JB02_Tombstone Courage by J. A. Jance

Author:J. A. Jance [Jance, J. A.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780061774614
Publisher: Harper
Published: 1994-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Joanna cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Ivy, but I need to talk to you. There’s something you need to know.”

Instead of looking at Joanna, Ivy stared up at Yuri’s stolid face, as if whatever she needed to know would be clearly written on his broad facial features. He shook his head. “She tells,” he said, nodding in Joanna’s direction.

“Tell me what?” Ivy asked. “What’s wrong now?”

This was Joanna’s first experience at delivering bad news in some kind of official capacity. Like a child thrust suddenly into the spotlight of a Sun day-school Christmas pageant, she was instantly out of her depth, stymied about what to say or where to begin.

“Maybe we should go inside and sit down,” she suggested lamely.

Glaring at her but holding tightly to Ivy’s hand, Yuri strode up onto the porch and inside the house. “What about me?” Marianne asked, as Joanna started by.

“Come ahead if you want to,” Joanna said.

By the time Joanna and Marianne entered the living room, Ivy and Yuri were already seated side by side on an old-fashioned, faded leather couch.

They sat close to one another, with Yuri’s long arm sprawled intimately across Ivy’s shoulder. A good-sized woman in her own right, Ivy Patterson seemed dwarfed and diminutive beside the hulking Russian. The fiercely protective look on his face was out of place, he and Ivy knew more about how Harold Patterson had come to be in the glory hole than Yuri had so far admitted.

But still, Joanna’s first order of business was to inform Ivy of the presence of that second body.

The cozy fireplace-warmed living room now seemed as bad a place to deliver that kind of news as the front porch had moments earlier.

“What is it?” Ivy asked.

Feeling every bit the unwelcome interloper, Joanna stumbled her way into a chair. For a few moments, she almost wished she were a man, wearing the lawman’s stereotypical Stetson. At least that way she would have had something to take off and put in her lap, some tangible object to use as a physical buffer between Ivy Patterson’s already significant pain and the news Joanna was about to add to it.

“I’m so sorry about your father,” she began haltingly. “Harold Patterson was a wonderful man, and he’s going to be greatly missed.”

Ivy Patterson nodded. Tears threatened, but she held them in check. “Thank you,” she murmured

“As you know, Yuri and I have just come down from up on the mountain,” Joanna continued “From up at the glory hole. Did he have a chance to tell about what’s going on up there?”

“Just that they wouldn’t let him bring Dad’s Scout back down the mountain.”

Joanna nodded. “There’s a roadblock near the top, and the Scout is stuck on the wrong side of it.”

Ivy shrugged. “That doesn’t matter. I suppose we can go up later and get it back. That’s how we brought it home from the convention center yesterday. Is that what you came to tell me?”

“No,” Joanna said. “There’s something else.” She paused for a moment, searching for the right words.

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