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"I
just heard the news bulletin on my car radio."

Tiel McCoy didn't begin this telephone conversation with any
superfluous chitchat. That was her opening statement the instant
Gully said hello. No preamble was necessary. Truth be known, he had
probably been expecting her call.

But he played dumb anyway. "That you, Tiel? Enjoying your vacation
so far?"

Her vacation had officially begun that morning when she left Dallas
and headed west on Interstate 20. She had driven as far as Abilene,
where she stopped to visit her uncle, who'd lived in a nursing home
there for the past five years. She remembered Uncle Pete as a tall,
robust man with an irreverent sense of humor, who could barbecue a
mean brisket and knock a softball out of the park.

Today they had shared a lunch of soggy fish sticks and canned
English peas and watched an episode of Guiding Light. She'd asked
if there was anything she could do for him while she was there,
like write a letter or buy a magazine. He had smiled at her sadly
and thanked her for coming, then gave himself over to an attendant
who'd tucked him in for his nap like a child.

Outside the nursing home, Tiel had gratefully inhaled the
scorching, gritty West Texas air in the hope of eradicating the
smell of age and resignation which had permeated the facility. She
had been relieved the family obligation was behind her, but felt
guilty for the relief. By an act of will she shook off her despair
and reminded herself that she was on vacation.

It wasn't even officially summer yet, but it was unseasonably warm
for May. There'd been no shade in which to park at the nursing
home; consequently her car's interior had been so hot she could
have baked cookies on the dashboard. She flipped on the AC
full-blast and found a radio station that played something other
than Garth, George, and Willie.

"I'm going to have a wonderful time. The time away will be good for
me. I'll feel a lot better for having done it." She repeated this
internal dialogue like a catechism, trying to convince herself of
the truth of it. She had approached the vacation as though it were
equivalent to taking a bad-tasting laxative.

Heat waves made the highway appear to ripple, and the undulating
movement was hypnotic. The driving became mindless. Her mind
drifted. The radio provided background noise of which Tiel was
barely aware.

But hearing the news bulletin was like getting goosed by the
driver's seat. With a lurch, everything accelerated --- the car,
Tiel's heart rate, her mind.

Immediately she fished her cell phone from her large leather
satchel and placed the call to Gully's direct line. Again declining
any unnecessary conversation, she said to him now, "Give me the
skinny."

"What's the radio putting out?"

"That earlier today a high school student in Fort Worth kidnaped
Russell Dendy's daughter."

"That's about the gist of it," Gully confirmed.

"The gist, but I want details."

"You're on vacation, Tiel."

"I'm coming back. Next exit, I'll make a U-turn." She consulted her
dashboard clock. "I'll be at the station by ---"

"Hold on, hold on. Where're you at, exactly?"

"About fifty miles west of Abilene."

"Hmm."

"What, Gully?" Her palms had become damp. She experienced the
familiar tickle in her belly that only happened when she was
following a hot lead to a super story. That unique adrenaline rush
couldn't be mistaken.

"You're on your way to Angel Fire, right?"

"Right."

"Northeastern part of New Mexico . . . Yeah, there it is." He must
have been reading a highway map as he spoke. "Naw, never mind. You
don't want this assignment, Tiel. It would take you out of your
way."

He was baiting her, and she knew he was baiting her, but in this
instance she didn't mind being baited. She wanted a piece of this
story. The kidnaping of Russell Dendy's daughter was big news, and
it promised to become even bigger news before it was over. "I don't
mind taking a detour. Tell me where to go."

"Well," he hedged, "only if you're sure."

"I'm sure."

"Okay then. Not too far in front of you is a turnoff onto state
highway Two-oh-eight. Take it south to San Angelo. On the south
side of San Angelo you're gonna intersect with --- "

"Gully, about how far out of my way is this detour going to take
me?"

"I thought you didn't care."

"I don't. I'd just like to know. Rough estimate."

"Well, let's see. Give or take . . . about three hundred
miles."

"From Angel Fire?" she asked faintly.

"From where you are now. Doesn't count the rest of the way to Angel
Fire."

