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“But that was a different context and now we’re back home and it’s different.”

“Yes.”

I started to speak, then stopped, waited another moment, and then continued. “What happened back there between the two of us—I’m not so sure it should’ve happened. Not so much me, but her.” I turned up the air-conditioning as it seemed to be growing even hotter in the cab. Pretty soon, I was going to run out of knobs to play with; maybe it was a family trait. “I just think that she might’ve done it because she felt sorry for me.”

He stared at the side of my face. “There are a multitude of reasons why she might have instigated the ... intimacy between the two of you. A sense of mortality connected with Cady’s accident, strangers in a strange land . . .”

“She was born there.”

He stuck out a hand to silence me. “Let me finish? ”

“Sorry.”

“Perhaps even a competitive response to her mother, but the one I would be willing to believe the most readily is that she deeply cares for you. Not about you, but for you, and there is a difference.” He turned back toward the windshield. “That, or it was a mercy fuck.” I turned and looked at him, and he shrugged. “To use her terminology.” The Bear drummed his long fingers on the dash and changed the subject. “So, you think Tuyen knows something?”

I stared at the road. “I’m not talking to you anymore.”

“I was joking.”

“It wasn’t funny.”

He gazed at the rolling prairie. “It was a little funny.”

We both escaped into our separate silences and watched the golden-brown grass sweep patterns in the heated wind. We needed rain, soon, or all of Absaroka County would be a tinderbox.

I knew full well that I’d never outlast him, so I started talking again, anxious to pick up another conversational thread. “I’m thinking Tuyen might know if Ho Thi had any friends, or if anyone else is missing.” We passed a wide load, carrying two halves of a modular home, and navigated back into the righthand lane. “I’ve got calls into the Los Angeles and Orange County Sheriff ’s Departments to see if they can get me anything, but Tuyen is here and he might be useful.”

Henry watched the road. “Did the manager at the Flying J say that the girl was Asian? ”

“Jim said the manager was unsure, but that they were both female and had long dark hair.”

He shrugged. “Possibly Native...”

“Wouldn’t be the first time an Indian girl was hitchhiking up I-25, but I’m not betting on it.”

“Why do you want this young woman, if she exists, to be Vietnamese? ”

I glanced at him. “It would mean that somebody’s alive who knows what’s going on.” My eyes returned to the road. “Why do you ask that question? ”

He continued studying me. “I sometimes wonder if you are trying to come to terms with two mysteries almost four decades apart.”

I drove and stared at another patch of the highway where more lives had come to an abrupt halt. I remembered who they were, their names, their family, their friends; these dead weren’t the ones I worried about—there were people who would remember them. It was the ones who had died truly alone who concerned me most. If no one remembered them, were they ever really here? I took a deep breath and forced my eyes back to the road. “Ruby says I care about dead people more than the living.”

Henry said nothing.

Tan Son Nhut, Vietnam: 1968

I wasn’t letting him go, and there wasn’t anybody else in the Boy-Howdy Beau-Coups Good Times Lounge to save him.

They had all run away.

My hand fit well around his throat, and I was surprised at how little effort it took to hold Le Khang against the wall, a good foot and a half off the floor. “I don’t like those answers....”

He squeaked, which I took as an answer of sorts, so I lowered his feet to the plywood. He tried to yank away, but I still had him pinned pretty well. “She no say!”

I started lifting him again, but he shook his head so I put him back down. “She go with customer!”

“Who?”

“No say...” I tightened my hold, but he slapped at my arm and I eased off. “Air force personnel, fly-boy.”

“Gimme a name.”

“No name.” I shrugged and started to pick him up again. “Thunderchief, F-105! He fly F-105 name Jumpin’ Jolene!”

I let go of his throat and then threw an index finger in his face. “This better be the straight dope, because if it’s not—I’m gonna be back, and brother you do not want that.” Mendoza and Baranski stepped aside as I passed between them, and they followed behind me as I headed for Gate 055.

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