The parade call couldn’t be returned until Monday, and Angie would be at work until two o’clock in the morning. The call to Joanna’s in-lows was different. Jim Bob and Eva Lou Brady usually went to bed right after the local news ended at ten-thirty, so she called them back immediately. Jim Boll Brady answered the phone.

“How’d it go?” he asked. “You get Jenny dropped off at camp all right?”

The hours between then and Joanna’s last glimpse of Jenny seemed to melt away. The image of her daughter trudging dejectedly away from the car with her camp counselor caused a sudden tightening in Joanna’s throat. “It was fine,” she managed, speaking around a lump in her throat that made speech almost impossible. “It would have been better if the air-conditioning in the Eagle hadn’t given out on us along the way.”

“Did you get it fixed?” Jim Bob asked at once. “Is there anything you need me to do?”

Her in-laws’ unfailing helpfulness and generosity never failed to warm Joanna. “Thanks, Jim Bob,” she said. “I’ve already made an appointment with Jim Hobbs to have it fixed.”

“Good. What about dinner tomorrow, then?” Jim Bob asked. “Eva Lou doesn’t want you to get too lonely out there all by yourself.”

“Dinner would be great,” Joanna told him. “What time?”

“One. One-thirty.”

“I’ll be there,” Joanna said.

Ending that call, she dialed the bar in Brewery Gulch. Angie Kellogg answered, speaking over the din of talking people and blaring jukebox music. “Blue Moon. Angie speaking.”

“It’s Joanna. You called?”

“Yes,” Angie said. “I wanted to ask a favor, but it doesn’t matter. He’s already here.”

“Who’s already there?”

“The parrot guy. He came to take me for a hike tomorrow morning. To see some hummingbirds. I was going to ask you to come along.”

“No kidding. The parrot guy? The one from the Chircahuas? What was his name? Hacker, isn’t it?”

“That’s right,” Angie said. “Dennis Hacker.”

“And the two of you are going on a hike? That’s great.”

Angie’s voice sounded a little more hopeful. “Could you maybe come along with us?” she asked. “We’re going to leave here right after I get off work.”

At two o’clock in the morning? Joanna thought. “Sorry, Angie,” she said. “I just can’t make it. I’m already beat as it is. I’ve got to go to bed and get some sleep. Not only that, I just made arrangements to have an early dinner with Jim Bob and Eva Lou.”

“Oh,” Angie said. “Well, I guess I won’t go then, either.”

“What do you mean you won’t go? You love hummingbirds.”

“It’s just that…”

“It’s just what?”

“I don’t know if I want to go with him all by myself.”

Joanna thought back to her one meeting with Hacker. He had come to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Department to give a statement in regard to another case. Jenny had been in the office for Take Our Kids to Work Day, Cochise County’s modified version of the national Take Our Daughters to Work Day. While there, she had encountered the tall, gangly, and loose-jointed Englishman in the hallway. Afterward, Jenny had come dashing into her mother’s office.

“Mom,” she had babbled breathlessly, “you’ll never guess who’s out there in the hall. It’s the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz.”

Smiling at the memory, Joanna addressed Angie. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Why don’t you want to go out with him? I’ve met him. He seems like a nice enough guy to me.”

“That’s just it,” Angie said defensively. “I don’t know what to think. What if he turns out to be too nice for me or else… “

“Or else what?” Joanna asked.

“Well,” Angie returned defensively, “what if it turns out to be like the old days? What if we go on a hike to see the birds but he really thinks we’re going out there for something else?”

“You wrote him a letter, didn’t you?” Joanna asked.

“Yes. He claims that’s why he came to see me after all this time-because of the letter.”

“What do your instincts tell you?”

“Half one way and half the other.”

Joanna smiled. “It sounds like a date to me, Angie,” she said kindly. “A regular, ordinary, old-fashioned date for two people to get together and do something they’re both interested in. If I were you, I’d go.”

“Would you really?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve gotta go,” Angie said. “Someone’s asking for a drink.”

“Have fun,” Joanna told her. “Call me tomorrow and tell me how it turned out.”

“Okay,” Angie said with a dubious sigh. “I will.”

Joanna punched the button that ended the call. Putting the phone down on the swing beside her, she picked up the tablet and pen and began to write.

Dear Jenny,

I had to go in to work this afternoon for a little while, so I^’ve only just now come home. If it weren’t for Mr. Rhodes stopping by to feed the dogs on a regular basis, they’d be living on the same kind of crazy schedule I am.

It’s almost eleven o’clock at night, and it’s too hot to be inside, so I’m writing this on the front porch. Even the dogs think it’s too hot. They’re both lying here beside me, panting like crazy. They didn’t much like it when I came home and you didn’t get out of the car. Tigger especially couldn’t quite believe it.

I just took a message off the machine asking me if I could serve as grand marshal of Bisbee’s Fourth of July parade. I don’t know if you heard about it, but Mayor Pratt had an appendectomy last week. She isn’t going to be up to riding in a parade. I’d be happy to sub for her, but I don’t happen to own a horse. I was wondering if you’d consider lending me Kiddo for the day.

Joanna paused, holding the pen to her lips. Jenny had begged for a horse for her tenth birthday. Joanna had resisted, only to be overruled by Grandpa Jim Bob, who had purchased the horse on his own. In the months since, though, Joanna had seen the almost magical changes having a horse to care for had wrought in her grieving daughter. Somehow, taking responsibility for an animal who had lost its former master had helped the fatherless Jennifer Ann Brady immeasurably. There were times when it seemed to Joanna that Jenny was making far more progress at working through her grief than her mother was.

I stopped by Jim Hobbs’s place tonight and made an appointment to have the Eagle fixed. You’ll be happy to know that by the time I come pick you up, we’ll once again have a fully working air conditioner.

Joanna paused again. She had already decided to say nothing at all about work or about the type of case that had occupied the whole of her Saturday afternoon. There was no point in mentioning Brianna O’Brien’s disappearance. Chances were the missing teenager would show up safe and sound the next afternoon. In that case, if she had been off somewhere fooling around with a boyfriend, the less said, the better. On the other hand, if David O’Brien was right and his daughter had fallen victim to some awful fate, then word of that would come won enough for everyone-Jennifer Brady included.

With a shock, Joanna realized that Jenny, at ten, was a mere eight years younger than Bree. Determinedly thrusting that disturbing thought aside, Joanna returned to her writing.

Grandpa and Grandma Brady have invited me over for dinner tomorrow after church. I think they’re afraid that with you gone for two weeks, I’ll dry up and blow away or starve to death.

Speaking of drying up, I can see lightning way off in the distance to the south, somewhere down in Sonora. Maybe the summer rains will get here a little early this year-sooner than the Fourth of July. But not so soon, I hope, that they spoil any of your time at camp.

I guess that’s all for now. It’s so hot inside the house and so nice out here on the porch that I think I’ll do what we used to do on hot summer nights when Dad was alive. Re-member how we’d bring those old army cots out here and sleep on the porch? That way, you’ll be camping out tonight, and so will I.