"Three hundred round trip?"

"One way."

She expelled a long sigh, but was careful not to let him hear it.
"You said highway Two-oh-eight south to San Angelo, then
what?"

She steered with her knee, held the phone with her left hand, and
took notes with her right. The car was on cruise control, but her
brain was in overdrive. Journalistic juices were pumping faster
than the pistons in her engine. Thoughts of long pleasant evenings
spent in a porch rocker were swapped for those of sound bites and
interviews.

But she was getting ahead of herself. She lacked pertinent facts.
When she asked for them, Gully, damn him, turned mulish on her.
"Not now, Tiel. I'm as busy as a one-armed paperhanger, and you've
got miles to cover. By the time you get where you're going, I'll
have a lot more info."

Frustrated and supremely irked with him for being so stingy with
the details, she asked, "What's the name of the town again?"

"Hera."

The highways were arrow-straight, flanked on both sides by endless
prairie with only an occasional herd of cattle grazing in irrigated
pastures. Oil wells were silhouetted against a cloudless horizon.
Frequently a tumbleweed rolled across the roadway in front of her.
Once she got beyond San Angelo, she rarely saw another
vehicle.

Funny, she thought, the way things turn out.

Ordinarily she would have elected to fly to New Mexico. But days
ago she had decided to drive to Angel Fire, not only so she could
visit Uncle Pete along the way, but also to get herself into a
holiday frame of mind. The long drive would give her time to
decompress, work the kinks out, begin the period of rest and
relaxation before she ever reached the mountain resort, so that
when she did arrive, she would already be in vacation mode.

At home in Dallas, she moved with the speed of light, always in a
rush, always working under a deadline. This morning, once she had
reached the western fringe of Fort Worth and put the metropolitan
sprawl behind her, when the vacation became a reality, she had
begun to anticipate the idyllic days awaiting her. She had
daydreamed of clear, gurgling streams, hikes along trails lined
with aspens, cool, crisp air, and lazy mornings spent with a cup of
coffee and a fiction best-seller.

There would be no schedule to keep, nothing but hours in which to
be lazy, which was a virtue unto itself. Tiel McCoy was way past
due to engage in some unabashed ennui. She'd already postponed this
vacation three times.

"Use 'em or lose 'em," Gully had told her of the vacation days she
had accumulated.

He had lectured her on how her performance, as well as her
disposition, would greatly improve if she gave herself a breather.
This from the man who hadn't taken more than a few vacation days in
the past forty-something years --- counting the week required to
have his gallbladder removed.

When she reminded him of this, he had scowled at her. "Precisely.
You want to wind up an ugly, shriveled, pathetic relic like me?"
Then he'd really hit the nail on the head. "Taking a vacation isn't
going to jeopardize your chances. That job'll still be up for grabs
when you get back."

She easily inferred the meaning behind that sly remark. Miffed at
him for homing in on the real reason behind her reluctance to leave
work for any period of time, she had grudgingly consented to going
away for a week. The reservations had been made, the trip
scheduled. But every schedule should have a little bit of
flexibility built in.

And if flexibility was ever called for, it was when Russell Dendy's
daughter was allegedly kidnaped.

Tiel held the pay phone's sticky receiver pinched between the pads
of her thumb and index finger, loathe to touch any more of the
surface than necessary. "Okay, Gully, I'm here. Well, near, at
least. Actually, I'm lost."

He cackled. "Too excited to concentrate on where you're
going?"

"Well, it's not like I've missed a thriving metropolis. You said
yourself, the place isn't even on most maps."

Her sense of humor had worn off about the time she'd lost all
feeling in her butt. Hours ago, her posterior had gone numb from
sitting. Since talking to him, she had stopped only once, and then
only out of extreme necessity. She was hungry, thirsty, tired,
cranky, achy, and none too fresh because she'd been facing into the
setting sun for a long portion of the trip. The car's AC had gone
humid from overuse. A shower would be bliss.

Gully didn't improve her mood any by asking, "How'd you manage to
get lost?"

