However a fight with my parents ended in my being told bymy mother that I couldn’t go on the fishing trip with mydad and brother, made me change...my mind. Of course mymother forgave me, but only after my brother and dad leftto go fishing for the next two weeks, and made me staywith her instead. The rest as they say is history.Red whispered into my ear about how much she was a motherto him and that he loved her more than his own and stillwould respect her. As he pleaded his case, I thought. It’s empty.’ ‘Oh, is that all?’ I asked, relieved. It was obvious that she had not been introduced to the concept of a bank account. ‘I’ll get you some cash,’ I said, already thinking of how I could skim a few hundred dollars off the top of the daily receipts before I gave it to John for deposit. I’d have to be careful. Mrs. Nixon was no dummy. If she caught me stealing from myself, it would be hard to explain about the safe and our secret stash. ‘Good,’ Amanda said, and I could see that there. Mabel scolded him for daring to bring in the stink of the stable with him. It became apparent this was Mabel’s younger brother, Rolfe. He was the stable hand, and it had been the two of them who had dragged Ragan and Simmons inside from the storm.Rolfe seemed rather simple, and his left eye did not look in the same direction as his right.But on learning the news from Godfrey that it had actually been Rolfe who was the dark figure with the flaming torch they had spotted in the snowstorm, Ragan. This remote area of the county was rumored to be a haven for drug runners, but I suppose that was true of any rural area along the border. Normally, that thought filled me with anticipation, but not today.My train of thought was interrupted by a red object that appeared over a slight rise in the road. I sat up straighter in my seat as the red object rapidly resolved itself into a Volkswagen Beetle. I reached up to the radar unit on the dash and punched the activate button. The numbers on the.