Rubber screamed and smoke flew as Johnny steered around the truck and wove through the traffic. He headed down the highway at seventy miles an hour while the woman beside him squealed and bounced in her seat.

"G.o.d almighty, the girls back in Dallas ain't even gonna believe this! I've been kidnapped by a d.a.m.ned Apache!" She reached under the seat and dug out a pint of Jack Daniel's. "Time to party, baby. This is the most fun I've had since I got to Ruidoso with that old fart." Tossing the cap out the window, she turned the liquor up to her lips and drank deeply, shuddered, then handed him the bottle.

He shook his head. "I'm drunk enough already."

"Come on. Just a drink. It's not every day you steal a car and kidnap a white woman, is it?"

"Whiskey makes me crazy."

She drank again, laughed, and hung her head out the car window, allowing the wind to whip back her blond hair.

He pulled off the highway onto a gravel-topped road and headed toward White Sands. The earlier drunken buzz in his head was settling into a throb behind his eyes, and the huge anger that had driven him to get into the situation he was in began to diminish.

"Come on, Injun Joe. Have a drink. Just one. I hate to drink alone." She waved the bottle at him.

Grabbing it from her, he tipped it up to his mouth and drank while keeping his eyes on the dark road ahead. The liquor hit his stomach and ricocheted like a bullet straight to his head. He squeezed his eyes closed briefly; the car swerved, skirted the road shoulder, then wove back over the center yellow stripe.

He took his foot off the gas. To his right was a dirt road. Braking, he eased the car off the highway, onto the side road, and stopped.

The woman reached over and shifted the car into Park, then killed the engine. Removing the pint bottle from his hand, she lifted it to his lips and tipped it up. The whiskey ran smooth as hot honey down the back of his throat.

"How old are you, sweetie?" came the woman's voice, soft and husky near his ear.

"Seventeen," he heard himself say.

"Ooh. Just hitting your prime, huh? All those raging hormones. My name is Janice, by the way." She kissed his ear. "Love the hair. It's so ... savage." Her fingers slid over his chest, threaded through the openings between the b.u.t.tons on his shirt, ma.s.saged his nipples, then eased down his belly to his crotch. "So ... you wanna? You know, do it?"

He looked at her, trying to focus on her face. Her hair stood out wildly from her head. Her lipstick had smeared and one breast had almost come out of her halter, exposing most of her nipple. Now that she was up close he could see that she wasn't young at all. There were wrinkles under her heavy makeup and her breath smelled like stale cigarettes.

"Ever made it with a white woman?" She grinned and rubbed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against him. "Young strong buck like you, bet the girls just can't say no, huh?" Her fingers unsnapped the b.u.t.ton on his jeans, then the zipper. Johnny caught his breath as her cool fingers slid through the Y front on his Jockey underwear.

"Ever had a woman go down on you, sweetie?"

He swallowed and shook his head.

Her mouth smiled and her lips parted. "Imagine that." Easing the bottle into his hand, Janice lowered her head toward his lap.

"Hey," he slurred. "Lady. What the h.e.l.l... Oh, man. I'm too drunk for this." He groaned and stared down at her with fascination, what she was doing to him with her lips and tongue and teeth. His eyes rolling, his head falling against the back of the seat, he said, "I'm gonna get in real trouble for this."

She reached across his lap and hit a b.u.t.ton on the door. Johnny's seat eased back. He grabbed the steering wheel, hit the horn accidentally. Where the h.e.l.l was he supposed to put his hands?

G.o.d, oh G.o.d, what was she doing?

He took another hit of Jack Daniel's, groaned and gritted his teeth as it seemed she would draw the very life of him out through his organ. Geez, he was going to come. "Lady, you'd better..." Too late.

Not that it mattered to her, obviously.

He heard himself cry out once, then again.

Finally, the woman lifted her head, and licked her lips. "Not bad, huh? There's more where that came from if you're interested."

The red-and-blue lights from a squad car on the road behind them suddenly swirled in the rearview mirror. Johnny dropped the whiskey and zipped up his pants. As Janice sat up and looked out the back window, he grabbed for the door handle.