"I lost my sense of direction after the sun went down. The
landscape looks the same from every angle out here. Even more so
after dark. I'm calling from a convenience store in a town with a
population of eight hundred twenty-three, according to the
city-limit sign, and I think the chamber of commerce fudged that
number in their favor. This is the only lighted building for miles
around. The town is called Rojo something."

"Flats. Rojo Flats."

Naturally Gully knew the full name of this obscure hamlet. He
probably knew the mayor's name. Gully knew everything. He was a
walking encyclopedia. He collected information the way frat rats
collected coeds' phone numbers.

The TV station where Tiel worked had a news director, but the man
with the title conducted business from inside a carpeted office and
was more a bean counter and administrator than a hands-on
boss.

The man in the trenches, the one who dealt directly with the
reporters, writers, photographers, and editors, the one who
coordinated schedules and listened to sob stories and chewed ass
when ass-chewing was called for, the one who actually ran the news
operation, was the assignments editor, Gully.

He'd been at the station when it signed on in the early fifties,
and had mandated that they would have to carry him out of the place
feetfirst. He would die before he retired. He worked a sixteen-hour
day and begrudged the time he wasn't working. He had a colorful
vocabulary and countless similes, an extensive repertoire of yarns
about bygone days in broadcast news, and seemingly no life beyond
the newsroom. His first name was Yarborough, but only a few living
persons knew that. Everyone else knew him strictly as Gully.

"Are you going to give me this mysterious assignment or not?"

He wouldn't be rushed. "What happened to your vacation
plans?"

"Nothing. I'm still on vacation."

"Uh-huh."

"I am! I'm not canceling my week off. I'm just postponing the start
of it, that's all."

"What's the new boyfriend gonna say?"

"I've told you a thousand times, there is no new boyfriend." He
laughed his phlegmy, chain-smoker's laugh that said he knew she was
lying, and that she knew he knew.

"Got your notepad?" he asked suddenly.

"Uh, yeah."

Whatever germs had been teeming on the telephone were probably
living with her now. Reconciled to that, she propped the receiver
on her shoulder and held it there with her cheek while she removed
a notepad and pen from her satchel and placed them on the narrow
metal ledge beneath the wall-mounted telephone.

"Shoot."

"The boy's name is Ronald Davison," Gully began.

"I heard that much on the radio."

"Goes by Ronnie. Senior year, same as the Dendy girl. Won't
graduate with any honors, but he's a solid B student. Never in
trouble until today. After homeroom this morning, he boogied out of
the student parking lot in his Toyota pickup with Sabra Dendy
riding shotgun."

"Russ Dendy's child."

"His one and only."

"Is the FBI on it?"

"FBI. Texas Rangers. You name it. If it wears a badge, it's working
this one. Waco all over again. Everybody's claiming jurisdiction
and wants in on the action."

Tiel took a moment to absorb the broad scope of this story. The
short hallway in which the pay phone was located led to the public
rest rooms. One had a cowgirl in a fringed skirt stenciled in blue
paint on the door. The other, predictably, had a similar silhouette
of a cowpoke in chaps and ten-gallon hat, twirling a lasso above
his head.

Glancing down the hall, Tiel spotted the real thing coming into the
store. Tall, slender, Stetson pulled down low on his forehead. He
nodded toward the store's cashier, whose frizzy, overpermed hair
had been dyed an unflattering shade of ocher.

Nearer to Tiel was an elderly couple browsing for souvenirs,
apparently in no hurry to return to their Winnebago. At least Tiel
assumed the Winnebago at the gas pumps outside belonged to them.
Through bifocal eyeglasses the lady was reading the ingredients of
a jar on the shelf. Tiel heard her exclaim, "Jalapeño pepper
jelly? Good lord."

The couple then joined Tiel in the hallway, moving toward their
respective rest rooms. "Don't dally, Gladys," the man said. His
white legs were virtually hairless and looked ridiculously thin in
his baggy khaki shorts and thick-soled athletic shoes.

"You mind your business, and I'll mind mine," she retorted smartly.
As she moved past Tiel she gave her a
men-think-they're-so-smart-but-we-know-better wink. Another time,
Tiel would have thought the senior couple cute and endearing. But
she was thoughtfully reading what she'd taken down almost verbatim
from Gully.

