did to get attention. Things have been kind of confusing lately. I mean, one day you're Mom's friend, a sort of uncle, and the next, you're our dad, and Mom's husband-"

"I know that, son," Walker said. The timer buzzed and he opened the oven, slid the dish of lasagna inside.

"I guess you'll probably just wash your hands of us now," Shane went on. "Clare and me, I mean. Because we're too much trouble."

Walker turned slowly to face the boy. "Son," he said, "I'm not going anywhere, and neither are you or your sister. We're a family now, and we're going to stick together, the four of us, and figure things out. It'll take gumption and elbow grease, but we can do it."

The relief in Shane's face was so profound that Walker came as close to crying in that moment as he ever had in his adult life. Reaching out with one arm, he pulled the boy to him, gave him a quick but firm hug.

Shane clung to him for a moment, before remembering that he wasn't a little kid anymore and stepping back.

They finished throwing supper together, and Shane took a plate to Clare, along with a gla.s.s of milk and a wad of paper towels to serve as dinner napkins.

Later, Shane got out his cell phone and showed Walker a jerky video of that day's ride, taken by a friend of his.

"Not even three seconds," the boy commented, sounding unfazed.

"Three is better than nothing. I once got thrown while they were still opening the chute."

Shane looked pleased. "Really?"

"Gospel truth," Walker answered, holding up one hand to underscore the oath.

IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT when Casey's chartered plane landed at the small airstrip midway between Parable and Three Trees, and she was exhausted. Mitch had promised to have a car waiting to take her home to the ranch, but when she peered out of one of the oval-shaped windows, she saw a pickup truck instead.

Walker. Her heartbeat sped up a little, the way it always did when the two of them entered the same airs.p.a.ce. This proximity usually resulted in something more like a collision than an embrace, but she was glad he was there, nonetheless.

He got out of the truck as she came down the steps from the airplane, hatless in the thin moonlight, but he didn't approach. No, he just stood there, straight-spined and broad-shouldered, unsmiling.