The Salt Maiden Read Online Free PDF Page B

to notice the way she was put together, either, or that pretty face.
    “Whenever there’s a storm up in the higher elevations,” he said, “the water ends up drizzling off the flat top of the mesa. When I was a kid we used to drive out and splash around in the little freshwater pool that forms down at the bottom from time to time.”
    “You thought my sister might’ve gone there?”
    He shrugged. “People do, and it was a place to look, somewhere I haven’t been all over ten times. So I took a shot.”
    It had been a wasted trip. The rocky bowl at the pour-off had been bone dry, and the cave punched into the mesa just above it held no sign of life but ten thousand restless dreamers—Mexican free-tailed bats that rose like smoke each summer night to scour the skies for insects. Jay had clambered atop a van-sized rock and shone his flashlight back into the darkness, then sighed in relief at the realization that he wouldn’t have to crawl inside. The thick layer of guano appeared undisturbed; there was no sign that anyone had wormed his or her way into the cave’s dark recesses. No sign that anybody had shoved a body back there either.
    “Thank you,” Dana told him as she rose from her chair. “For giving up your lunch to go there. And for looking for my sister all this week. I’d offer to buy you some dinner for your trouble, but I’m afraid I’ve already gotten crosswise with the cook.”
    Enticing as her smile was, he couldn’t let it get to him. “That’s all right. I’m too filthy, anyway. And besides that, my trouble’s not for sale. It’s already bought and paid for by the people of this county. If your sister was still one of ’em, I’d have already found her by this time.”
    Dana cut a swath through the heat, her strides long and swift, her mind seething with frustration. Still, the image of Jay Eversole stayed with her, an image that sparked and crackled along her nerve endings. She had to get clear of this one-horse hell pit—and that meant finding Angie and hauling her straight back to Houston to have her marrowtested. Dana had brought her own car, despite the long drive, in case simple persuasion wasn’t enough to convince her sister to cooperate. She had headaches enough without allowing one of Angie’s fits to get them both escorted off a plane—and Dana refused to take no for an answer.
    But the Angie situation wasn’t the only thing under Dana’s skin. As much as she hated to admit it, Eversole’s body had reminded hers that she was still female, whatever the surgeons had removed.
    Idiot , she told herself. Leave the Marlboro men to Lynette. Jay Eversole was just another roadblock between her and what she needed. He was simply humoring her, going through the motions of looking for her sister so she wouldn’t pull some family strings to drag in the Texas Rangers. Wouldn’t look good for the big, bad, new sheriff if outsiders barged in and elbowed him aside.
    She opened her car door and slid inside, only to wince as the leather seat seared her thighs. Jamming the key in the ignition, she started up the engine and turned the air-conditioning somewhere between arctic and subzero…
    And felt a rough brush scrape past her left ankle. Adrenaline pulled its ripcord, jerking her attention downward. But before her eyes could make sense of the slide of scales, raw instinct kicked in at the rattling.
    At the sound her muscles exploded into reflex, flinging the door open and sending her bursting from the car—or, rather, falling.
    She hit the hard-baked dirt with both knees and felt flesh tear with the bruising impact. Yet it wasn’t pain but horror that had her shrieking as she scrabbled several yards away.
    Rattlesnake. In her car. A damned big one, from what she’d seen. And chances were it hadn’t gotten inside on its own.

Chapter Four
    Hey, sis,
    I’m afraid there’s more bad news from the doctor today. It’s a relapse, as we feared, which has left no choice except to wipe out