"You said 'riding shotgun.' Strange choice of words, Gully."

"Can you keep a secret?" He lowered his voice significantly.
"Because my ass will be grass if this gets out before our next
newscast. We've scooped every other station and newspaper in the
state."

Tiel's scalp began to tingle, as it did when she knew she was
hearing something that no other reporter had heard, when she had
uncovered the element that would set her story apart from all the
others, when her exclusive had the potential of winning her a
journalism prize or praise from her peers. Or of guaranteeing her
the coveted spot on Nine Live.

"Who would I tell, Gully? I'm sharing space with a
fresh-off-the-range cowboy buying a six-pack of Bud, a sassy granny
lady and her husband from out of state --- I'm guessing by their
accents. And two non-English-speaking Mexicans." The pair had since
come into the store. She'd overheard them speaking Spanish while
heating packaged burritos in a microwave oven.

Gully said, "Linda ---"

"Linda? She got the story?"

"You're on vacation, remember?"

"A vacation you urged me to take!" Tiel exclaimed.

Linda Harper was another reporter, a darned good reporter, and
Tiel's unspoken rival. It stung that Gully had assigned Linda to
cover such a plum of a story, which rightfully should have belonged
to her. At least that's the way she saw it.

"You want to hear this or not?" he asked cantankerously.

"Go ahead."

The elderly man emerged from the men's room. He moved to the end of
the hall, where he paused to wait for his wife. To kill time, he
took a camcorder from a nylon airline bag and began tinkering with
it.

Gully said, "Linda interviewed Sabra Dendy's best friend this
afternoon. Hold on to your hat. The Dendy girl is pregnant with
Ronnie Davison's kid. Eight months gone. They've been hiding
it."

"You're kidding! And the Dendys didn't know?"

"According to the friend, nobody did. That is, not until last
night. The kids broke the news to their parents, and Russ Dendy
went apeshit."

Tiel's mind was already racing ahead, filling in the blanks. "So
this isn't a kidnaping. It's a contemporary Romeo and
Juliet."

"I didn't say that."

"But . . . ?"

"But that'd be my first guess. A view shared by Sabra Dendy's best
friend and confidante. She claims Ronnie Davison is crazy about
Sabra and wouldn't harm a hair on her head. Said Russell Dendy has
been fighting this romance for more than a year. Nobody's good
enough for his daughter, they're too young to know their own minds,
college is a must, and so forth. You get the picture."

"I do."

And what was wrong with the picture was that Tiel McCoy wasn't in
it and Linda Harper was. Damn! Of all times to go on
vacation.

"I'm coming back tonight, Gully."

"No."

"I think you sent me on this wild goose chase so it would be
impossible for me to return."

"Not true."

"How far am I from El Paso?"

"El Paso? Who said anything about El Paso?"

"Or San Antonio. Whichever is closer. I could drive there tonight
and hop a Southwest flight in the morning. Do you have their
schedule handy? What time does the first flight depart for
Dallas?"

"Listen to me, Tiel. We've got it covered. Bob's working the
manhunt–law enforcement angle. Linda's on the kids' friends,
teachers, and families. Steve's practically moved into the Dendys'
mansion, so he'll be there if a ransom call comes in, which I don't
expect. And, bottom line, those kids'll probably turn up before you
could get back to Dallas anyway."

"So what am I doing out here in the middle of freaking
nowhere?"

The old man shot her a curious glance over his shoulder.

"Listen," Gully hissed. "The friend? Sabra mentioned to her a few
weeks back that she and Ronnie might just hightail it to
Mexico."

Mollified because she was closer to the Mexican border than she was
to Dallas, Tiel asked, "Where in Mexico?"

"She didn't know. Or wouldn't say. Linda had to twist her arm to
get that much from her. She didn't want to betray Sabra's
confidence. But the one thing she did say is that Ronnie's dad ---
his real dad; his mom's remarried --- is sympathetic to their
predicament. A while back he offered his help if they ever needed
it. Now, you're gonna feel really bad about yelling at me when I
tell you where he hangs his hat."

