Random Acts Read Free Page A

officers from Maricopa will deliver you to the hospital itself. By the way, I made the police escort arrangements over the phone. None of that should turn up on Marliss Shackleford’s police scanner or in her column, either.”
    â€œThank you for that,” Joanna replied.
    Butch appeared in the kitchen doorway with two metal-­clad thermal coffee mugs in hand. Joanna knew that his would contain coffee. Hers would be ice water spiked with lemon wedges.
    â€œReady?” he said.
    Joanna nodded.
    â€œOkay,” Jaime said. “Let’s be going. Your police escort is all lined up, Butch, so just fall in behind me.”
    He let himself out. Joanna closed and locked the front door behind him. When she turned to leave, Jenny was standing in the entrance to the hallway, obviously crying. Joanna went to her and reached up to hug a daughter who was now much taller than her mother.
    â€œI can’t believe Grandpa George is gone,” Jenny whispered into her mother’s hair.
    â€œI can’t believe it, either. Thank you for taking charge here, and call us immediately if you need anything.”
    Butch set the two mugs on the dining room table and came over to where Joanna and Jenny were standing, peeling some bills out of his wallet as he did so and adding an all-­encompassing bear hug into the mix.
    â€œI have no idea how long we’ll be gone,” he told Jenny. “Here’s some cash to tide you over in the meantime. Use this for groceries or whatever else comes up.”
    â€œWe’ll be fine, Dad,” Jenny assured him, pulling away from his grasp. “Don’t worry.”
    Joanna waited until she was in the Enclave with her seat belt fastened and the door shut behind her before she gave way to the tears she’d been holding in check. Butch reached out as if to comfort her, but she pushed his arm away. “Just drive,” she said. “Please.”
    Butch obliged by backing out of the garage and pulling in behind Jaime, who had already activated the red and blue emergency lights inside the grille on his Tahoe. By the time the two vehicles reached the Traffic Circle in Bisbee and Deputy Jeremy Stock pulled in behind them with his light bar also ablaze, Joanna had reached the end of her tears, at least for now. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and took several deep breaths.
    â€œI know this is a terrible thing to say, but I’m thankful George was the one who died,” she said as they sped past Lavender Pit and on toward the Divide.
    â€œWhy do you say that?”
    â€œYears ago he lost both his first wife and his only child, his daughter, to breast cancer. He was devastated. Losing my mom, too, would have been too much for him. As for Mom?”
    Butch glanced in her direction. “We both know she’s tough as nails.”
    Joanna nodded. “Right,” she said. “She’s a survivor.”
    â€œBut what on earth were George and Eleanor doing on I–17?” Butch asked. “They were coming from Minnesota. It seems to me they would have come straight down through New Mexico and then crossed over toward Bisbee from Lordsburg.”
    â€œI have no idea,” Joanna replied.
    â€œAnd why the middle of the night?”
    â€œOh, that. Mom told me once that George preferred driving at night. He said it was safer because usually there was so much less traffic.”
    â€œNot this time,” Butch said quietly.
    Nodding, Joanna glanced at the clock on the dash and pulled out her phone. As she’d told Jaime, her first call was to her chief deputy, but Tom Hadlock was already on the case. “Tica gave me a call,” he said. “I’ll be at the office first thing in the morning, minding the store. You do what you need to do, Sheriff Brady, and don’t worry about the department. We’ll keep the wheels on the bus in the meantime.”
    â€œThanks, Tom,” she said. “I appreciate