“Nothing.”
“Nothing really, or nothing you’re going to tell me?”
“What do you think Fenny’s wife is like?”
Sara knew she was going to get nothing more out of R.J., but she trusted him. She thought he had managed the fake argument in the restaurant deftly. If anyone had seen them outside last night, R.J. had covered it. He said that Sara had run out in a jealous fit and they’d all had to look for her.
“I don’t think anyone knows that Nezbit is dead,” R.J. said.
“Or that he’s missing.” They were on an old, pot-holed road, surrounded by overhanging trees and there seemed to be no one around, but she still lowered her voice. “What do you think they’re afraid of?”
“The judge. The police. Maybe Lassiter. One thing for sure is that no one is willing to help us.”
“You’d think there would be at least one rebel among them,” Sara said. “One person who was willing to stand up to them.”
“He’d have to have no family who could be threatened, and he’d have to not care if he lived or died. It’s my guess that the residents like it here and don’t want it to change. They have rent-free housing, plentiful food, friends. What more is there in life?”
“Toothpaste,” Sara said and R.J. laughed.
“You think that’s the road?” he asked, nodding toward a dirt road that turned off to the right.
“I hope so. My feet are bruised and raw,” Sara said.
“I’ll kiss them to make them better.”
“I’d rather have a pair of sneakers.”
“Where’s your watch?”
“Now that I know how much it costs I’m afraid to wear it. It’s safe inside my— It’s safe.”
“Mind if I look and see what time it is?”
She shook her head at him, but he was making her feel better. His jokes were making her forget the seriousness of the situation they were in. While they were in the restaurant, she’d had a vision of those fishermen carrying a noose, coming to lynch her and R.J. for killing their dear friend Fenny Nezbit.
After a while, they came to a narrow road with a beat-up, old mailbox at the end of it. In barely discernible letters, they saw the name Nezbit.
Sara hesitated.
“I want you to go back to Ariel,” R.J. said quietly. “Just go down this road, take a left and—”
“I know the way,” Sara said, her hand shielding her eyes from the sun. “Do you think she’ll meet us with a shotgun? Do you think—” She broke off because she saw a pickup truck coming toward them. It looked to be traveling at the speed of light, with gravel flying behind it in a storm, and the tail end skidding back and forth.
“Get down!” R.J. yelled, then pushed Sara into a deep ditch. He jumped in beside her, put his arm over her head, and ducked down.
“Do you think they saw us?” she whispered.
“I hope not,” R.J. said, but in the next second the truck came to a skidding halt in front of them. R.J.’s body was nearly over Sara’s in protection.
“What you doin’ down there?” came a woman’s voice. “I thought you was gonna come see me.”
They looked up to see a thin woman, with her head half out of the truck window, looking down at them. She had on haphazardly applied makeup and hoop earrings that reached her shoulders. Her face was so sun damaged that she could have been anywhere from thirty-five to fifty.
“Well?” she said, “you comin’ to my house or not?”
“You’re Mrs. Nezbit?” R.J. asked, standing up in the ditch, reaching down his hand to help Sara up.
<