"Hera."

"Satisfied?"

She should have apologized, but she didn't. Gully understood. "Who
else knows about this?"

"Nobody. But they will. It works to our advantage that Hera is a
one-horse town, not on any beaten path."

"Tell me about it," she muttered.

"When word gets out, it'll take everybody a while to get there,
even by helicopter. You've got a definite head start."

"Gully, I love you!" she said excitedly. "Direct me out of
here."

The elderly lady emerged from the ladies' room and rejoined her
husband. She admonished him for fiddling with the camcorder and
ordered him to put it back in the tote bag before he broke
it.

"Like you're an expert with video cameras," the old man
retorted.

"I took the time to read the instruction book. You didn't."

Tiel poked her finger in her ear so she could hear Gully better.
"What's the dad's name? Davison, I presume."

"I've got an address and phone number."

Tiel wrote down the information as fast as he reeled it off. "Do I
have an appointment with him?"

"Working on it. He might not agree to go on camera."

"I'll get him to agree," she said confidently.

"I'm dispatching a chopper with a photographer."

"Kip if he's available."

"Y'all can meet in Hera. You'll do the interview tomorrow as soon
as it's arranged with Davison. Then you can continue on your merry
way."

"Unless there's more story there."

"Uh-uh. That's the condition, Tiel." She envisioned him stubbornly
shaking his head. "You do this bit, then you're off to Angel Fire.
Period. End of discussion."

"Whatever you say." She could easily agree now, then argue about it
later if events warranted.

"Okay, let's see. Outta Rojo Flats . . ." The map must have been
right there on his desk, because within seconds he was giving her
further directions. "Shouldn't take you long to get there. You're
not sleepy, are you?"

She was never more wide awake than when pursuing a story. Her
problem was shutting her mind off and going to sleep. "I'll buy
something caffeinated to take along."

"Check in with me as soon as you get there. I've got you a room
reserved at the only motel. You can't miss it. I'm told it's at the
blinking traffic light --- the one and only. They'll wait up for
you to give you a room key." Changing subjects, he asked, "Is the
new boyfriend going to be pissed?"

"For the last time, Gully, there is no new boyfriend."

She hung up and placed another call --- to her new boyfriend.

Joseph Marcus was as much a workaholic as she was. He was scheduled
to fly out early the next day, so she predicted he would be working
late at his desk, putting things in order prior to his being away
for several days. She was right. He answered his office phone on
the second ring.

"Do you get paid overtime?" she teased.

"Tiel? Hi. I'm glad you called."

"It's after hours. I was afraid you wouldn't answer."

"Reflex. Where are you?"

"The end of nowhere."

"Everything okay? You haven't had car trouble or anything?"

"No, everything's great. I called for a couple of reasons. First,
because I miss you."

This was the tack to take. Establish that the trip was still on.
Establish that it was being delayed, not derailed. Assure him that
everything was cool, then inform him of the slight wrinkle in their
plans for a romantic getaway.

"You saw me just last night."

"But only briefly, and it's been a long day. Secondly, I called to
remind you to throw a swimsuit into your suitcase. The hot tub at
the condo complex is public."

After a pause, he said, "Actually, Tiel, it's good that you called.
I needed to talk to you."

Something in the tone of his voice prevented her from prattling on.
She stopped talking and waited for him to fill the silence that
yawned between them.

"I could have called you on your cell phone today, but this isn't
the sort of thing . . . The fact is . . . And I'm sorry as hell
about this. You can't begin to know how sorry I am."

Tiel stared at the countless perforations in the metal surrounding
the telephone. She stared so long without blinking that the tiny
holes ran together. Absently she wondered what purpose they
served.

"I'm afraid I can't get away tomorrow."

She'd been holding her breath. Now she released it, relieved. His
change of plans alleviated her guilt over having to change them
herself.

However, before she could speak, he continued. "I know how much
you'd looked forward to this trip. And so had I," he rushed to
add.