"Hey," Janice cried. "Where the h.e.l.l do you think you're going? Don't be stupid, kid. You can't outrun them."

He jumped from the car just as the police skidded to a stop behind the Cadillac, siren whooping and lights whirling. He took off across the rocky terrain, jumping rocks and cactus and low-growing p.r.i.c.kly shrubs.

"Stop, Johnny!" an officer shouted.

Rocks and sand tumbled as he clawed his way up the side of a steep hill, slipping, stumbling. Normally he would not have had any problem outdistancing the pair of pudgy cops chasing him-he'd done it a dozen times before-but then he hadn't been loaded with Budweiser and Jack Daniel's, which was making the ground tip from side to side like an out-of-control seesaw.

A cop hit him from behind. Hard. Drove him to his knees and then his belly, slamming his face into the rocks and dirt. "d.a.m.n you, Johnny, get down and stay down. Hey, Chuck, I got him!"

Johnny drove his elbow into the cop's rib and did his best to pitch him off, causing the cop to curse and slam his knee into Johnny's back. Then a second pair of hands buried in his hair and snapped back his head.

"You're just one breath away from a.s.saulting an officer, kid. If I was you I'd lay real still and think about what I was doing."

"G.o.d," came Janice's voice. "You gotta be so rough with him? He's just a kid, for gosh sakes."

"Evading arrest, ma'am. You want to get back in the car?"

Johnny's arms were wrenched around his back and cuffs were slapped on his wrists. "You've done it now, Johnny. Jesus, what were you thinking to steal a car and kidnap a woman? You gonna behave now? You gonna get up and walk back to the squad car without me having to call in another unit? 'Cause if I got to call in another unit somebody is going to want to get nasty and I wouldn't like to see that with you. Johnny? You listening to me?"

He nodded.

The cop dragged Johnny to his knees, then helped him to his feet. His partner, officer Chuck Parker, shined his flashlight into Johnny's face and shook his head. "You and your old man been at it again, Johnny? He do that to your face? If he did, you can press charges against him. You don't have to take that kind of bulls.h.i.t from him. When you gonna stop protecting the son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h?"

"Save your breath, Chuck," Officer Delaport said, shoving Johnny toward the squad car. "They're all alike. They're not gonna tell you jack s.h.i.t."

Janice stood by the Cadillac, hugging herself against the cold as Johnny walked by.

Officer Parker opened the rear door of the squad car, and Johnny dropped in. The door slammed and automatically locked. Through the grilled windows he watched the cops walk back to the Cadillac; one spoke to Janice while the other dug through the car, exiting with the bottle of Jack Daniel's.

Closing his eyes, he laid his head back against the seat. His face throbbed. His stomach churned, not simply from the booze and beer he'd imbibed, but from the far-too-familiar smell of the car. It stank of sweat and vomit and the barbecue the officers had eaten for dinner.

The car doors opened and the officers climbed in. Officer Parker looked back and stared at Johnny from beneath the brim of his hat. "You okay?" he asked.

Johnny nodded.

"Not gonna puke all over our car, are you?"

He shook his head.

"You know what kinda time you can get for car theft and kidnapping, Johnny?"

"I'm a juvenile. I won't get forty-eight hours and you know it."

"I want you to think real hard about pressing charges of abuse on your old man, Johnny. You can't let him keep beatin' you up like this every time he has too much to drink and gets p.i.s.sed off."

"Go to h.e.l.l," he mumbled.

By the time the cell door slid open and Officer Parker shouted Johnny's name, Johnny had slept off most of his drunk. Opening his eyes, he squinted toward the bright light overhead and tried to remember where he was.

"Whitehorse, you're up and outta here."

Raising his head, he focused on Parker's face.

"You're free to go," the officer said.

Johnny sat up slowly. His head felt like h.e.l.l and his mouth tasted little better.

"Get the lead out, kid. My shift is over and I wanna go home."

"What about the charges?" He ran one hand over his eyes and down his face, lightly touching the swelling on his cheek.

