Page 16 of Deathmarch

Allie Bianchi. Back in town. With blood on her car and a hoard of gold in the trunk.

And wasn’t that just perfectly on-brand?

Harper muttered a curse. Over the years, when he’d thought of Allie past the X-rated images burned into his brain, he always hoped she’d made something of herself and hadn’t gotten dragged into her father’s bullshit.

“Are you there?” Leila’s voice crackled through the phone.

Harper brought it to his ear with his free hand to hear better, since it sounded like the reception was weakening. “Here.”

“Joe just called in. He went to pick her up at Finnegan’s. According to your mother, Allie had dinner, then walked right out. Nobody knows where she’s gone.”

Harper dropped Allie’s wallet back into her gaping purse next to him, then put his truck in gear.

“Tell Joe not to worry. I know where she is. I’ll bring her in.”

Chapter Five

“Absolutely. I have videos on my website you can check out,” Allie told the school administrator, who was still working for some reason, calling her cell phone. “I can email you a list of references.”

Right after her car and her laptop arrived. For now, Allie sat in front of the fireplace with the lavender tea Shannon had brought up along with a generous plate of macadamia nut cookies.

Since the client started into a lengthy description of exactly what the school was looking for, Allie grabbed a cookie and bit in, grateful that the power had come back on.

“And if you could wear a longish skirt instead of buckskin pants,” the woman was saying. “The majority of our parents are very conservative. We can’t have foul language at all either.”

“I can definitely do that,” Allie mumbled as she grabbed another cookie, sprawling in the generous armchair and stretching her toes toward the fire, settling in for an evening of blissful relaxation.

“If I asked the cafeteria to make up some campfire biscuits, would you be willing to hand them out?”

“Absolutely.”

“And then the day after Jane, you could do Annie Oakley?”

“With pleasure.” She liked Annie but rarely had the chance to assume the persona, and never for school gigs where guns and shooting were usually taboo topics.

“I was thinking the week before summer break.” The woman gave a range of dates.

“That should work for me, but the sooner you make the booking, the better. We’re just a few months away.”

“Let me talk to the teachers again, and then I’ll email you?”

“That would be great.”

“I almost forgot,” the woman said. “I was told you do songs?”

“For every character, if requested.”

The three-hour, extended version of her Calamity Jane script, for example, included teaching Old West campfire songs to the participants. “Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,” “The Gal I Left behind Me,” “Out Where the West Begins,” and others. Allie liked to give people their money’s worth. Also, she enjoyed campfire songs, personally.

Her best memories of her teenage years were hanging out with Harper at the frequent bonfires in the backyard. Bonfires were cheap entertainment. At her house, they certainly hadn’t been able to afford cable.

Bonfireandbeer for her father and Harper—she didn’t like the taste, too bitter. Then, after her father had gone to bed drunk, bonfire with just Harper and her, making love under the stars, in the grass.

Notsomething Allie was going to think about while she was on a work call. “If you have any other questions, you can call me at any time.”

“I think I have what I need, but thank you.”

“I hope I get to meet you and the kids. They tend to love anything Wild West.”