LITMIR.BIZ

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the town.” She glanced toward the steam table, then leaned toward Karah Lee. “You like black walnuts?”

      “Love ’em.”

      Bertie’s face crinkled in a pleased smile. Nearly a foot shorter than Karah Lee, she moved with a quickness that contradicted her professed elderliness as she poured coffee and juice and decorated a plate with a thick Belgian waffle, strawberries, whipped cream. White running shoes peeped out from beneath crisp green slacks as she quick-stepped back to the table.

      “This here’s my specialty.” She set the platter in front of Karah Lee with a flourish. “Black walnut waffles made with milk and eggs from our own private supplies. My pet goat, Mildred, donated the milk.”

      Karah Lee held her breath for a moment, then sniffed, closed her eyes, exhaled slowly. “Black walnut waffles,” she whispered. “I haven’t had one of these in years.”

      “Aha! So you do appreciate fine dining.” Bertie glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Don’t tell Cheyenne I said so, but she could use a little culture. Poor gal can’t tolerate black walnuts.” She pulled a chair out and seated herself across from Karah Lee. “You go ahead and eat, and I’ll fill you in on some of the stuff that’s been going on around here lately.”

      “You mean like the greasy scoundrels who bought up the town?”

      “Two men in nice coveralls and bill caps, posing as farmers, came along with a deal I couldn’t pass up. I should’ve known they was fakes when their hats didn’t have a single sweat mark on ’em, and the overalls were brand-new. Red and I worked hard on that farm all our married life, and you know what? Those frauds couldn’t farm a two-bit garden. I should’ve seen it, but I was so crazy with loneliness after Red died, I couldn’t think straight.”

      “They offered you a lot of money?” Karah Lee asked between bites of a delicacy so scrumptious it was making her high.

      “The money wasn’t bad, nosiree. To boot, I told myself they was real farmers, and the land needed to be farmed. Now those so-called farmers are subdividing my home, and I can’t hardly stand it. I’m just glad I sold our milk goats to the boys’ ranch across the lake. No telling what those idiots would’ve done to my babies.”

      “Someone mentioned there was a local boys’ ranch.”

      Bertie nodded. “Dane Gideon—he’s our mayor?—he runs it. Wouldn’t be surprised if your boss ended up over there at that ranch with him. Wouldn’t be surprised at all.”

      “Dr. Allison?”

      “Cheyenne. She and Dane’ve been sweet on each other since before Red died—that’s how I count time now—Before Red, and After Red.”

      The food was so distractingly delicious, Karah Lee couldn’t keep up. She blinked in confusion.

      Bertie gave an inspection of Karah Lee’s empty coffee cup, then carried it over to the pot for a refill. “Dane Gideon also owns the general store down the street from the clinic. I should’ve listened to him. He warned me to check out that offer a little closer, but did I listen? Oh, no, not me. In a few months, when they change the whole look of our town and get that monster condominium built and sold to the poor saps who’ve been flocking in here, Edith and I’ll be out of a job, sure enough.”

      “Why do you say that?”

      Bertie shook her head. “Honey, I’ve seen the tourists pour in here like this before. It was a regular holiday boomtown back when Branson got put on the maps with all those singing stars. Half those famous people came right here to this little place to stay when they wasn’t performing. Then the developers built more of them fancy hotels closer to Branson, and we lost a lot of business. Mark my words, when that condo building’s finished, it’ll suck all the attention away from our little bed-and-breakfast. Tourists are fickle folk.”

      “I bet you’re wrong.” Karah Lee savored the final mouthful of strawberries and whipped cream, then wiped her mouth and pushed away from the table. “You’ve got what, ten cottages along the shore?”

      “That’s right, and three more rooms upstairs in this building, though the top floor ain’t finished yet. Too quaint for the crowd the big boys are trying to reel in. Why, they’re building them an honest-to-goodness hiking trail, and renting out kayaks and bicycles, and running one of them starlight-dinner boat rides into Branson. Ain’t any way Edith and I can compete with that. And jet bikes! I never heard of such a thing around here. It’ll scare all our fishermen away. They’ll hate it.”

      “Seems to me you’ll get a good clientele from those who just want peace and quiet, not all that crazy activity,” Karah Lee commented.

      Bertie leaned forward, the skin around her eyes crinkling with worry. “But I know our customers, and they ain’t going to stay around here with all that activity. That company is set to take over this whole town. We won’t be the same.”

      Karah Lee remembered what Taylor had said on that subject last night. Was his forecast of a disaster accurate after all? Bertie seemed to think so.

      Dressed in new jeans, a pink T-shirt with LOVE BRANSON in big blue letters across the front and white canvas tennis shoes, Fawn carried the rest of her purchases across the parking lot of the outlet mall with the bright blue roof. Her ankle still felt stiff, but she tried really hard not to limp. She wanted to continue blending into the crowd—until she could escape it.

      As soon as she reached the quiet backside of the mall, she cut behind the strip of buildings where no one could see her, then pulled out a compass and a map of Branson and studied the map for a minute to get her bearings.

      She’d gone on a wilderness trek with a church youth group a couple of years ago—some friends of hers had tried for a few months to “save” her soul. All that Jesus and God talk didn’t make much sense to her. Why would she want another father? They weren’t good for anything but leaving. Or worse.

      Anyway, the trek had been fun, and she’d learned some great stuff, like how to use a compass and how to wrap a sprained ankle. Judging by the map, she needed to cross Highway 76 and find a nightly condorental place down by Lake Taneycomo. If she pulled her con right, without getting caught, she might be able to find a place to hide out for a few days, until the police decided she’d left town.

      But first, she needed to make a few changes. Still trying not to limp, Fawn scrambled back down to the bank where she’d slept the night before and opened her bags of purchases. She pulled out the denim backpack she’d gotten for half price at the wilderness outfitter store, tore off the tags and opened the zipped pockets so she could stuff it full. She stuck toiletries into the pockets, along with food, extra underwear and some shorts. By the time she filled the compartments, they would hardly zip shut.

      She shoved the pack to the side and pulled out a food-coloring kit she’d purchased at the kitchen-supply outlet. In that whole mall, she hadn’t found a single hair-color kit, so she’d have to make do. She was allergic to the hair-color developer, anyway.

      Beside the little plastic bottles she set a tiny bottle of shampoo, a pair of rubber gloves, a mirror, comb, scissors. When she got finished with this rig, nobody’d recognize her from last night.

      Before Fawn went to Las Vegas, she’d been an emancipated minor living with two older girls. One of her roommates had been a beautician and had taught her some of the basics, but there wasn’t time for anything fancy right now. She whacked her hair off in long chunks, then buried the telltale blond strands beneath the mud along the bank, just in case someone came looking for her here. She couldn’t afford to let them know what she might look like after she finished this.

      She washed her hair, combed it out, trimmed it again. Using the rubber gloves, she mixed the food coloring until it was the same sort of burgundy brown a lot of kids sported, and spread it onto her hair, adding water from the creek to get it soaked through. The food coloring stained her cheeks—she had to scrub hard and even then didn’t get it all off. Still, it looked like a big birthmark, so

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