Earth to Emily Read Free Page A

fingernail, which of course he made look smolderingly hot. Wallace waggled his eyebrows in Jack’s direction for my benefit. Bless his heart. Wallace never quit trying to promote a match between us, and I had to admit I hoped he’d succeed. I rolled my eyes at him anyway, though.
    Wallace said, “Well, you guys missed some excitement. One of the truckers was shot and killed out in the lot.”
    “Yeah, I saw the scene. Gruesome.”
    Jack dipped his chin once. “Yep. I think we heard the shots, too.”
    To Wallace I said, “I’d guess we almost drove up on it, but then the kids came sprinting by, and we forgot about the shots.”
    A tiny woman approached from the direction of the truck lot. She strolled slowly, almost casually, but her eyes darted left-right, left-right, left-right as she picked her way across the snowy ground cover in sky-high wedge-heeled boots. Fake leather extended all the way up to her thighs where it almost met a zebra-print tube skirt. The one inch of exposed leg was covered by nothing except fishnet. On her upper half she wore a waist-length jacket with black strands of something that wasn’t fur. Her eyeliner, fingernails, and long, straight hair were as black as the coat.
    She zeroed in on Wallace, calling to him. “Hey, I know you, right?”
    As she got closer, I saw that her makeup didn’t hide the testaments to hard living that time had etched around her eyes and mouth. Thirty-five or more years of time, if I had to guess.
    Wallace evaluated her for a few seconds. “Yeah, I think so, but I can’t remember where.”
    “Well, I’m a dancer. Do you ever go to any clubs?”
    “Do you by any chance dance at the Polo Club?”
    “I do.”
    “That must be it. I was in there not too long ago on an investigation.”
    Her eyes opened so wide I was afraid they’d get stuck that way. “Are you a cop?”
    “Not that kind of investigation. I work for Child Protective Services.”
    She exhaled. “Whew! Well, thank God.” She whispered in his ear and his eyes widened. Goose pimples rose on the back of my neck. I didn’t like secrets unless they included me.
    After a good thirty seconds of furtive back-and-forth whispers, Wallace reincluded Jack and me in the conversation. “I’m going to walk Ms.—”
    “You can call me Ivanka.”
    An eastern European name with that drawl? I didn’t think so.
    “—Ivanka over to my car, and give her a ride home.”
    “Good night, then,” I said.
    “Ivanka” shot a last furtive glance over her shoulder at the Love’s then took his arm, pulling him along. It was hard to say which of them had the better swing to their walk, but I gave Wallace the edge.
    I looked at Jack and he arched his left brow.
    I frowned. “I wonder what that’s all about.”
    Byron walked in our direction with a uniformed officer. As they neared us, though, Byron peeled off after Wallace and the woman. The policeman kept coming. He had on an Amarillo Police Department coat, and it looked warm, as did his blue knit cap with a white owl’s head on it, the Rice University mascot logo. I envied him that coat and hat. I was freezing to death. My toes had started losing feeling. I’d worn thin socks under my boots, not expecting to spend the evening out in the weather. I stamped my feet one after another to warm them.
    The officer stopped in front of us. “Emily Bernal and Jack Holden?”
    The guy looked familiar. Jack caught my eye and raised the same eyebrow he had a moment before. He recognized him, too?
    “I’m Emily. Have we met?”
    The officer got out a small spiral flip notebook and a pen without looking at me. “Possibly. I’m Officer Samson, and I need to ask you a few questions about Greg Easley and Farrah Farud.”
    “Okay.” I stared at him, my mind flipping through a card catalogue of faces.
    White male. Puffy, dark-circled eyes. Uni-brow. Dishwater hair shot through with gray. He was Jack’s height, maybe six foot one, not lean like Jack, though. But the guy