"Folks are not pressing charges. Lady says she invited you to take her for a ride."

Standing unsteadily, Johnny then moved toward the door. "You call my old man?" he asked.

"Yep. He didn't answer."

"My grandfather?"

"No luck." Parker slid the door shut and followed Johnny down the corridor, toward the office with large plate-gla.s.s windows, where an officer in charge of juveniles sat on the edge of his desk, talking with a woman with her back to Johnny. He slowed as the woman turned in her chair, her blue eyes connecting with his.

"What the h.e.l.l is she she doing here?" he asked. doing here?" he asked.

"She's who I call to bail out your father."

In jeans and a purple sweatshirt, Leah's mother stood and tucked her clutch purse under her arm. Parker stepped around Johnny and opened the door, allowing Johnny to enter the office before him.

Jane Foster smiled unsteadily. "You don't look so good, Johnny."

"I'm not feeling so good." He shoved his hands into his back pockets and stared at the floor.

Hashing a look at Officer Parker, she said, "What about the charges?"

"No charges this time. He's lucky. Grand theft auto isn't exactly a misdemeanor. Obviously he made quite an impression on the lady."

"Like father, like son," Jane said. "Can we go now, officer?"

"I suggest you find him a place to sober up before taking him home. He could probably use some food by the looks of him, not to mention a bath."

Jane pointed toward the door and Johnny turned, moved out of the office and through the station lobby, to the door marked Exit, out into the parking lot of black-and-white squad cars. "Get in," she said, pointing to a baby-blue Lincoln by the curb.

Sinking into the beige leather seat, he watched Jane Foster round the car, her long dark hair not unlike her daughter's.

Sheesh. Her daughter. The last person in the world he wanted to know about this stupidity was Leah Foster.

Jane slid in beside him. The musky scent of her cologne in the confined s.p.a.ce made his stomach queasy.

The engine purred and the heater automatically kicked on as Jane backed the Town Car out of the parking s.p.a.ce and headed down Main Street. Flipping open her purse, she dug out a pack of cigarettes, then punched in the car lighter. "You smoke, Johnny?"

He shook his head no.

"Good. It's bad for you. I've tried to quit a hundred times at least, but I've had to face the fact that I like the c.r.a.p. Guess it's a little like your drinking. You know you shouldn't do it. It's going to make you sick, but you do it anyway." The lighter clicked and she reached for it, pressing its glowing end to the tip of the cigarette in her mouth. She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes.

Johnny pressed the window down b.u.t.ton, allowing fresh air into the car.

"You don't say much, do you, Johnny?"

He looked out the pa.s.senger window at the dark countryside and wondered what time it was.

"It's that Apache mystique, huh? What's that belief? By talking too much, or telling too much, you-"

"Give away your soul."

"Right." She laughed, then coughed, then inhaled again.

They continued to ride in silence for a while, then Jane said, "Must have been a bad one tonight. What did he hit you with?"

"Doesn't matter."

"What set him off?"

"What else? Jack Daniel's."

"It makes him crazy. Makes you a little crazy too, huh?"

"Life makes me crazy."

"It makes us all crazy, Johnny. We could all be out there boozing and fighting and raising h.e.l.l, but some of us find less violent and self-destructive means to work out our problems."

Turning his eyes on her, he said, "That why you're s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g my old man?"

She hit the brakes hard, causing the Lincoln to fishtail before sliding to a stop in the middle of the black, deserted highway. Reaching across his lap, she yanked on the door handle and shoved open the door. "Get out. Get out of my car, you ungrateful young s.h.i.t."

Johnny stepped out onto the asphalt, then looked back. The overhead light made Jane look sallow, the skin around her eyes dark as soot. "You're a nice lady," he said. "And nice-looking. I just think you can do better than him."

Tires squealing, the Lincoln shot away, leaving Johnny standing in the road, head pounding and stomach churning, watching the red taillights grow small in the distance. Then the brake lights flashed and the car backed toward him, weaving from side to side before sliding to a stop beside him.

"Get in," she said.

He opened the door and got in.