"Let me make this easier on you, Joseph." Meekly she confessed.
"The truth is, I was calling to say that I need another couple days
before I can get to Angel Fire. So I'm fine with a short
postponement. Would your schedule allow us to meet on, say, Tuesday
instead of tomorrow?"

"You don't understand what I'm saying, Tiel. I can't meet you at
all."

The perforations ran together again. "Oh. I see. That is
disappointing. Well ---"

"It's been very tense around here. My wife found my airline ticket
and ---"

"Excuse me?"

"I said my wife found ---"

"You're married?"

"Well . . . yeah. I thought you knew."

"No." Her facial muscles felt stiff and inflexible. "You have
failed to mention a Mrs. Marcus."

"Because my marriage has nothing to do with you, with us. It hasn't
been a real marriage for a long time. Once I've explained my
situation at home to you, you'll understand."

"You're married." This time it was a statement, not a
question.

"Tiel, listen ---"

"No, no, I'm not going to listen, Joseph. What I'm going to do is
hang up on you, you son of a bitch."

The telephone receiver she had been so reluctant even to touch ten
minutes earlier she now clung to long after replacing it on the
hook. She leaned against the pay phone, her forehead pressing hard
against the perforated metal while her hands maintained their grip
on the greasy receiver.

Married. He had seemed too good to be true, and he was.
Good-looking, charming, friendly, witty, athletic, successful, and
financially secure Joseph Marcus was married. If not for an airline
ticket she would have had an affair with a married man.

She swallowed a surge of nausea and took another moment to compose
herself. Later she would lick her wounded ego, berate herself for
being such a Pollyanna, and curse him to hell and back. But right
now she had work to do.

Joseph's revelation had left her reeling with disbelief. She was
furious beyond measure. She was terribly hurt, but more than
anything she was embarrassed by her gullibility. All the more
reason she was not about to let the bastard affect her work
performance.

Work was her panacea, her life support. When she was happy, she
worked. Sad, she worked. Sick, she worked. Work was the cure for
all her ills. Work was the remedy for everything . . . even
heartbreak so profound you thought you'd die.

She knew that firsthand.

She gathered up her pride, along with her notes on the Dendy story
and Gully's directions to Hera, Texas, and ordered herself to
mobilize.

Compared to the dimness of the hallway, the fluorescent lighting in
the store seemed inordinately bright. The cowboy had left. The
elderly couple were browsing through the array of magazines. The
two Spanish-speaking men were eating their burritos and talking
quietly together.

Tiel sensed their smoldering gazes as she went past them on her way
to the refrigerated cabinets. One said something to the other that
caused him to snicker. It was easy to guess the nature of the
comment. Thankfully, her Spanish was rusty.

She slid open the door to the refrigerator and selected a six-pack
of high-voltage cola for the road. From a rack of snack food she
chose a package of sunflower seeds. During college she had
discovered that cracking open the salty seeds in order to get to
the kernel inside was a good manual exercise to keep one awake
while studying. Hopefully it would translate to night driving as
well.

She debated whether or not to buy a bag of chocolate-covered
caramels. Just because a man she had been dating for weeks had
turned out to be a married shit-heel didn't mean she should use
that as an excuse to binge. On the other hand, if ever she deserved
a treat --- br> br> The security camera in the corner of the
ceiling virtually exploded, sending pieces of glass and metal
flying.

Instinctively Tiel recoiled from the deafening noise. But the
camera hadn't exploded on its own. A young man had entered the
store and fired a pistol at it. The gunman then aimed his weapon at
the cashier, who screeched a high note before the sound seemed to
freeze inside her throat.

"This is a holdup," he said melodramatically, and somewhat
needlessly, since it was apparent what it was.

To the young woman who had accompanied him into the store, he said,
"Sabra, watch the others. If anyone moves, warn me."

"Okay, Ronnie."

Well, I might die, Tiel thought. But at least I'll get my
story.

And she wouldn't be going to Hera to get it. It had come to
her.

Excerpted from STANDOFF © Copyright 2000 by Sandra Brown.
Reprinted with permission by Warner Books. All rights
reserved.

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