huge
imposition.”
“Not really,” Deem said, standing up and stretching. “I’m
tired of sitting here. I could use a drive.”
“Of course I’d normally ask Awan, but with him being back
east right now…”
“It’s no problem, Carma, really,” Deem said, grabbing her
phone and keys from the desk. “I can be out there and back before the end of
the day.”
“Good, then you must plan on supper here tonight,” Carma said
with a look of relief. “I’ll ask Winn to come out, too. You can fill me in on
what you find out. You’re a godsend, truly, Deem. I don’t know what I would
have done without you here to do this for me!”
And with that, Carma hurried out of the room.
I wonder what she’s doing with Lyman? Deem thought, making her way through
the house and out the front door to her truck. She climbed inside, took a sip
of the Big Gulp in the cup holder, and decided it was too warm. I’ll stop in
Hurricane for a refill, she thought. Fredonia — what will that take?
Maybe an hour?
She started up the truck and pulled around the driveway in
front of Carma’s old, historic house. It was a good hundred feet from the house
to the front gate, and the midday sun was beating down on the hot interior of
the cab, making Deem wish she had a drink already. She cranked up the A/C, but
it had been fritzing out lately and wasn’t doing a good job of keeping her
truck cooled off on really hot Southern Utah days.
She rolled down a window and let the hot air blow through the
cab. It felt good to be outside after sitting cooped up in Carma’s office,
endlessly scanning the documents she’d recovered from Claude’s house. They were
a history of some of the most unusual and nefarious activities of clandestine
underground groups in the area, and Deem had been lucky enough to secure them
when Claude was killed. She knew there were plenty of people around town who
would love to have the documents, and plenty who would steal to get them, so
she’d kept them at Carma’s, where they’d be safe until she could get them all
scanned.
It was hard not to read through them while scanning, but Deem
found that it just made the process take longer when she did, so she’d stopped
looking them over and tried to become robotic, mindlessly placing them on the
scanner and not becoming too involved with their contents. She knew she’d be
reading them soon enough, looking for clues on Dayton and his council, and her
father’s involvement with them. Claude had been tracking their activities for
years, and she was sure that somewhere in his boxes of files and folders she’d
uncover something that might help her take down Dayton and his followers.
That will come later, she thought. Scan first. Make a backup, get it into a
safe deposit box somewhere. Maybe two safe deposit boxes. Spread it around in a
number of safe places, so if Dayton ever discovers I have it and tries to
blackmail me or torture me into giving it up, I can reveal a few locations and
satisfy him. He’s a smart man, he’ll expect me to have hidden more than one
copy.
She turned onto the interstate and rolled up her window,
hoping the A/C would kick in. She held her fingers over the vents, feeling for
cold air — but it wasn’t much colder than the air that had been coming in
through the windows.
Damn, she thought. That’s gonna cost money I don’t have. I’ll have to beg
more from Mom.
Even though it was uncomfortably warm, Deem was happy to be
outside, the red rock surrounding her on every side, the asphalt racing away
under her. A drive out to Fredonia would clear her mind, allow her to think.
She needed that.
Once she refilled her drink and cleared Hurricane, she felt
even more comfortable and was ready for the drive through the desert. She
realized she’d forgotten to get the address of where she was going to, so she
called Carma, but there was no answer. She called Winn instead.
“Hello?” Winn answered, breathing heavily.
“Winn?” I…”